Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Let's try again now, okay? One, two, three..."

Mari's hands splayed across the keys with purpose, playing out the introductory notes to their duet for what was probably the fifteenth time that day. Actually, it was precisely the fifteenth, she'd been keeping count. Not because that fact was actually meaningful – in fact, she'd already resolved not to tell Sunny exactly how many tries it took for them to get everything right, that would probably just come out sounding mean. No, she was keeping the tally for her own sake. It was a matter of practicality, if she kept ahold of the fact that it had only been fifteen, then she wouldn't lose track and start feeling like it had been a million. That repetitive sensation drilling into her bones and tugging down at her mind had been the doom of more practice sessions than she really wanted to admit. When treacherous thoughts took root, whispering that their rehearsal was dragging on too long, that maybe both of them secretly wanted to stop for now, that was when...

One of her fingers slipped, a tiny motion, almost imperceptible to an outside observer, yet she felt it. Mari bit back a noise of frustration as she barely managed to correct course.

("...when you start to screw it up. Great going.")

Thankfully, this time she'd caught herself in a split second before actually hitting a wrong note, but even so, something in her chest twinged at that near-mistake. This was way too early in the piece for something like that to even come close to happening. Not that there was ever really a good time, that's why they called them mistakes, but here and now would have been extra embarrassing. She remembered when she'd first selected this piece – with Sunny's input, of course, it had seemed important for them to do one he liked listening to as well. Back then her fingers had practically glided through the intro in a way that made a smile bubble to her face. It had been so natural, she'd really felt that it was the perfect piece for them. Now her hands felt heavy, too slow even when she knew she was keeping time with the song. But that was complete nonsense and she knew it. Objectively speaking, almost every note still came out right every time, so she was sure she must have just been imagining it. Sunny hadn't even reacted to the near-misstep, simply joining in with his part without missing a beat. And he was probably the second-most familiar person with this song on the planet at this point. Right after her. If he didn't notice, neither would anyone else, it practically didn't happen. So it was silly and pointless for her to complain about problems that weren't even really problems. Everything was going fine.

As if the universe had sensed its cue, a distinct screech rang through the air. It had been but a single note, a mere moment, but the way it cut the gentle flow of the music to shreds... This time Mari couldn't halt the sharp breath that tore from her lungs. It had all been sounding so close to perfect, even with that near-disaster earlier. Even as her hands continued across the keys, she shot a glance at Sunny. Not that she really needed it to know what had gone wrong, the telltale scratchiness of the sound was all too familiar by now. He'd gone at the strings with too much speed, applied too much weight behind the bow. Mari weighed her options – should they just stop and start over yet again, or should she signal to keep going to the finish and then go over what went wrong afterwards? They had tried both approaches at various times, each one had its own pros and cons after all. So how should she play this... Oh. Sunny had already gone ahead and lowered his bow, his grip slack. He must have wanted to take it from the top, then? Mari let her own hands go still in turn. Ah well, number sixteen it was then. Perhaps that was a lucky charm – she was only a few months from sixteen after all.

("...Yeah right. Luck has nothing to do with it. Try harder. And tell him to as well.")

She looked down at the piano for a moment, crossing her wrists idly in a resting position before turning back to Sunny. He looked like he was frowning slightly. Mari tried to form a patient smile on her face. Sunny's expression didn't shift, or at least not that she noticed, so she had no idea if she'd actually succeeded or not.

"Sunny, remember what the tutors always told you? Don't try to force a sound, just let it flow." In truth Mari didn't much care for any of Sunny's violin tutors over the years. They never seemed like they knew what they were doing. Not that she'd interacted with them much, she had her own lessons to worry about first. And it was rude to disrespect adults like that, mom and dad wouldn't be happy if she said it out loud. But she also knew what she saw, and what she saw was Sunny improving more in a couple practice sessions with her than he did with a month's worth of tutoring. And Mari had never played violin in her life! She really didn't understand what was going on there. Yet even so, they were right about this particular piece of advice. Trying to brute force any instrument was a bad idea, so one as sensitive as a violin especially. A fact Sunny should definitely know too, but the reminder couldn't hurt.

"...Okay." Sunny spoke in reply. Mari sighed. Sunny used to talk to her sometimes when she practiced, asking questions about this or that aspect between songs. At first she had thought that might continue when he joined her with his violin, but... these days it was all just short, flat responses. There wasn't anything wrong with being focused and diligent, of course, she could definitely understand his willingness to not get distracted. They were here to practice until it was just right, so she couldn't blame him for actually taking it seriously. (But she kind of missed it nonetheless.) That wasn't what was important right now, though, she quickly reminded herself. She looked at him silently for another moment. There was nothing to be done now but to start counting down so he could get ready for the next attempt...

Wait a second.

"Hold on, what's that on your hand?" the question blurted out of Mari's mouth as soon as she'd registered the thought. Sunny jolted in surprise, and that signaled her to lean forwards – about as much as she could while facing him at an angle from the piano bench anyway - trying to get a better look. Though the lighting in the piano room was dimmer than it had been when they started, she'd still swear that she had seen a flash of something... A color that should not have been anywhere on his skin or violin bow.

"Um, it's... Nothing..." Sunny mumbled, making an odd aborted motion, like pulling his arms back only to look down and stop. It took Mari a moment to parse that, but... had he been about to shove his hands out of sight only to realize they were still occupied by his instrument? Well, that seemed to confirm something then. She felt the corners of her mouth begin to fall as she went to stand up. Pins and needles lanced across her knee and she wobbled slightly, stifling a groan – surely it shouldn't be so stiff already, that only happened when she was sitting at the piano for really long. Not important right now, she'd just have to power through. She looked away from the rebellious limb and back to Sunny, who had lowered his violin and now stared at her with an expression she couldn't decipher right now. For that matter, she had only a vague idea what her own face must've looked like at the moment, just that it was some sort of frown. She took a few steps towards him to get a closer look.

"Seriously, sis, you don't need-"

"Sunny... you're bleeding." Mari wasn't trying to cut him off, but the realization wouldn't let itself be contained. It was perhaps a slight exaggeration, it wasn't like his hands were actually dripping blood or anything so blatant, but... those lines on his fingers were shining dark red. It wasn't mistakable as anything else either. Sunny fidgeted under her gaze, shuffling his feet and shifting his stare off to her side. In any other situation, Mari might have found it amusing: twelve now and he still acted just like his little four-year-old self when she caught him stealing her bag of cookies. Excellent fodder for teasing. But right now she wasn't laughing. If anything, it just made her more concerned. And confused. Why in the world would he be reacting that way, here and now? This situation wasn't anything like that one, he wasn't doing anything wrong by... being hurt. Right, he was hurt! She shook herself. Sunny paused at the motion.

"It's not that bad." he replied slowly, still not meeting her eyes. But that was fine since she wasn't trying to meet his either, still looking pointedly at the cuts (for that was definitely what they were). Her next course of action was becoming clear, then. Without even needing to say anything, she gently extended her hands, motioning towards the instrument still in her brother's grasp. Sunny looked down at it, seeming to once again remember it was still there. Unexpectedly, his grip tightened around both the bow and the violin, knuckles starting to turn white. Mari had no idea what he could've been thinking in that instant – but it was just an instant, as before she could even begin to think of asking, the tension seeped away and he passed both items into her waiting palms. Mari took them and swept away, turning to set the violin carefully on the piano bench, the bow alongside it. Not necessarily the ideal spot, but she didn't want to take the time to put it away properly, and it was better than leaving it on the floor or against the wall. Nobody would be kicking the top of the bench by accident.

She clapped her hands slightly. "Alright, now come with me!" she instructed, striding past Sunny to exit the room. Swinging the door open – and, oops, that was maybe a little too much force, she had to catch it to stop it from striking the wall – she went to make a beeline over to her current goal.

"Mari, wait. Where are we going?" Sunny protested behind her. He sounded confused for some reason. She was confused why he was confused. At least he was still following her anyway. Having to get him moving by pulling his hand, like she used to do when leading him around town, would not have been a good option in this situation. For obvious reasons.

"To clean your hands, of course." She said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Because it was, wasn't it? She'd just pointed out that his hands were bleeding, what else would they do immediately after that? With that established, Mari turned her attention back to their destination, the next obstacle (if one could call it that) presenting itself. The stairs. She could feel her brow furrow with almost instinctive distaste. She'd never liked this staircase one bit. She knew not to make a big deal of it, mom had looked at her strangely and told her to stop being silly the one time she'd mentioned it. It probably wasn't a normal thought to have, but she'd never really been able to shake it either. It was frankly a little annoying with how often she had to go up and down each day. Like right now. Not for the first time did she wish it was just a one-story house instead. Ah well, there was nothing for it now, or any other time for that matter.

She started tromping up the staircase, but less than halfway through, that all-too-familiar feeling of needles jammed into her knee again. Right. That was probably part of the reason for her disdain. Normally something as simple as a short walk up a staircase wouldn't set her knee off, but these ones... They were the slightest bit off. Whoever built them had made each individual step just a couple inches too tall, required just that tiny bit of extra movement to step up them. Even in her head that sounded ridiculous, exactly the sort of nitpicky nonsense she'd probably be scolded for, but the way her leg protested wasn't lying. And it happened every time she went up – albeit usually not this badly – and only with these stairs (and the identical set in the house next door). So she knew she was onto something... At least Sunny had believed her, when she'd confided her theory to him.

Speaking of Sunny, as she paused at the top to rub a few circles across her knee to try and soothe it (to minimal effect, as usual), he took the opportunity to protest again.

"What about practice?" he tried quietly. Mari paused and looked back at him, genuinely surprised by the question. Their practice session was really not what was foremost in her mind. It wasn't... No, no, she couldn't even finish that thought, it was absolutely important. Not for the practice hours themselves, per se, but as a necessary step in order to make sure the recital went perfectly. That was important, really important. So very, very important.

("Does Sunny even realize just how important?")

Mari shook her head to clear that train of thought. Not the point. "We can get back to it." she declared in response. There, that was more in line with what she was feeling, practicing was obviously incredibly important but it wasn't her number one priority at this very second. Of course it wasn't, why in the world would Sunny even think it would be when he was hurt? Mari led him over to the bathroom and swung the door open (taking care to do it a little more gently this time). She saw Sunny hesitating once again, but she gestured towards the doorway in a manner she hoped was encouraging. He let out a small huff and shook his head slightly, but she had seen him do so often enough – particularly with Kel – to recognize it as a concession, and indeed he stepped past her into the bathroom. He took a seat on the edge of the tub while Mari flicked the light on. Pulling open the medicine cabinet, she gave a little "aha" as she spotted her prize: a black bottle of hydrogen peroxide disinfectant. Sunny gave a put-upon sigh behind her.

"Sis, do we have to do this part?" he complained, but his tone was more resigned than anything, like he already knew what the answer was. Mari answered anyway.

"Of course! You know you don't want to get infected, it's bad news." Her reply was familiar, almost chipper. They'd done this song and dance, had almost this exact same exchange, many times over. Sunny hadn't been the most coordinated when he was younger. Not quite as prone to tripping over himself as Kel, perhaps, but then that was just Kel's boundless energy. Either way, her little brother was no stranger to scrapes and cuts and every other variety of tiny injury you could think of. And he'd always preferred to come to Mari when those happened. She wouldn't scold him about it – or at least, not beyond a concerned chiding to be a little more careful. And in turn, she always just wanted to make sure he was okay. ….Now that she thought about it, they hadn't done this in a long time. Years. But then, Sunny was growing up, so maybe she shouldn't be surprised by that either. Kneeling down next to Sunny, she uncapped the bottle, and Sunny wrinkled his nose at the acrid smell. Mari might have found the expression amusing, but honestly, she didn't blame him one bit.

"Alright, let's see what we're working with." she said, more to herself than anything. Sunny offered his hands and Mari carefully looked them over. Under the buzzing bright light of the bathroom, they looked... both better and worse. Better because, outside of the shadows of the piano room (why had it been so dim in there anyway?), the cuts appeared lighter and shallower than she'd thought they were. Worse because the stark lighting revealed multiple more tiny cuts and blisters, partially healed so they were too faded to see before. They were scattered across his fingers, on both hands, but especially the one he held his bow in. "Oh, Sunshine..." Mari whispered, and Sunny turned his head away, his shoulders sagging. He clearly wasn't comfortable. And neither was she. Now, everything Mari had researched about learning string instruments suggested that every up-and-coming player was going to cut themselves on the strings a few times, it was pretty much inevitable. Not so different from how she'd gotten blisters and sore wrists from her piano. But this... this seemed like a lot.

("...He was really playing like that and you didn't even look? Some teacher.")

But now wasn't the time. Clean it first and then... Mari shook herself. "Get ready for the sting, okay?" she instructed, voice a little softer than it had been before. She didn't want to upset Sunny further. After a moment he nodded to signal that he was ready, and she began to apply the disinfectant to his hands. Predictably, he hissed when it washed over the most recent cuts, the ones that were still red, the peroxide foaming up slightly as it did its work. Mari had done this enough, with both Sunny's scrapes and her own occasional ones, that she worked as quickly and efficiently as possible, so even with the quantity of cuts, it didn't take long. Striding back over to the medicine cabinet, she fished around in it a bit before finding a small box tucked away in the back. She glanced down at it and raised an eyebrow in surprise. When had they gotten these? And it was the only box in there, at least of the right size.

"Sorry Sunny, looks like there's only pink Sweetheart band-aids. You'll survive, right?" she joked to try and bring a little levity back. Sunny looked up at her and squinted at the box in her hand.

"...It's fine." he said, but Mari noticed the slightest hint of his face twisting with the usual disgust he showed towards anything Sweetheart-related. Mission successful. Sometimes, she'd found, watching his reactions could be more fun than the actual cartoon. Pulling a couple of the band-aids from the box, Mari couldn't help but feel that "pink" had been something of an understatement. They were aggressively pink, so much so that it made the bottle of hair dye Aubrey had been desperately wishing for look downright dull by comparison. Sunny stared at the neon cotton candy nightmare in her hands with a look of... she couldn't tell if it was fascination or horror. Possibly both. She didn't blame him, she was feeling similarly. There was no way that color naturally existed. Were these radioactive?

Well, there was nothing for it, they really were the only option available. Taking Sunny's hands once again, Mari carefully stuck a few of the bandages over his fingers. Not many, she didn't want to go overboard and impede his fingers any, and she figured only the deepest cuts, the ones he'd either gotten or reopened today, really required it. The very same couple of red lines she'd spotted that started all of this, in fact. With the last offensively on-brand Sweetheart band-aid in place, Mari found herself almost instinctively patting Sunny on the top of his head to signal they were done, the same way she used to when he was smaller. And just like back then, Sunny apparently didn't appreciate it, as he immediately reached up to shove her hand away. She allowed herself a small laugh as she turned to begin putting everything away – sparing one last glance at the box of inscrutable pink menaces before sealing their evil away in the cabinet once again. Sunny stood and shuffled out of the room, Mari right behind him, making sure to hit the light switch again on her way out.

As they went, however, Mari found that it didn't take long for her lightened mood to drain out of her. Sunny's injuries had been taken care of to her satisfaction, yet... that instinct that had been bubbling in her chest ever since she'd first seen them hadn't faded. The one that was always there when she felt that she needed to help him.

"Sunny..." she began slowly. Sunny halted a few steps away from the top of the stairs. "Do you... think you can play in the recital tonight? If your hands hurt too much, I... I can see about canceling."

("What in the world are you saying?")

Sunny whipped his head around so fast it was amazing he didn't give himself whiplash, his eyes wide as he stared at Mari. But she was only vaguely aware of that, her mind suddenly overflowing with thoughts. The offer had surprised even her – it wasn't a lie, but... what would actually happen when he accepted? She'd have to call mom and dad, so that they could contact the venue to reschedule. But just the thought of that phone call made her feel like a cold iron weight was sitting in her stomach. Everything was already planned, sorted out months in advance, nobody would be happy with such a last-minute upset. Not the venue, not mom and dad, not their friends who were probably getting all dressed up... She'd need to give a reason. What would she possibly tell them? That she was feeling sick and not up to playing? It sounded weak even in her head. There were no good excuses she could think of, but she'd need one, and... Everyone would be so-

"No!" The sudden shout startled Mari out of her train of thought. Sunny was still standing ahead of her, and was he... vibrating? Wait, no, that was her vision. Was she shaking? Why would she be shaking? She forced herself to stop. Sunny didn't seem to notice. "No..." he repeated, quieter. His head tilted down. "You don't have to do that. I can play."

That instinct twinged in the back of Mari's chest. "Are you sure?" she found herself asking him equally quietly, looking at the top of his head.

("Why are you second-guessing him? This is the right choice!")

Sunny tensed, not so different from how she'd seen when he handed over his violin. Fists clenched. "...Yeah. I'll play." he said. Slowly, he looked up at her, trying to meet her eyes. Mari forced herself to hold eye contact in turn – he was clearly serious, so she had to. "I'll play." he repeated, louder. Was he trying to convince her? ….Of course, Sunny was determined to play, everything had been leading up to the recital, that shouldn't have remotely surprised her. He wanted to play with her, just like he'd said before, she shouldn't be questioning that now. Her little brother wasn't going to be taken out by a few obnoxiously bright band-aids, she knew that. Was that why he looked so tense? Was she annoying him by fussing too much? She didn't know for sure, but it was the only theory she could think of, so she had to believe it was at least on the right track.

"Alright, Sunny, then let's do it." she conceded, trying to give him an encouraging smile. For some reason, however, that persistent feeling wasn't going away. When she thought of going downstairs and immediately picking up practice again, right back to attempt number sixteen like the last ten minutes hadn't even happened, it only prickled further. It felt... off, like something was wrong. Which made no sense, but she couldn't deny it. Unbidden, a new thought popped into her head. "But, we could take a break from practicing for now, what do you think?" The suggestion came out without thinking, a sudden impulse the seemed to mollify that feeling in her chest. At least a little. Sunny blinked at her, and his surprise was easy to read.

"But, the recital's tonight...?" he pointed out uncertainly. It was a valid point, Mari was only just going over the logistical problems of her suggestion in her mind. Just blurting it out like that hadn't been a good idea, but she wasn't going to retract it either. It was her job to make it work.

"Right." she agreed with a nod. "But I know we'll have some time backstage at the venue, and they have a spare piano set up for rehearsing." she was speaking the plan as it formed in her head. "Last-minute practice won't be easy, but I think a couple hours to refresh ourselves before we iron it out might actually help. Sound good?" There. That was a fair compromise, wasn't it? It would come down to the wire, but they could manage it. They'd have to. As long as everything came out perfectly when they were on stage, the exact road they took to get there didn't matter as much. Sunny frowned, clearly considering her suggestion, but Mari was sure that he must have been tempted. He liked to take breaks, she knew that, it was why the thought of doing so had occurred to her in the first place. Slowly, almost sheepishly, he nodded his head, and Mari clapped her hands. "Okay, and that works out too, Basil said he might come by this afternoon too, so-"

"Umm, Mari?" Sunny interrupted her, looking at her with his head tilting slightly. "It is afternoon." he pointed out. Mari blinked. Oh. Right. The dim lighting in the piano room. It was like that because it was later than she'd thought. That made sense. But had they really been practicing for that long? Sunny had a good sense of time – well, when he wasn't sleeping in – so she believed him without needing to double-check, it just felt strange. She'd been keeping count of the number of attempts specifically to avoid that, how had she still ended up doing it? She needed to be even more careful, clearly.

"Well, alright, then he could be here any time." she began, trying to get herself back on track. "How about you head downstairs to meet him, while I..." she paused and looked down at herself. "I need to get changed." She was still wearing her white nightgown, had been wearing it all day apparently. It wasn't the first time. Mari liked that nightgown, she'd even say it was her favorite. None of the others she had quite matched up to this one. There was just something about this specific gown that felt better to wear. Maybe it was the type of fabric or something, but all her other gowns... they weren't uncomfortable, but she was always vaguely aware that they were there, against her skin. But this one was just... lighter. But not in a physical way, because they all weighed about the same. She couldn't think of a way to explain it, it was just her favorite. But she needed to get dressed, and probably brush her hair too. She was expected to look nice and formal at the recital, after all.

Sunny nodded in agreement to her suggestion after a moment, snapping her out of her train of thought, and turned back to the stairs. Mari watched him go for a moment before she made her way to their room. The break was a good idea, Sunny would have told her if it wasn't. They were going to relax for a bit, hang out with Basil, and then put their noses back to the grindstone and play a perfect recital. It sounded like a sensible enough plan.

So why did she still feel like she was missing something?

Chapter Text

The expectation that a last-minute practice session would not be easy, as it turned out, had been a bit of an understatement. No, saying that it was a bit of an understatement was itself a colossal understatement. Even by Mari's standards, which was probably saying a lot, since Hero had once commented on her impressive ability to undersell things. There were plenty of words to describe practicing like this, but "easy" was absolutely not one. In fact, a few of the words that popped into Mari's mind at the thought had to be shoved down. The type mom would absolutely scold her for saying. She didn't even quite remember where she'd learned some of them – nobody she knew spoke german. Regardless, now wasn't an appropriate time for such language. Especially not with Sunny there. Besides the fact that he didn't need to be learning that sort of thing, let alone from her, it might well give him the impression that it was directed at him. That was pretty much the last thing Mari wanted. Sunny had made it clear he was determined to play, so she couldn't afford to discourage that. Rehearsing like this was just... stressful.

Now, objectively speaking, they weren't really doing anything different from one of their normal practices (asides from the fact that the cramped little side-room backstage with its battered old piano was much less comfortable than what she was used to, anyway). But that was part of the problem. Even with their early arrival, the time to go onstage was looming, yet it wasn't like they could go over the song any faster. Every time a new attempt was made, they had to play out the piece again like usual. Trying to speed up their playing wouldn't work for obvious reasons – tempo was not just a suggestion. And trying to refine individual segments that proved troublesome, well... Mari had always found that more difficult than the alternative. Trying to focus on perfecting just one part would only throw her off when it came time to actually put it back in the context of the whole piece. Especially having to keep multiple such segments straight in her mind. Everything just flowed much more naturally when playing it all start to finish. She could think of it all as one big cohesive section that way. Sunny had never disagreed with her doing it like that either, so he must have preferred to learn the same way. It just made more sense. With a hard time limit over their heads, however, that left them with very few options besides just hoping they'd weed out the errors without too many attempts. Mari was so focused she'd even given up on keeping her count.

It wasn't an easy task to keep herself one-hundred percent focused on her own playing – which she had to do to prevent mistakes, even a momentary distraction could spell disaster – while also keeping an ear on Sunny to make sure he wasn't having trouble either. Fortunately, by this point she had a lot of experience. And this time... this time it was actually sounding good! Mari immediately had to stop herself from cringing at that thought, jinxes were definitely real no matter what anyone said. But even so, they were well into the song now, and she hadn't missed any notes and neither had Sunny. Not even any close calls. Or, well, it was possible Sunny had and simply recovered well enough that nobody would notice, but that was effectively the same thing. There was still that obnoxious intrusive sense that the music wasn't flowing as naturally as it should, that the repetitive playing over and over felt somehow heavy and forced... But Mari had already resolved to ignore that, so ignore it she did. It made no sense anyway. She'd been over this earlier, just her imagination making up fake problems.

("But then, what else is new?")

But no, she couldn't afford to get distracted by that now. Or any other time, probably, but especially not now. Redoubling her effort to focus, she stared intently at the piano in front of her, tracing the path of her fingers across the keys. They were so close, only this final part, and then-! Mari felt something, some utterly indescribable sensation swelling as the last notes of the song wound down. It was like a huge weight that had been sitting on her shoulders had lifted slightly, only she hadn't even realized it was there until that momentary relief. She felt this sudden rush of energy, like electricity coursing through her, and she found herself immediately spinning on the bench to look at Sunny. He was staring at her with... some sort of uncertain expression. Nervous? She wasn't quite sure. She'd probably have to hold eye contact to figure that out. But it didn't matter right now, those thoughts swept out of her head immediately.

"That was perfect, Sunny!" the words burst out of her mouth... probably a little too loudly, from the way Sunny visibly startled. Oops. She tried to reign it in a bit. "Ahem, I mean, it was really good." The attempt to speak a little more calmly was undercut as she found herself clapping her hands together, her shoulders bouncing a bit. It was a good thing mom wasn't back here – she didn't need another reminder on how to sit still, honest. The excitement simply wouldn't be fully contained. "I think we really got it this time!" she exclaimed.

"Yeah, I guess we did." Sunny replied neutrally. That confused Mari more than a little – she figured he'd be as excited as she was. Wasn't it normal to be happy about it? She thought so, but Sunny's total non-reaction threatened to make her second guess.

("Like you'd even know anyway.")

Well, there was nothing for it but to ask.

"Is something wrong? It really was perfect, I knew we could do it." She tried to emphasize that last part, to make sure it came off as encouraging. She knew he needed a little confidence booster every once in awhile. Which was fine, since she was happy to give it – when she thought she could actually get the message across properly, anyway. Sometimes it was easy for something like that to come out wrong.

Sunny looked away. "...We still have to go onstage." he answered quietly, after a long pause. Mari stopped, some of the energy beneath her skin beginning to ebb away as she considered that. It... was very much a valid point, no matter how one looked at it. This was still just the practice. The real performance, and everything riding on it, was yet to come...

"Ahh, you want to stay focused, not celebrate too early. Very diligent, little brother." Mari complimented. Keeping positive was the goal right now, after all.

"...Mmh." Sunny exhaled quietly, still not looking at her. Mari... frankly had no idea what exactly that sound was supposed to mean. She had to assume it was some form of agreement, because it at least wasn't an open disagreement, so that was her best guess. No matter how she tried to angle her thoughts, she simply couldn't pick up much more context than that. She'd just have to go with it.

"But if you think about it, the hardest part's past now, right?" she continued, nodding to herself and trying to give Sunny a smile. "I mean, we've already gotten it down, so it's really just a repeat. Being up on stage shouldn't be any different, we can still play just like we did now." There, that made sense, didn't it? She hoped so, it sounded like it did in her head.

("Who are you trying to convince? Don't get complacent, you know this has to be perfect.")

Sunny didn't respond for a moment, a few seconds that stretched on in silence just long enough to make Mari begin to worry that she actually had said something strange or nonsensical without realizing it. That happened... not too often, she didn't think. But she never liked the confused looks that appeared on peoples' faces when it did. Especially when it was Sunny or their friends. To her relief, however, Sunny eventually nodded his head in agreement. It looked a little slow and jerky to her, but that may very well not have meant anything. It wasn't like she was talking to Kel, who seemed to enjoy making his motions as emphatic as possible. Sunny was more precise, and she probably knew that better than anyone, so a clipped gesture wasn't really too unusual.

Regardless, it shouldn't be too long now before they got ready to head out to the stage. It was a good thing they'd gotten here early enough for this practice, Mari was sure it'd be worth the difficulty (and bizarre crash course in german, apparently).

The music hall was a grand building – by Faraway standards, at any rate. It had been built in an era when enterprising sorts still had dreams of the town expanding into a thriving and popular destination in its own right. So, predicting future expansion, it was actually constructed well outside city limits. Any such ideas had been abandoned many decades ago, but the building still stood, a good twenty minutes' drive from the main body of town, these days surrounded by nothing but a few gas stations. For that reason, some of the town's older (and more traditionalist) residents didn't consider the music hall to be part of Faraway at all, and insisted on calling it things like "the eyesore". Mari knew all this because she'd looked it up. When mom and dad had talked about organizing the recital, she'd really been expecting them to just set something up using the school's auditorium. This had been a genuine surprise, and she didn't want to – couldn't afford to – be left floundering, so she'd tried to get every bit of info on the venue she could, no matter how irrelevant it seemed. Now, all that information... well, it wasn't exactly coming in handy, but at least it gave her something to think on?

They'd been up here on the dark wood stage for a few minutes now, going over the last-minute checks necessary before the curtain rose. Sunny's violin was properly tuned, and so was the piano. Speaking of which, Mari appreciated the fact that this one was a newer, less worn model than the old one in the backroom. Not that the aesthetics should really affect the sound too much, but there was something slightly comforting in the sleek black finish. It reminded her more of her own piano, that was probably it. Or at least that was the explanation that seemed to make the most sense. Now, with all the important preparations taken care of – not that there was even much to do – she and Sunny were essentially just waiting. Presumably it was so the last members of the audience had time to get settled and such, though Mari didn't actually know for sure off the top of her head. She sat on the piano's bench, her eyes drifting idly up at the ceiling. It really was high above, for a one-story building. But then, the whole place was large. There were a lot of seats out in the audience, too. How many of them would be filled? Their parents. All of their friends, of course. Mr. and Mrs. Rodriguez. Mrs. Abner, Basil's grandmother. Definitely not Aubrey's parents, as she'd said, which wasn't really a surprise. Almost certainly some of the other kids from school, like the twins. And then who knew how many others?

She heard Sunny shuffling slightly behind her. "Mari." he hissed quietly. "Fiddling." What? Mari's eyes flicked down, and... huh. When had she started doing that?

"Oh... Thanks." At some point she'd brought her hand up and begun to pick at the buttons on the collar of her white dress shirt. She quickly stopped. It wouldn't do to go fraying the threads on those. This was a brand-new shirt, bought just for tonight and never worn except to try it on. Mom had picked it out, insisted that it was just the perfect one for her. On more than one occasion Mari had found herself wondering why so many of the clothes her parents got her were white. She liked the color well enough, but... she liked other colors too. But she didn't want to sound ungrateful, so she kept the question to herself. Besides, this was a legitimately nice shirt regardless. The fabric didn't even feel too stiff against her skin, which was a welcome surprise, she'd had that problem with other "formal" outfits in the past. She would've worn it anyway, of course, but even so.

The faint sound of a throat clearing pulled her from those thoughts and she looked up – out of the corner of her eye she saw Sunny's head turning towards the sound as well. Ah, there was one of the hall's employees at the edge of the stage, who was now giving them a small hand signal. That meant they were going to raise the curtain momentarily. Mari turned to Sunny and gave him a small nod, and he shuffled back over to where his violin was set, quickly taking it back up. With everything more or less all ready on his end, Mari turned her attention back to herself. It was the moment of truth. Showtime.

"And now, Mari and Sunny Takahashi!"

The curtain rose and a hush swept over the hall, silencing background noises and chatter that Mari hadn't even really registered were there until now. She turned her head, looking out over the wide auditorium, and... oh. That was a lot of people. The image she'd formed in her head had been a decent crowd, several full rows at least, but somehow this still took her by complete surprise. She probably didn't even know the names of half of them. Were all these people really here just for her and Sunny? ….Well in that case, she couldn't afford to keep them waiting. She turned back to the piano.

("You should've at least given them a smile, not just a blank stare.")

She didn't have to look at Sunny to know that he was waiting on her cue, so without further ado, she shifted her fingers into position and, as she'd done so many times before, Mari began to play. It was, of course, exactly the same introduction as always. She very much knew the notes by heart at this point – the sheet music perched atop the keyboard was nearly superfluous. She'd be surprised if she had to glance at it more than once or twice. Yet, as she played, Mari began to feel something, some sensation building in the back of her mind. Being up here, on this wide stage, playing this piece before the whole hall, it felt open. In a way her favorite window in the piano room never did. That, it was pleasant, brightening the room. This was just... exposed, somehow. Logically speaking, that was of course the whole point of the recital. To be seen and heard playing by the audience. She obviously knew that. But there was this building sense of pressure... yes, that was it. The imaginary weight on her shoulders she'd felt lessening after the perfect practice earlier had now returned twice over.

It wasn't anything she couldn't handle, though. She had to handle it. This was their duet, and they already knew how to do it right. She was still playing her part, and Sunny had naturally joined in smoothly with his own. Together the music filled the air with the same cadence as always, just as expected. Even so, however, Mari was forced to admit to herself that she'd been wrong before. She'd told Sunny that playing on stage wouldn't be any different, but it was. It was a completely nonsensical difference and she knew that. The fact of the matter was that is was exactly the same song, objectively an identical process to play. So she couldn't possibly think of any reasonable explanation for the difference, not even the faintest excuse of one. In fact, she really shouldn't have wasted a single thought on trying to find such an explanation, should she? The reasonable thing to do was, obviously, to just focus on playing. She could do that. Redoubling her stare at the piano keys – and pointedly ignoring the way her wrists were starting to hurt – she tried to hone her thoughts in on the next steps of the song running through her head. This note, then this, then this, and soon she found herself starting to slip back into the rhythm.

And then the violin squawked slightly behind her, the bow pulled just a tiny bit too fast.

Sunny had missed a note.

Mari had to stop herself from twisting her head to look at him in shock. No. That wasn't supposed to happen, not here, not now. This wasn't a practice session, they couldn't just stop and go over it again. No holding a tally of attempts to try to keep track of time. There was a hard number of tries and it was one. But that was precisely it, they couldn't stop, so... Mari would just have to focus on continuing to play. Good thing she'd already been doing that. Yes, just continue to play, and... maybe the audience didn't even really notice, it was a quiet mistake this time after all... Mari felt something cold begin to settle in her stomach. Those thoughts weren't helping. Just continue to play. Sunny had readjusted himself behind her and continued too, thankfully seeming to know that was what he needed to do here. The next few notes came out as smoothly as ever, like nothing had ever happened. So maybe-

The screech rang out again. Sharper this time, slashing the air like an invisible knife.

That was bad enough. But then... Mari hadn't been able to stop herself from flinching ever so slightly. A tiny movement, probably near-impossible to see unless one was looking very closely. Yet it was just enough for her fingers to slip off course. She realized it a fraction – no – a fraction of a fraction of a second too late. She didn't catch it in time.

Her fingers glided down onto the keys, the wrong keys. A discordant twang rang out across the stage. Mari desperately tried to get back on track. She needed to correct course. This note, then this – no, her hands were in all the wrong positions now, that had slipped to the wrong note too! That cold feeling had intensified into a dagger, piercing her insides. It probably could have pinned her to the bench. All she could think of was the horrible cacophony that must have echoed over the hall. From where Mari sat, every wrong note, every mistake she made filled her ears, tolling a death knell to put the greatest church bells to shame. So she stopped.

She just... stopped.

("What are you doing!? Keep playing! KEEP PLAYING!")

.

.

.

.

The movement of her hands halted, falling limp from the keyboard to dangle at her sides. She stared straight ahead at the propped up sheet music, but she couldn't make out any of the notes written there. Didn't care to make out any of them. Her legs were still. Her arms were still. Her head was still. She was sitting perfectly still. But her heart refused to be still. It was beating at what felt like a thousand times a second, she could practically feel the icy blood it was forcing through her veins. But she couldn't even focus on that because of the sound! The music had stopped, and yet she still couldn't hear. Every tiny shift of fabric as she shifted, every one of the many heartbeats, all of it boomed in her ears like thunder.

Why? Why was everything so loud?

What was going on? What was wrong with her all of a sudden? She hadn't felt this way in-

Wrong. That was it. This was all wrong. Nothing felt right here. Maybe she should have known that. Maybe it hadn't felt right from the moment she'd stepped on stage. Or even before that. Maybe she was the last one to notice everything was wrong.

She'd really thought that she'd be able to play like she used to, when the music had flowed naturally and left her feeling light and airy. That practice earlier had actually made her think that would happen, that it would all go right. But her hands just felt like lead. It was all wrong.

She didn't even need to look at Sunny to know he must have been staring at her. She could feel it, the eyes on her back. And not just his. She didn't dare even consider looking out at the audience to see their reactions. Were they shocked? Upset? Angry? What about mom and dad? What about their friends? They were all out there, they'd gotten ready just for this.

Basil had a new sweatervest, he'd showed them when he'd dropped by earlier, it was a nice green color.

Hero probably looked handsome in a bowtie. Maybe Mrs. Rodriguez had wrangled Kel into one too.

Aubrey promised to wear the nicest bow she had in her hair.

Mom and dad were both here. They were so busy with work, out of town so often – on differing schedules that rarely lined up no less – yet they were both here.

None of that mattered now though. It was all just... not right anymore. It was too much.

Mari was vaguely aware of someone approaching behind her. Sunny? That was the most likely, but it could've been an employee, or mom, or... They tried to say something, hesitantly, but she still couldn't really hear it. She didn't care to try.

She slowly tilted her head down, letting her long hair fall loosely in front of her eyes. For a moment all she wanted was for the black strands to just block everything out.

It was all supposed to be perfect. Mari didn't understand what happened.

Chapter Text

Mari knew for a fact that the drive back home could only have been about twenty minutes or so, just like it was the other way. Yet at the same time she was sure this must have been longer. Hours. It didn't feel right. Really, maybe that hadn't changed from... what had happened on the stage. She had to stop herself from flinching when she thought of it. After awhile – she had no idea how long it really was – one of the music hall's employees had approached to lead her off the stage, Sunny having already been ushered out without her noticing. Mom and dad had been waiting for them, having some sort of whispered yet very fervent conversation between them, and then they'd left very quickly after that. Their friends had all gathered up near the exit, obviously waiting for them, but nothing came of it. Some part of Mari had actually considered stopping, they were her friends after all, so shouldn't she? But mom had gently grabbed her wrist and led her and away, Sunny trailing behind, and neither tried to fight it. After all, the other, bigger part of Mari really, really didn't want to have that conversation. Even just seeing them there had made her blood feel like it was freezing again. She didn't have a chance to figure out exactly what any of it was supposed to mean, but somehow she knew that... she really hated the looks on their faces at that moment.

("But you also knew, whatever it was, you probably deserved it, didn't you?")

That odd haze over her thoughts hadn't really gone away since. It reminded her of a dream she'd had once, where the whole world was living underwater. Except that had been a fun, almost whimsical sort of dream, sort of like the storybooks Sunny had enjoyed when he was little. This just felt... she didn't even know a word for how it felt, couldn't focus enough to think of one. Everything was too dark, even for the backseat of the car on a quiet road at night. But everything was too bright, she kept her eyes away from the windows because even the headlights of other cars passing by made her feel sick. It was too quiet, dad had shortly declared that they would "talk about this at home", possibly at mom's prompting, and nobody had said a word since. It was crushing. But it was too loud, every little sound was... perhaps not quite as deafening as it had seemed up on stage, but still sharp enough in her ears to make her twitch. Mari felt cold and numb, like that one day she'd forgotten her coat at school in the middle of January. Yet she also felt hot and itchy, her dress shirt that she'd thought was so nice suddenly sticking to her back. She knew of course that none of these feelings made sense, there was nothing happening right now, she was just sitting in the back seat of the car with her head down. She steadfastly tried to ignore Sunny's occasional glances at her – it was rude, but the one time she'd looked back, there had been something in his eyes that had made her stomach jolt badly.

She wondered briefly if he wanted to say something, but he clearly didn't want to disobey their parents either. On any normal day she might have encouraged him to try to whisper to her instead – she always tried to give him a chance to speak when he wanted to. But she didn't do that here, the thought didn't even really occur to her until afterwards. All things considered, Sunny probably wouldn't have gone for it anyway.

("What made you think he even wants to talk to you? ")

There was a slight bump as the car rode up onto their driveway, and... oh, they were home now? Funny, Mari hadn't even realized they were getting close. She'd had some irrational thought in the back of her mind that maybe they'd never get close. Even more irrationally, it hadn't entirely felt like a bad thing. Not a good thing either, exactly, but not bad. Mom and dad's car doors both swung shut with a thunk at almost the exact same moment in a slightly impressive case of accidental synchronization, and it was only then that Mari realized they'd both already gotten out. Sunny hesitated, once again giving her some sort of look, but she still couldn't bear to meet it. A moment later he too got out, a little more slowly than their parents had. Mari knew that she couldn't keep everyone waiting now, reaching down to unbuckle her seatbelt, but for some reason the button to release the clasp wouldn't- she couldn't- Oh. Her fingers were shaking, and not just a little. She hadn't even noticed they were doing that. How long had it been going on? The whole drive? It was definitely possible, at least, she couldn't say for sure that wasn't the case.

Seatbelt finally undone, she stepped out of the car, decidedly not intending to slam the door behind her but still somehow doing so. The solid thud made her wince. The driveway seemed to wobble and she had to stabilize herself with one hand against the car. It wasn't even her knee making her so unsteady this time, it wasn't acting up beyond the small twinges that always came from sitting in the backseat, which she was used to ignoring by now. Their car wasn't very large and her legs had gotten rather long rather quickly in the last few years, so sitting there was a little cramped. Regardless, though, if it wasn't her knee, then it could only be more shaking. So it wasn't just her hands. She couldn't delay here though, Sunny and their parents were already at the front door, dad presumably getting it unlocked – the lock sometimes stuck a bit from the outside. She didn't want one of them having to come back to retrieve her, yet... she didn't feel like she could take a step forward either. That wasn't reasonable, it wouldn't work out.

She needed to calm down. Just take a deep breath. It wasn't as scary as she thought... right? She finally made to hurry up the driveway and get inside.

Mari sat on the couch nervously, once again feeling that sensation of the seconds ticking by incredibly slowly. Sunny was next to her on the other cushion, his chin resting on his knees, which he'd pulled up to his chest. Part of her wanted to sit like that too, she couldn't explain why, but something about the thought of curling up immediately left her wishing she could. But that would probably just prompt mom to chide her to sit like a proper girl once she returned. She'd said that she just needed to go put her purse and shoes away, so it wouldn't take long. So Mari sat with her feet flat on the floor, knees pressed together, as expected. As she waited, her right hand came up, tugging slightly at one of the buttons on her collar, which at some point had started feeling a bit too tight. Sunny shifted a bit, and she guessed he was anxious about the upcoming conversation. Of course he would be, she was too. Dad was pacing in the corner, and she tried not to look at him too much – even she could immediately tell he was frustrated, and besides, it was rude to stare.

("Like you don't know exactly why dad's angry.")

True to her word, mom soon returned – though of course to Mari it felt like longer. She stopped in front of the couch, putting her hands together in thought and looking down at the two siblings. Mari didn't try to scrutinize her mother's expression, but she felt safe assuming it would be some sort of unhappy one. Sunny pulled his knees in slightly tighter, though whether that was in direct reaction to mom or just him trying to get more comfortable, she didn't know for sure. It could have been both. Dad stopped his pacing and turned towards them as well, and at last mom let out a small sigh.

"Alright, we need to talk now, okay? What happened up there tonight?" she asked. That definitely didn't sound like her rhetorical tone, she was expecting an answer. Mari felt the gaze directed at her. So it was up to her to explain, then. That wasn't unusual, she was the older sibling after all, their parents usually expected it from her, it'd been that way ever since Sunny was born. There was just one little problem.

"...I don't know." she admitted, making an effort to say it loud enough to be heard, even though for a moment she felt more like mumbling. She looked down towards the floor, her mind automatically tracing out a few patterns in the rug. Though she wasn't looking at him, she heard Sunny shift slightly next to her at that answer.

"Oh, jesus christ..." Dad said from his corner of the room. Given the low voice, Mari wasn't entirely sure whether he'd actually meant for everyone else to hear that or not, but they all definitely could.

"Mari..." Mom said to get her attention, seeming to move right past that. Mari glanced up towards her face, just enough to notice mom's expression, before her focus fell back to the floor. She couldn't tell if mom's frown was due to dad's comment, or her own non-answer. "I know you were-" Mom began, but cut herself off with a sigh. "Sweetie, you need to look me in the eyes when we're talking like this." she reminded Mari. Of course.

Not wanting to be rude, Mari made herself look up to meet her mother's gaze. As she looked into the dark eyes, she could feel her heart pick up just a bit, and she became aware once again that her hands felt clammy. There was probably some obvious emotion she was supposed to be picking up from the look, but to her the eyes were just... regular eyes. Staring straight at her. Her first impulse was to look away again, but no, mom was right, making eye contact was normal for serious conversations, so... She'd just have to do it. On top of that, her collar still felt a bit itchy, too.

"Now, I know you were upset-" Mom continued, not seeming to notice Mari's hesitance. "-but you really need to tell us what went wrong." she said, putting her hands on her hips. "A lot of people came out to see you both tonight, and you spent months working to get ready, so... what happened?" It was the same question that Mari fully expected, had known was coming the entire ride home. Yet, no matter how she wracked her brain...

"I don't know, mom." she repeated. It was a terrible excuse for a response – no, not even an excuse, a total lack of even that. It wasn't an acceptable answer. She knew that, she'd known it when she said it the first time. But it was the only one she could give at that moment. "The last-minute practice we were doing went perfectly, so I don't know." she tried to elaborate. It wasn't like she'd forgotten, there weren't any gaps in her memory. The basic timeline from arriving at the music hall to leaving it was all clear from a logical standpoint. But when she thought of... what had happened onstage, she couldn't make sense of how the sequence of events following the practice could lead to that. The pieces were all there, and she knew they were supposed to fit together, but they weren't together.

("Or you know and you're just ignoring it.")

Dad huffed, crossing his arms. "Mari, do you have any idea how much we put into getting this all set up for you? You know how busy your mother and I are! You and your brother need to-" Despite knowing she should stay sitting up straight, Mari found herself wanting to sink lower on the couch with every word. He wasn't wrong. However, her mother cut him off before he could finish.

"Let me handle this, alright dear? Don't you need to go call to get some things sorted out with the music hall anyway?" she suggested, though Mari had heard that tone from mom often enough to recognize that it was a suggestion meant to be followed. Huh. That was weird, actually, that tone usually wasn't directed at dad, or at least not as far as she remembered. Dad sighed, but acquiesced, looking over the siblings on the couch once more before tromping up the stairs – presumably so he could make his call in his and mom's room. Once he was gone, mom turned back to the two of them expectantly. "Your father is right though." she said, hands back on her hips. Mari tried to come up with a better response, when-

"It's my fault."

Mari's head whipped over towards Sunny. It was the first time he'd spoken in the conversation. His knees were pulled in even tighter, if that was possible, and his knuckles were white, drawing attention to the neon pink band-aids. She felt that thing in the back of her chest clench at the sight. That feeling would only get harsher as he continued.

"I messed up first, you heard it." he said, barely louder than a mumble, but she and mom were both listening intently. "I distracted Mari, that's why she made mistakes, and then she couldn't keep playing. That's what..." he trailed off, hiding his face with his legs the way he sometimes did when embarrassed. But while Mari usually found that amusingly endearing, right now it... wasn't. She wanted to correct his claim, because it felt completely wrong, yet she didn't know how to correct it. In terms of basic facts what he said was true, he had made mistakes and it did distract her. That part wasn't inaccurate, technically. Still, she knew for sure there was more going on than just that, but she didn't know how to explain it. She wouldn't get the chance to anyway.

"...I see. I appreciate you being honest, Sunny sweetie." Mom spoke up after a moment of consideration. Mari tried to make sense of her tone, but it was almost too calm, too even. If their mother was feeling anything else, it was hidden well enough. "I can tell that's the best answer we're going to get, so-" she paused and shook her head, seemingly to herself, before looking down at both siblings. "-I'm not going to say I'm happy, you understand? So, here's what's going to happen, tomorrow we're going to go next door and you're both going to apologize to Mr. and Mrs. Rodriguez, alright? I know you didn't mean it, but they've been good neighbors for so long and you wasted their time tonight."

Mari and Sunny both sat silent as their mom delivered her judgment. It wasn't like either of them could really argue that point, could they? She seemed to be aware of that too, as she continued on without waiting for a response.

"Also, both of you are grounded for... at least one week. That means no comic books – or video games, Sunny."

"Wait, mom, that's-" Mari looked up quickly, trying to protest. Not for her own sake, the thought of trying to worm her way out of punishment didn't even occur to her, but for Sunny being lumped in with her. Whatever else happened tonight, he didn't deserve to be grounded, she knew that much.

"Please don't interrupt me, Mari." Mom cut her off pointedly. Part of Mari didn't want to drop it, she really didn't – couldn't – agree with that deep down... but mom was mom. It was disrespectful to argue with her.

("And you've already screwed up enough tonight, haven't you?")

Mom exhaled and shook her head again. "Anyway, that's all for now, Sunny. You can head on upstairs now." she said. Sunny, however, did not move, his eyes glancing between mom and Mari. He'd clearly noticed the way she hadn't been mentioned. "I still need to talk about something with your sister, alright? It won't take long, I promise. Go on." Mom tilted her head slightly towards the direction of the staircase as she spoke. The dismissal wasn't optional, and Sunny apparently realized that as well, as he – although slowly, and looking back at them as he went – climbed off the couch and headed upstairs without a word. Mari, meanwhile... wasn't sure what to think. By all rights she should have expected mom to want to talk to her alone. It'd hardly be the first time things ended up that way when she and Sunny got into trouble. Yet somehow it still left her feeling uncertain, part of her really wishing she could have been dismissed along with Sunny for reasons she couldn't place. ….Well, there was nothing for it but to hear what her mother had to say, was there? Once mom appeared satisfied that Sunny had left – when Mari could very faintly hear a door, presumably their bedroom, shut – she turned her attention onto her daughter fully. Mari found herself wanting to look down, but the reminder from earlier went through her head, so she forced herself to make eye contact again.

"Mari, sweetheart, don't you remember the promise you made?" Mom started the conversation abruptly. Mari had no clue what that was supposed to mean, and her confusion must have shown somehow, because mom frowned. "When we all sat down and talked about setting up the recital, you promised that you could handle making sure Sunny got up to your level by yourself." she elaborated.

This time it was Mari's turn to frown. "I don't remember that at all..." she said quietly, genuinely confused. She wasn't lying, she legitimately didn't remember ever saying that. In fact, now that she was thinking about it, she couldn't really place the specific conversation mom was referencing. She remembered her parents bringing up the recital a bunch, certainly, but they'd mostly handled the details themselves. In hindsight she supposed that sort of expectation was implied from how she was unofficially "in charge" of their practices, but she'd thought that she was just taking the lead because she was the older sister and the one who'd been playing music longer.

"Well, you did. I know your memory can be difficult, but please try to remember these things, okay? They're important." Mom replied with a slight huff, and Mari couldn't stop herself from wincing a little. It was true, her memory was sometimes quite a bit worse than she really wanted it to be, and mom was one of the few people aware of just how much of a nuisance it could be. So if she said Mari had done something like that, there was no reason to doubt it – it'd hardly be the first time she'd needed such a reminder. "But anyway, with what happened tonight..." Mom continued with her original point, unabated. "You should've told us if practice wasn't going well, sweetie. If Sunny needed to go back to private lessons with tutors, we could-"

"No! That's not–!" Mari hadn't exactly been planning to cut her mother off, but the words came bursting out of her mouth all the same. She knew it was rude to interrupt, let alone to do it after already being scolded for it once before in this conversation. And indeed, she noticed mom's frown deepening and eyes narrowing a bit. This time, however, she wasn't immediately rebuked, so she took the apparent opportunity and hastened to explain. "I mean, you don't need to do that. Sunny and I actually did manage to get it perfect in practice, so I know what he said, but whatever happened wasn't really his fault." she said, the words coming out more quickly than she completely intended. There was a long, silent pause, and she almost wondered if she'd maybe spoken too quickly. Eventually, however, mom responded.

"Oh, Mari, I know it's not completely your brother's fault... It's yours, honey." Mari froze. It was like everything in her body slammed to a total halt for a single moment. "That's the other thing we need to talk about tonight." She could tell from her mother's tone... this was the sword she'd been expecting to fall all evening. Mom's dark eyes were still staring into her. "Sunny made mistakes, but so did you, and yours – well, there's no nice way to say this – they sounded worse. You should really know better, alright?" Once again mom placed her hands on her hips. "And then you stopped playing. That's what completely ruined the recital, you know?"

Mari just sat there, unable to think of a response. What would she even say? There'd be no point in arguing, because it wasn't like she actually disagreed. Nothing mom was saying was incorrect, and in fact she'd already thought those exact same things herself. And she couldn't offer any sort of explanation, either, because she didn't have one to give. Deep down she suspected that a good enough excuse didn't really exist – or if it did, she'd never find it, at least. She noticed that her legs were shaking again. She tried to make them stop. Ultimately, however, it seemed that mom wasn't actually looking for a response, just gathering her thoughts, because she exhaled slowly and continued.

"You're not five years old anymore, Mari, you can't just stomp your feet and quit every time you get a little upset." she said. Mari couldn't help but feel a jolt of confusion at that comment – she didn't remember anything like that being okay when she was five either. Mom didn't seem to notice, continuing her lecture. "That's not a normal way for a fifteen-year-old girl to handle things, and especially not one as smart as you. I know it can be difficult-" Mari winced, knowing what her mother meant by that. "-but you need to try not to freak out, sweetie. Your father and I thought you were doing better about that." Mari had thought so too. "And for goodness' sake, stop fiddling with your collar! You'll ruin your nice shirt." The apparent non-sequitur made Mari blink. She looked down at her hand and slowly lowered it. She once again hadn't realized she'd been picking at her top button while distracted. The threads around it were starting to come loose just a little. If she wasn't careful she could pull it right off with a little more force. No wonder mom sounded so exasperated when she said that.

Her mother sighed for... she wasn't sure how many times it'd been tonight. "Anyway, I know I don't need to tell you again how much went into the recital, but... you really disappointed us tonight, Mari."

And there it was. She'd known this was coming. Of course she did. It had been obvious and inevitable from the moment they'd left the venue, or maybe even before then. Yet even so, Mari suddenly felt like the wind had been punched out of her lungs with the words. No, not punched. It was that same bitterly cold sensation from the recital, her mind briefly conjuring images of someone taking an icicle and ramming it into her stomach. She wanted to sink into the couch. She wanted to hug her knees like Sunny had been doing before. She wanted to... she had no actual clear idea what, just be doing anything other than having to look at her mother's disappointed face.

"I'm sorry, mom." What else could she say?

"...That's all I had to say, you can head up to bed now." Mom dismissed her, finally turning away, and Mari looked down at the floor even as she slowly went to stand up.

Mari arrived at her and Sunny's bedroom almost on autopilot. Even the usual twinges shooting through her knee as she climbed the stairs felt somehow perfunctory, like it was just a standard background routine to get out of the way. Like her knee felt that way on the stairs because that's what it did, not something that actually hurt that she had to think about. Which was fine by her, since she wasn't thinking about it. All that she was focusing on was that horrible frigid feeling coursing throughout her body. That feeling, and the word that had brought it back. Disappointed. It was such a simple term, really, almost mild if you looked at it out of context. It just meant the feeling of expectations that weren't met. Hardly a dramatic or splashy word, not like the impassioned rants you'd see in a novel or a tv show. And yet, even though this was real life, Mari couldn't help but wonder just for a moment if what she was feeling now was the same as how the characters on the receiving end of those speeches felt.

Realizing that she had been standing there staring at the bedroom door for... probably a couple minutes, she pushed it open and stepped inside. The light was already turned out, though the light from the hall revealed that there was a cocoon of blankets on Sunny's bed, making it immediately apparent where he was. Even with everything else she was feeling, whatever all that was, that sight made Mari frown. Sunny only tended to fully mummify himself like that when he was upset... Actually, what was she thinking? Of course he was – after all, why wouldn't he be? She doubted anyone in the house was happy – a sudden, absurd thought popped into her head that it wouldn't surprise her if even Mewo found a reason to be disappointed tonight. Said cat was actually on Sunny's bed too, curled up near his head, or at least where she assumed his head was. That was nice, there'd been a time where Mewo hadn't cared for Sunny much. Mari shook herself slightly to try to focus back on her task at hand (such as it was): getting ready for bed. She didn't really know if she could manage to do much else, she suddenly felt exhausted on top of everything else.

Striding quietly over to her dresser, she pulled it open and removed the first nightgown she found. Not her white one, she'd thrown that in the laundry basket, but a similar-looking one in pale blue. The fabric on this one felt scratchier, and for a moment she was tempted to go dig out her favorite instead. She shook her head and got changed, taking a moment to add her other clothes to the hamper as well. Only once that was done did she realize she'd forgotten to fully shut the door and made sure to be extra careful clicking it closed this time. She didn't want to make a loud noise to startle Sunny in case he actually was asleep. With all that done, she finally allowed herself to sink into her bed, eternally grateful for the memory foam layer on top of her mattress. Once the brief busywork of bedtime preparation was no longer available to distract her, however, all that was left was her thoughts. Disappointed, there was still that word going in circles in her mind. She realized it now. That word that seemed so straightforward was actually insidious. Her parents had expected her to give them a perfect performance and she'd abjectly failed. No, to even talk about this... whatever you could call tonight in the same thought as the word "perfect" was laughable. Except not the funny kind of laugh. So it wasn't like mom was wrong to say it. She felt cold even under her blankets.

She heard shuffling sounds from Sunny's side of the room – and then, very softly, feet hitting the floor. She went still, slightly confused, as Sunny padded over carefully.

"Mari?" he asked, voice quiet and obviously uncertain. Mari paused, unsure of how she should react, before slowly turning her head towards him to show she had heard. Not that she could actually see him all that well, her eyes not fully adjusted to the dark yet. Even with that, however, she noticed the silhouette of his head hang. "Mari, I'm sorry."

The tone of his voice made that familiar thing in the back of her chest reel, and it was like an invisible threshold had been crossed. It was suddenly all too much. Mari's chest burned, she felt like she was freezing, all the feelings from the car ride home came back at some point, or maybe they hadn't left.

"I can't." Their friends were disappointed, their parents were disappointed, Sunny was disappointed, it was just too much and she couldn't find a single word for it. "Sunny, I can't... talk about this anymore. Tomorrow, or... some other time, but right now I can't. Please." Mari felt sick, and the way Sunny's silhouette trudged back over to his bed didn't help. She wished she'd just gone with that impulse to cancel the recital this afternoon. It couldn't have turned out any worse than this.

Even as exhausted as she was, sleep didn't come easily.

Chapter Text

The first thing Mari became aware of when she awoke that morning, before she even opened her eyes, was the dull ache pounding away at the base of her skull. Her immediate instinct was to roll over onto her stomach, pressing her face against the pillow – that sometimes helped, at least temporarily – and try to get back to sleep. She wasn't sure exactly what time it was, but it couldn't be unreasonably late in the morning yet. It hadn't been that bright behind her eyelids before she'd turned over. Even laying like this, however, the pounding sensation stubbornly refused to fade. Mari tried to outlast it, hoping something would change, but after what was probably a couple minutes of this, she had to concede that those efforts were in vain. More sleep was out of reach. It looked like she was going to be starting her day now whether she really liked it or not. Really, she wasn't even particularly surprised. It was hardly the first time a headache had served as her alarm clock, and it probably wouldn't be the last. And especially after how last night had gone... But she immediately shoved that line of thought down as forcefully as she could manage. She couldn't avoid it and she knew that, but rehashing it all now, when she'd hardly been awake five minutes, was too much to ask. Just focus on the morning for now.

Pushing herself up with her hands, Mari had to stifle a groan so as not to disturb Sunny – who she felt safe assuming would still be asleep. Opening her eyes, she blinked a few times to clear them before looking around the room. Her guess at the time had been about right. Just about eight-thirty now. Honestly a little earlier than she liked to get up on weekends, though she didn't tend to sleep as late as Sunny. Speaking of whom, a glance over towards his bed revealed that her second guess was on point as well. At some point in the night his head had escaped from the burrow of blankets, revealing that he was still very much out for the count. Sometimes Mari couldn't help but feel a little bit jealous of his ability to snooze no matter the situation. But at the same time, that feeling was overpowered by her relief that he at least managed to get some decent rest. She wouldn't have wanted him to be exhausted on top of everything else. Not for a second.

As she seated herself upright at the edge of the bed, the movement caused parts of the room to suddenly appear to melt into a blur before her eyes, the pain in her head shooting into a spike at the same moment. A sharp exhale escaping her throat before she could stop it, Mari pressed the palms of her hands over her eyes to black out her vision. It was going to be one of those headaches then. Fantastic. Taking a deep breath, she counted out about ten seconds, and thankfully, the surge of pain receded as quickly as it had come and she uncovered her eyes once again. Blinking slowly, the blurry spots in her view seemed to have vanished (though she resolved not to turn her head too quickly, just to be sure). Moving a little more slowly this time, she once more went to get out of bed...

….Only to find herself stumbling the very moment she was on her feet. Throwing a hand back towards the bed to catch herself, she felt her brow twisting – though she couldn't be sure exactly what expression she was making – as she looked down at her knee. She'd been so distracted by her head that for a moment she'd completely forgotten about that. But no, there it was, invisible needles jabbing away right on cue. Carefully, she tested her weight yet again, and thankfully this time it held, though she still felt a little wobbly. Thank goodness it hadn't buckled completely, at least. Though thankfully infrequent, that was always, as Aubrey might put it, just the worst. In hindsight, after yesterday, her bad knee acting up was somehow even less surprising than the headache. Between all the time at the piano bench with the two practice sessions and the recital itself, the total of forty minutes in the back of the car, and a night of tossing and turning... really, it'd be much more of a shock if her leg didn't ache after all that. Mari couldn't help but feel a bit silly for not expecting it right away.

Shuffling over to the window, she touched her knuckles against the glass, pulling them away again once she'd felt how cool it was. Today would definitely be on the chillier side for an October day, then. With that established, she made her way over to her dresser to pick out a good shirt. One with long sleeves for the weather. The first one she pulled out was light pink with white stripes. This one must've been newer, or at least she didn't remember ever wearing it. She found herself running her fingers across the material, and... ah. That would be why. Even just to her hand the fabric felt coarse. Not even tolerably so, unlike her current nightgown, this sweater would definitely be bothering her all day if she wore it like this. Not wanting to be ungrateful to whoever had bought this for her – likely mom – Mari figured this one could be saved for a really cold day, when she'd wear more layers beneath. But not by itself. Instead, she decided to dig through to find one of her favorites, a dark blue shirt that looked nearly black in most light. She'd had this one for years, one of the few times mom had let her buy oversized clothes on the grounds that she'd grow into it. And she had. Now it fit perfectly, and for that Mari was very glad. It wasn't actually silk, but from how smooth it felt to her, she'd almost think it was if she didn't know better.

As she knelt down to the bottom drawer to retrieve a suitable pair of pants – preferably lighter-colored, she liked the tops and bottoms to contrast – Mari paused and chanced another glance over at Sunny's bed. He didn't usually tend to be disturbed by her going about her morning routine, they'd shared a room far too long to not get accustomed to each others' habits. Yet for some reason she couldn't really name, she felt like double-checking anyway. As expected, however, she was soon mollified by the fact that he hadn't moved an inch since she'd gotten up. Still soundly asleep... Actually, was that a line of drool on his face? Gross. Mari shook her head wryly and went back to her task. Once she'd finished choosing her outfit, she went to stand back up, only for both her headache and her knee to make their displeasure known yet again.

As she steadied herself against the dresser, Mari sighed. If it was going to be one of those days, then she needed a shower. A very hot shower.

Mari ran a hand through her still-damp hair idly as she descended the stairs. Thankfully, the heat of the shower seemed to have appeased her leg for now, as she felt much more stable on her feet and the needling sensation had dulled back to a level she could ignore. It was no big shock, really, in the years since the softball accident she'd found that the colder seasons were generally worse. Too cool, too dry, those were the things that made the knee the most sensitive. Of course the warm water helped, she'd been counting on it. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the throbbing in her skull. In fact, if she wasn't imagining things, that had actually intensified, her mind briefly conjuring impressions of construction workers pounding away at a chunk of concrete with hammers. She swiftly decided to keep that mental image to herself – it wasn't really that bad, far from the worst in fact. Mom would probably tell her not to exaggerate so much.

("And she'd be right. Focus on real problems instead of being a drama queen.")

Once downstairs, she immediately made her way to the kitchen, pausing for just a moment as she entered. Speaking of mom, there she was, seated at the kitchen table. An empty bowl that had probably held cereal sat off to the side, while laid out in front of mom were a series of papers that she was poring over – bills, presumably. She glanced up at the sound of Mari entering.

"Good morning, sweetie. You're up bright and early for a Sunday." Mom greeted, in a tone Mari guessed was probably meant to be somewhat cheery, though she couldn't identify any sort of distinct expression on her mother's face to confirm that. Mari nodded vaguely and let out an idle hum as she stepped into the kitchen, her eyes locking onto one of the high cabinets as she made a beeline over to it. Her focus would last only a moment, however, as a pointed sigh emanated from mom's direction. Given pause again by the sound, Mari was puzzled for a single heartbeat before it hit her. Of course. She should've said "good morning" back. That was what mom had obviously expected, it was the normal way to respond after all. Or at least some sort of actual verbal greeting. She'd been thinking about her current task, but... intentional or not, rude was still rude. No wonder mom disapproved. It was a small thing, not even worth properly scolding her for, but even so. That kind of difficulty wasn't a good way to start the day in general, and especially not on the heels of... last night.

("Forgetting how to respond to people now? It's like you really are five again.")

Feeling the pounding in her skull a little heavier, Mari noticed that her shoulders had hunched themselves slightly and tried to straighten up as she trudged the rest of the way over to the cabinet. Opening it up, she saw a handful of white bottles with wordy labels, carefully shoving a couple of them aside to get at one specific one. As she reached for it, however...

"Mari, what are you doing in there?" her mom's voice cut through the air again. A glance over at her revealed that she'd looked up from her pile of bills, an expression Mari had seen often enough to immediately recognize as expectant on her face. Mari realized that her actions must've looked somehow strange and hastened to clarify, quickly grabbing her prize and turning to answer mom. Almost a little too quickly, as the edges of her vision threatened to blur again, leaving her blinking strongly for a moment before speaking.

"Um, I woke up with a migraine this morning, so..." she trailed off, holding up the pill bottle with the label so mom could see it and hoping that would complete the explanation. Ibuprofen tablets, nothing particularly exciting – Mari wasn't going to go messing with her parents' medicines or anything like that. Mom pursed her lips in a frown, but gave a short nod and didn't say anything further, so Mari guessed that was a tacit acceptance. She had a feeling in the back of her mind that they might have had pretty much this exact exchange before, but she couldn't quite remember for sure. Maybe she was just imagining it, that was somewhat likely too.

Retrieving one of the little red tablets, Mari returned the pill bottle to the cabinet and headed for the refrigerator for something to swallow it with. She couldn't take pills dry, it made her throat feel horrible, just the thought of it left her wanting to gag. Opening the fridge, she looked over her options. Milk, no. Soda, not this early. Mom's wine, absolutely not – even if she had been old enough, it smelled so awful she'd never go near it. And you weren't supposed to take medicine and alcohol anyway. So that left either water, or... There! She felt a tiny bit of triumph. There was still some apple juice left in the bottle in the fridge's door. That would do perfectly. Mari was well aware that it was something like 97% just sugar water – but she found that she didn't really care. She liked it anyway. Uncapping the juice, Mari went to raise the bottle to her mouth-

Mom exhaled sharply. "Remember to use a glass, Mari." She sounded exasperated, and Mari couldn't stop herself from flinching slightly at the reprimand. Of course she should have done that, it was normally the polite thing to do. She knew that. Drinking straight from the bottle was faster, more convenient, but that wasn't an excuse. Awkwardly making her way over to the cabinets again, she suddenly felt very aware of her mother's eyes still upon her. From a different cabinet she obtained a small glass and poured the juice into it. Only then did the intent stare on her back seem to avert. Finally Mari could take the ibuprofen, and ideally get this headache to go away. Or perhaps just lessen it, but frankly, she thought any improvement was worth its weight in gold in this case.

Placing the empty glass in the sink, Mari found herself pausing. She'd had her shower and mostly assuaged her bad knee. For the moment, anyway, it would inevitably return. She'd taken a painkiller which should kick in to start assuaging her migraine soon enough. With those two things done... what now? She had run out of immediate tasks to keep herself busy.

("Because distracting yourself is definitely what you should be doing, right?")

Leaning back against the counter, she closed her eyes for a moment to think. She could get breakfast, but she wasn't feeling particularly hungry at the moment. Later felt better. But on the other hand, mom had already eaten, but she was still at the table, would sitting with her be more polite? ….Wait. Mari opened her eyes again. Indeed, her mother was still right there, focus back on her papers once again. That was what was bothering her about this whole scene. There'd been a faint something niggling at her brain ever since she walked in, but now that she was properly aware of it and thinking it over, it was obvious.

"So where's dad? Wasn't he home?" the questions came from her lips as soon as they took form. Seeing mom still there at the table, but no sign of dad... it wasn't unusual by itself, really, their work schedules were like that. But it was unusual for a day like today. Despite the fact that dad generally got up a little earlier than mom, they almost always made an effort to have breakfast together on the occasions they were both home. Especially if it was also on a weekend. But he wasn't there, and in fact, now that Mari was looking, she realized the lack of a second bowl or any other dishes, on the table or in the sink, disproved the possibility that he'd been there with mom and simply gone to do something else. The breakfast together simply hadn't happened. This time mom didn't put down her current bit of paperwork, though her eyes did peer over the top of the page.

"Your father got an urgent call from his work, so he headed off. You know how it is, sweetie." she replied. Mari did not, in fact, know what sort of emergency would be urgent in a way that required a marketing manager to go in to work before breakfast, on a day that he was supposed to have off. But mom had already turned her full attention back to the bill, and she'd said it in her obvious dismissive voice. So it was probably something Mari should have at least a general idea of, mom seemed to be taking that as a given. She just didn't. Distracting her mother with unnecessary questions wasn't something she should do, though, so she decided to drop the subject. Right this instant, the answer was that dad wasn't here, and presumably nobody quite knew when he'd get home, just that it'd be later. That second part wasn't even too far from his normal work schedule. Or mom's, for that matter. So she was probably making a deal out of nothing.

As Mari turned to leave – intending to do... something else (watch TV, maybe?) – mom spoke up again. "We'll be going to the Rodriguez's around eleven, so don't forget, alright?" A pause. Mari hesitated to answer, not wanting to interrupt in case she wasn't done. It turned out to be the right choice this time. "And I'm counting on you to get your brother up if he's not awake in about the next hour, so don't get too distracted with anything." she added.

"Of course, mom. I won't." Mari promised quickly. And why wouldn't she? It's not like there were any other options here. It wasn't really different from making sure Sunny got to school on time. Just one of her responsibilities as big sister. The eleven-o-clock timeframe didn't surprise her either, when she thought about it. Hero and Kel's parents did not like to be disturbed early on Sundays, it simply wasn't something one did. It'd been that way as long as Mari could remember living here. The grass was green, the sky was blue, the stairs were annoying, and you didn't bother Mr. and Mrs. Rodriguez before at least ten on Sundays. All facts she couldn't deny.

"Come in, come in!" Mrs. Rodriguez waved them inside. Mari stepped in first, Sunny just a couple steps behind her, though from the way his feet were dragging, he probably would've been considerably slower were it not for their mom following behind him. Unbidden, the thought occurred to Mari that mom may have taken up the rear on purpose to make sure they wouldn't try to back out. But that idea was quickly shoved down for being ridiculous – it wasn't like either of them would actually do that, right? It wouldn't even accomplish anything. They hadn't objected when mom had decided they needed to apologize last night, why would they now? As far as Mari was concerned, it was just something she had to do, trying to get out of it or delay it wasn't even something she could consider as a possibility. Nevermind the matter of whether she wanted to or not, that wasn't relevant in the first place.

"You just missed Henry, I'm afraid." Mrs. Rodriguez noted conversationally, pulling Mari's attention back to her. "He volunteered to run some errands with his father, so they won't be back for awhile." she explained, pausing to glance at Mari and Sunny. "If I'd known you two were coming over I would've told them to hold off a few minutes, at least let you say hello before they headed out."

"Ah, it's alright!" Mari hastened to reply. She got the vague sense of a pair eyes on her back, but she couldn't be sure if it was mom or Sunny. Probably not both, though. Had her response been somehow strange? ….Oh, it might have come out wrong. She just didn't want to be rude to Mrs. Rodriguez, so she confirmed that it was okay, she wasn't trying to imply she didn't want to see Hero or anything like that.

("...Are you sure you weren't? Didn't you want to avoid seeing him look at you like he did at the concert hall?")

Mrs. Rodriguez, however, simply hummed slightly in acknowledgment. Then she seemed to realize something. "Oh, but Kel's still here! Give me a moment and I can call him down for you."

"Ahem..." As they stopped in the living room, Mari and Sunny's mother cleared her throat, drawing Mrs. Rodriguez's eyes to her. "Actually, Elena, before you do, the reason we came over today was because Mari and Sunny have something to say to you." she paused and looked at her children. "Don't you?" Sensing that her mother's pointed gaze was more directed at her – which wasn't surprising – Mari tried to think of how to respond, but Mrs. Rodriguez beat her to the punch.

"Oh dear. I assume this is about last night, then?" she asked, frowning, as she looked between the two siblings. Sunny looked down at the floor, Mari catching a glimpse of him biting his bottom lip before she looked back to Mrs. Rodriguez. He probably didn't know how to start, so it really was up to her. But that was okay.

"That's right..." Mari began vaguely, trying to buy a couple seconds to put the words in order in her brain. "I'm... really sorry about what happened, I know you and Mr. Rodriguez went out of your way to come see us play." She paused for a moment, bowing her head slightly. "And we wasted your time. I'm sorry."

"...Sorry." Sunny echoed behind her, and Mari realized it was the first time she'd heard him speak today. She hadn't ended up needing to get him out of bed after all, and he'd only responded to her tentative greeting with a noise she couldn't decipher before going to grab breakfast. She hadn't talked to him again all morning. (A tiny part of her couldn't help but wonder if he'd been avoiding her.) But now wasn't the time to worry about that, not when she should be focused on Mrs. Rodriguez. Speaking of whom, Mari noticed she was still frowning, but her expression had shifted somehow, her eyebrows raising. There were a lot of things that might mean. Despite how often Mari came over here with Sunny, she hadn't actually conversed one-on-one with Hero and Kel's parents enough to really be able to recognize their expressions on sight.

"Oh, no, you don't have to! There's no need to apologize for that." Mrs. Rodriguez said quickly, folding her hands in front of herself. "Honestly, Aarón and I were just a little worried about you two. Is everything alright?" she asked, looking between them. Mari was vaguely aware of her mother tutting slightly behind her, and of Sunny shifting subtly yet keeping his gaze locked on his feet. But she wasn't really paying attention to either of them closely right now, mind suddenly awhirl with thoughts. Mrs. Rodriguez was just accepting the apology so quickly... or, no, not accepting, dismissing. Just going right past it and claiming it was unnecessary. That couldn't be right. They had wasted her and Mr. Rodriguez's time, the recital had been a huge planned ordeal, so ruining it was a waste of time for everyone. That was an undeniable fact as Mari knew it... Maybe Mrs. Rodriguez was just moving past it because she figured (correctly) that their own mother had handled scolding them? That was the only explanation Mari could think of that sounded consistent.

And worried about them? ….Even Mari could pick up the subtext there. She was the one who'd freaked out in front of everyone, after all. Her mom had pretty much said it too last night. So it could only mean she was the worrying one. Mrs. Rodriguez was worried because of her. With that realization, Mari felt her face burning in shame, and she found herself once again really wishing she could copy what Sunny was doing. Looking down felt like it would be so much easier. The patterns in the floorboards were infinitely simpler to read. They wouldn't change, and there wasn't anything important hidden that she had to try to look out for, they were just patterns for patterns' sake. But she couldn't do that, she needed to be responsible.

"We're fine, it wasn't any kind of big emergency or anything, so you don't need to worry." Mari said. It was the truth, there wasn't any urgent crisis, but she still felt like she didn't quite know if that was the right thing to say. This conversation was totally different from reassuring Sunny or their friends about something. It was probably just because she was talking to an adult, so she needed to be respectful. That must've been it.

("You sure did a good job making a crisis of it last night.")

"Really, Sunny and Mari just had a bit of stage fright, I think." Mom added behind her. That surprised Mari a bit, at least enough that she had to actively stop herself from spinning to stare at her mother. Mom had said before that it was important Mari knew how to explain herself without someone else making excuses for her – or at least, Mari thought she remembered such a discussion, and it would make sense anyway.

"...Mmh. Stage fright." Sunny agreed quietly, Mari noticing his head bob in the slightest nod out of the corner of her eye. It wasn't unusual for him to be somewhat vague and subdued in his responses, but even so, something about his behavior was still making her chest ache when she thought too much about it. It was then Mari remembered that she'd cut short his attempt to talk to her last night. Was it about that? She genuinely had felt too overwhelmed by everything to speak, that hadn't been a lie, but even so, her stomach churned slightly with guilt. But now wasn't a time she could follow up on that. She forced herself to focus back on what they were actually talking about. Stage fright, mom and Sunny both said. Could it really be that simple? Was that what had caused the failure at the recital? Thinking about it, she did recall feeling the pressure from the audience's eyes, so... of course Sunny would have felt that too, it made perfect sense when she put it that way. Mari felt her face burn once again for not realizing such an obvious answer.

Mrs. Rodriguez said nothing for a few moments, small frown still on her face as she looked over Sunny and Mari's heads. Mari guessed it was to make eye contact with mom, and allowed herself a small glance back which confirmed that. They were probably doing that thing all adults – but especially parents – seemed to know how to do where they somehow had an entire exchange without actually saying a word. Or so Mari had often seen it described in books and such, she couldn't say she entirely understood the sensation herself. (But then, that was hardly unusual at this point.) After a few moments, said "conversation" seemed to reach some sort of conclusion, as Mrs. Rodriguez nodded slowly.

"...I'm sorry to hear that, I heard you two were really working hard for it. But there really was a big crowd, wasn't there?" Mrs. Rodriguez said. It might or might not have been a rhetorical question, but Mari found herself responding anyway.

"Mmmhmm... It was a lot of people, a whole lot more than I expected." she replied with a nod. That was the honest truth, it had felt like a ton of eyes on her back. So that must've been the problem, right? Almost instinctively, she found herself turning to her little brother. "Right, Sunny?" she asked. Just to confirm that it wasn't just her imagination.

"Yeah." he agreed, to her relief. So that was it. "Don't even know most of them." he added, almost as a mumble. Mari wasn't entirely sure whether the adults heard that comment or not. But she didn't disagree with the sentiment – how had mom and dad arranged things that led to so much of the town to showing up, anyway? She still didn't have a good answer to that, unfortunately.

"Right, well, I hope it goes better for you next time. We'll be rooting for you over here, of course." Mrs. Rodriguez said, shooting the siblings a smile that Mari felt safe assuming was meant to be encouraging. "Anyway, it's not too far from lunch time, so I can fetch Kel and you're welcome to join us." she offered briskly, seemingly deeming the prior subject resolved and moving right along to the next matter.

Mari heard a sound from mom's direction that she guessed was a shaking head. "Sorry, Elena, but we have to pass for today. These two are grounded for the next week, so..." Mom replied. Her voice turned slightly sharper when she mentioned the grounding, probably to remind the siblings of that point as well. Mari found herself frowning, she still wasn't satisfied with that, but she knew not to go into that right now. Mrs. Rodriguez huffed unexpectedly, putting her hands on her hips.

"Come now, you could at least let them grab a sandwich, Rin. It's not like anyone's asking to stay the night. And I know Kel would be glad to see them for at least a few minutes." she retorted, shaking her head. Mari glanced between the two parents in the room uncertainly as they fell into another staredown, noticing vaguely that Sunny was doing much the same. Mari hadn't been planning on fighting mom's decision, and Mrs. Rodriguez's argument took her off-balance a little. But on the other hand, maybe it shouldn't have, since now that she thought about it, Hero and Kel's mother was known for taking offers of food rather seriously – this was hardly the first time she'd insisted on such a thing.

"...Alright, they can stay for a quick lunch." Mom conceded after a moment that felt like it dragged on uncomfortably. "I'll be going back, though, I have some paperwork I've been putting off."

Mari was a little surprised at the decision, but turned to Sunny and tried to give him a smile. "Hear that, Sunny? We can say hi to-"

"I'm going home too." Sunny cut her off abruptly. "Don't feel like eating." he added. Mari felt her brief attempt at cheer fade even quicker than it had come. Sunny wasn't looking at her, his gaze falling down to the floor again.

"Oh no, is everything alright?" she found herself asking immediately, all her attention instantly focused on him like a laser. She didn't want to annoy him by fretting too much again, but what else was she supposed to do here?

"...I woke up feeling a little sick." Sunny replied, just barely loud enough for everyone to hear. Mari peered at him closely, as if just looking would help her discern the problem. Unsurprisingly, however, it didn't – beyond his hair being a bit messy, perhaps, nothing looked awry. But she was well aware that meant very little, if he said he was feeling ill then she believed it.

"Oh, sweetie, you should've told us earlier. Mari could've handled the apology, you know." Mom said with a small sigh, shaking her head to herself. Mari jolted slightly at the sound of her voice, so focused on Sunny as to have almost blanked out the fact that mom and Mrs. Rodriguez were still there as well.

"Right, let's get you home." Mari agreed with her mother right away. "And I can see about fixing you some soup or something in a little bit, if you-"

But Sunny cut her offer short again. "Mari, you should stay." he said. Before she could instinctively object, he continued. "I'm more tired I think. I just want to get back to bed right now... You don't need to worry, sis." Mari felt her frown deepen as he spoke, her first urge still to argue, but she also didn't want to bother him more by being too pushy.

"...He's right, Mari. It's sweet of you to want to take care of your brother, I'm glad you're so responsible, but I can get him to bed. You can go ahead and have lunch with your friend, it'll be fine." Mom agreed unexpectedly. Mari found herself with absolutely no clue how to respond – the instinct in the back of her chest was telling her to worry about Sunny, but mom and Sunny himself were telling her not to. It reminded her of the times when he had to take a sick day from school while she still needed to go. She hadn't known how to feel about that either. Not wanting to outright ignore what she'd been told, however, she eventually found herself slowly nodding nonetheless. After all, if Sunny was just going to rest, wouldn't she ultimately bother him by being there to fuss?

"I'll go get Kel to come downstairs, alright? You can head into the kitchen, Mari. And Sunny, dear, feel better soon!" Mrs. Rodriguez spoke up once the matter seemed to have been decided. Mari kept her gaze on Sunny as he and mom headed for the front door, but he didn't look back to meet it. Mom, however, seemed to remember something after a moment, as she stopped and turned to face her once again.

"Oh, but Mari, remember you're still grounded. So I expect you back home in-" she paused and glanced down at the watch on her wrist. "-half an hour, no fooling around all afternoon, understand?" Mari nodded slightly again... and then, after a beat of silence where mom stared at her expectantly, remembered that it was more proper to give a verbal response.

"Okay, mom." she said quickly. Mom huffed, but seemed to accept that as good enough, as she led Sunny out of the Rodriguez household without further ado. With Mrs. Rodriguez having headed upstairs, Mari found herself standing alone in the living room for a minute. Somehow she'd ended up with lunch with Kel by herself, then.

Chapter Text

"Hey, Mari!" Kel's voice echoed loudly throughout the Rodriguez's kitchen, and Mari immediately spun to look at him. She wasn't particularly surprised to see his mouth stretched into a wide grin, noticing how it revealed a small gap between his teeth. One had been knocked loose not too long ago – a remaining baby tooth, fortunately – in some accident Mari found she couldn't quite recall the details of. Possibly because it wasn't even the first time, a fact that gave Hero no small amount of chagrin. Kel himself didn't seem to mind it though, so Mari had resolved not to give it too much worry either. As long as Sunny didn't get the bright idea to try to recreate whatever Kel had been doing, anyway, that would inevitably be a massive headache for all involved. Metaphorically, and probably also literally. Shaking that mildly disturbing thought away, Mari focused back on Kel and gave him a smile that she hoped was similarly bright.

"Hi Kel, good morning!" she greeted, and immediately had to stop herself from reflexively cringing slightly. The good morning part had come out almost instinctively, a habit ingrained heavily from seeing each other on the way to school. But was it really entirely appropriate for this situation?

Kel, however, didn't seem to mind, letting out a small laugh. "Yeah, I didn't think about it, but I guess it technically is still morning, huh?" he replied easily, and Mari felt safe assuming the slight questioning lilt at the end was just him musing rather than an actual question. She found herself nodding anyway (it was in fact still a bit before noon), which Kel saw and returned with another grin. Then he paused and glanced around the kitchen, a quizzical look overtaking his features. "Is it just you, though? No Sunny anywhere?" he wondered.

"Sunny's not feeling well today." Mrs. Rodriguez spoke up as she entered behind Kel, leaving Mari to awkwardly close her mouth, having opened it to say much the same thing. "I would've told you that if you hadn't run down here before I was done." Kel's mother added, though her voice was still light, so it probably wasn't meant to be any sort of real rebuke. Kel himself simply shrugged the comment off, apparently focused more on the first part.

"Aww man, really? That sucks." Kel crossed his arms, his face falling into what was almost a pout. His mother tutted something under her breath that Mari thought sounded like "language" but didn't press the issue. Kel quickly perked up again, however, his energy returning so rapidly one wouldn't even guess he'd looked disappointed mere moments before. "But I guess that just means I get to hang out with Mari!" he proclaimed. "Hehe, Hero's gonna be jealous he missed out." he added, chuckling to himself in satisfaction. Mari couldn't help but smile again in return, finding that it came easily in response to Kel's attitude. "Anyway, I heard you say sandwiches?" Kel turned to his mother as he spoke again.

"It'll be up to you to fix your own." Mrs. Rodriguez corrected, moving over to the pantry to retrieve bread, peanut butter, and jam, all of which she passed to Kel with what Mari recognized as an expectant look. Kel, taking the hint, brought them over to the kitchen table before grabbing a chair.

"Oh, you're not going to have lunch with us?" Mari wondered, picking up on the implications of Mrs. Rodriguez's phrasing. She'd sort of assumed that was what the offer of staying for lunch might mean, that everyone present would be sitting together, but now she was having to second-guess.

"No, no, I plan to eat a little later, don't worry about it. I'll let you kids have your space." Mrs. Rodriguez replied. Mari figured she was going to leave it at that, but after a small pause, she continued. "I just thought you might... appreciate a little change of pace." An odd undertone shaded her voice as she said that, just a hint of something Mari couldn't really identify the meaning of. However, before Mari could wonder about it, Kel's mother was moving about the kitchen again, this time to the refrigerator to procure some alternate toppings: sliced cheese and a few different packs of sandwich meats. Mari approached her, dutifully offering to take the items to the table (if Kel had helped, it was only polite she did as well, especially since she was the guest), which Mrs. Rodriguez accepted with a small smile. As Mari made her way over to the table to join Kel, Mrs. Rodriguez grabbed a couple plates and some silverware. "Well, anyway, you two have fun!" she said as she placed them on the table, to which Kel nodded enthusiastically. With that she seemed satisfied and exited the kitchen without further ado, leaving the two of them alone.

Taking a seat next to Kel, Mari was glad to note that her knee didn't twinge from bending to sit, or at least not noticeably more than it usually did. A little bit better than she entirely expected, even... Perhaps that shower earlier really had done wonders. Either way, she'd take it. Retrieving a couple slices of white bread, Mari's eyes roved over the available ingredients thoughtfully, an image of a sandwich starting to form in her mind. She really hadn't consciously realized it until now, but she found she was still pretty hungry despite having eaten breakfast a bit later than usual. Actually, now that she thought about it, that made sense. The previous day had taken a good deal of her energy for... obvious reasons... And, though it hadn't really occurred to her at the time, she'd ultimately been sent to bed without dinner.

("Which you probably deserved, all things considered.")

Shelving that train of thought for now, she politely passed the bread bag over to the waiting Kel. As he took it eagerly from her hands, he made what sounded like some sort of thoughtful noise.

"You know, it's kinda funny!" he noted brightly. Mari felt her brow begin to furrow slightly, not entirely sure what he meant, but it wasn't much of a surprise when he continued without her needing to prompt an explanation. "I can't remember the last time it was just us two. I mean, we see each other a bunch but it's always with the others, and when we split up it's usually me and Sunny, and you and Hero, or you and Aubrey, or..." Kel trailed off, glancing up towards the ceiling as if trying to think of all the various configurations their friend group could take. Mari let out a small laugh.

"Don't worry, Kel, I get it." she reassured, nodding her head in understanding, and Kel appeared satisfied with himself. "And now that you say it, you're right, I can't really remember either." It was the truth, she frequently spent time with Kel on the way to school, or going to Hobbeez, but that was with their siblings around, or with all their friends having picnics at the park or going to Gino's. Very rarely did the two of them end up hanging out like this. But that didn't mean she didn't enjoy his presence... Maybe they should really do so more often, if she could find time.

Kel seemed to be thinking on the same wavelength, as he beamed at her. "But we totally should! You're cool." he said, almost matter-of-factly, as if one-hundred percent confident in the declaration. Mari wasn't entirely sure what Kel's threshold for cool was – and she wasn't certain that he completely knew either, it probably varied somewhat depending on the day – but she appreciated the compliment nonetheless. She gave him a smile. She'd try to live up to his expectations. As they spoke, Mari carefully aligned a few layers of sliced turkey across one of the pieces of bread. She paused as she looked over it, then glanced towards the pack of meat appraisingly. Still plenty within. Her mind made up, she added another couple slices, arranged such that the turkey didn't stick out too far from the edges of the bread, before layering a slice of cheese over the top. The end result was stacked a little higher than her usual fare, but again: she was hungry.

Taking the knife Mrs. Rodriguez had laid out for her, Mari brought it over the corner of the sandwich, only to hesitate for just a single heartbeat and shift the blade a tiny bit, re-aligning the angle it was at just a hair. Only then did she begin to saw down diagonally along the bread, creating two slices as close to being perfectly even in size as she could manage by eye. As she did this, Kel paused from where he was slathering what looked to be a somewhat absurd quantity of peanut butter onto his own bread to look at her, his head tilting slightly.

"Wow, I never noticed, but you cut those super carefully! I don't think even Hero does it like that." Kel commented, staring at the sandwich with his eyes widened slightly. Mari felt a jolt of tension, a sharp pause halfway to a wince, as Kel's words broke her focus from her task. Had she done something strange without meaning to? She'd thought she was going about things fairly reasonably, not really needing to think about it in too much depth, but did Kel think she was being weird? The feeling abated as quickly as it had come, however, as with just a moment's thought she realized it was stupid. Kel, of all people, wouldn't be subtly judging her like that. If he was feeling any such thing, one could usually trust him to just say or show it. Mari knew that well enough. While it occasionally led to arguments with Aubrey when she perceived something he said as tactless, Mari sometimes found herself appreciating the straightforwardness. No, it was clear even to her that he was actually impressed – even if she didn't quite get why.

("That doesn't mean you're acting totally normal. Perhaps he just didn't notice.")

"Well, yeah. Everyone knows cutting them into triangles is the best, right?" Mari decided to joke in return. Though maybe it wasn't entirely accurate to call it joking – diagonally-cut sandwiches were objectively superior, and no amount of Sunny scoffing under his breath whenever she said that would be enough to disprove that fact. Kel, however, just laughed enthusiastically, giving an "mhm!" of agreement as he moved to slice his own in said way, albeit far more quickly and haphazardly than she did. Mari nodded to herself in satisfaction. At least someone wasn't a sandwich heretic.

As they dug into their respective sandwiches, the two lapsed into a silence that Mari found surprisingly comfortable. The only thing she'd really say was bothering her at that moment was when she thought of Sunny. As genuinely nice as it was to get a chance to spend time with Kel, Sunny probably would've liked being here too. The fact that he only missed out because he was sick at home, well, hardly seemed fair. But there wasn't much she could do about it right this second (and he'd said he wanted her to be here, she just had to trust him on that), so she tried to put those thoughts aside and just focus on the moment.

With lunch finished, the two sat together a little longer in contentment, making idle chatter. Kel had picked up his butter knife and was trying to flick it around in his hand like he'd apparently seen in an action movie, with limited success. (Mari couldn't quite stop herself from snorting when he fumbled and almost dropped it immediately.) After a few minutes, however, Mari found herself clapping her hands together slightly as she stood from the table. Kel looked up at her curiously, and she extended her arm in a gesture towards the dishes in front of them.

"Hand me your plate, okay? I'll take care of these." she said by way of explanation.

"Sure, okay! Here!" Kel unceremoniously dropped the knife onto his plate, the metal striking the ceramic with a harsh clink that made Mari wince. Aubrey probably would've gotten on his case for that – assuming Hero didn't – but Mari decided to let it slide, taking the dishes when he passed them into her outstretched hand. With the other, she picked up her own, stepping around the table to bring them to the kitchen sink. As she turned on the faucet, however, Kel spoke up again.

"Oh, hey, you know you can just leave 'em in the sink, mom'll get it." he pointed out as he looked at her.

Mari shook her head almost instantaneously. "No, it's fine, I think I should take care of it. I mean, it makes the most sense after all!" she explained quickly, trying to make it clear that she really wasn't bothered. It wasn't like there was a lot to do anyway. It was just the two of them, and just sandwiches, so it really just boiled down to rinsing off the plates and the peanut butter residue from Kel's knife. An easy, under-two-minute sort of task. Kel didn't seem to quite follow that train of logic to the same conclusion, though. His brow scrunched up in confusion that Mari felt may have been slightly exaggerated given the subject matter.

"Huh? I don't get what you mean by that?" he wondered honestly, and Mari paused in her task. She had to take a second to try and compose her response in a way that explained it well enough. It seemed she was closer to not making sense than she'd realized, and that was never good territory to be in. Even for something so simple. Or perhaps especially for something so simple, because if she couldn't even manage to properly explain her thoughts about a small thing, that probably meant those thoughts weren't normal to have.

"Well, I'm the guest, right?" she voiced the same thought she'd had earlier to start. "So I think I should help out. I don't mind making things a little easier on you and your mom, and... I'd rather not be a burden." Mari explained, hoping it came across sensibly, though for some reason her voice stumbled slightly at the end. She wasn't sure why she'd done that, but she hoped Kel hadn't noticed.

("...You know what, that one's almost too easy.")

Kel looked at her for a moment, just long enough for her to wonder if her explanation hadn't been coherent after all, and then he seemed to shrug to himself.

"Well, okay, if you say so. Thanks, Mari!" He gave her yet another grin at the end, which she attempted to return with a smaller, more polite smile. With that metaphorical bullet dodged, Mari turned her attention back to the sink... which she just realized she'd left running when Kel had distracted her. Oops. Well, nothing for it now but to get it over with as quickly as possible to not waste any more water. Fortunately, that goal was pretty much as easy as expected. Once she was focused on it, rinsing the dishes took no time at all, and very soon she was placing the plates onto the nearby drying rack. As she wiped her wet hands on an available dish towel, she found herself thankful it was there: she hated having cold water on her hands for any extended period of time. Exclusively her hands, for some reason. Her whole body being wet didn't bother her too much, but if it was only her hands? It became intensely unpleasant in a way she couldn't describe, even though she knew that made no sense. With the dishes taken care of, Mari soon found herself leaning against the counter, momentarily unsure of what to do next. As if given a cue by her thoughts (though it was obviously just a coincidence), Kel picked that moment to speak again.

"You know, it really is kinda too bad Hero's not here, though." he began, and Mari turned to look at him. "He'd probably wanna talk to you, he was pretty worried about you and Sunny last night, y'know?" Kel paused and rubbed the back of his head. "And I guess I was too, hehe..." he admitted with an awkward laugh.

Ah.

There was that. Mari felt her mouth forming into a slight frown. By all rights, she should have seen this coming, it was obvious. In fact, now that she was thinking about it, she was honestly a bit surprised she'd been able to get away with the whole of lunch without the topic coming up sooner. Of course Kel would want to talk about the recital, of course he and Hero were just as worried as their mother had been. Mari could have already guessed that. Just because Kel acted easygoing, didn't mean he didn't care. If anything, Mari would say it was the opposite, Kel was very obvious when he cared a lot. Enough that even she picked up on it with certainty.

("And with you, that's saying a lot, isn't it?")

"Right, I'm really sorry about that..." Mari hadn't been entirely planning on just starting with an apology. It was simply that it suddenly felt like it was necessary when she opened her mouth. What else would she say here, after all? Kel glanced at her, appearing almost confused, and Mari hastened to continue. "But me and Sunny are doing okay-" Mari stopped herself and shook her head slightly. "-well, Sunny's sick today, but you know what I mean. It... wasn't as big of a deal as it looked, really." For some reason, Mari felt something twist in her stomach as she said that. It didn't feel quite right. But that thought didn't make any sense, it wasn't like she was trying to lie or anything. She tried her best to shake it off (with limited success).

Kel blinked. "But what even happened, though? I mean, one second you guys were playing fine and then you just stopped and left? It was pretty weird." he replied, and now it was even clearer that he was confused. Mari had to physically prevent herself from flinching slightly. Kel obviously didn't mean anything bad when he called it out as weird, she wasn't the slightest bit annoyed at him for it, but something about the description still stung.

"That would've been the... Stage fright, actually." Mari began, repeating the reason mom and Sunny had given before. It seemed like it only made sense, after all. "Sunny was nervous about playing with all those people watching, so he... made a couple mistakes. But it's not his fault, because I guess I was pretty nervous too. So I got distracted and messed up even more. After that, I..." Mari trailed off as her train of thought stuttered. How would she explain what she'd done next? How could she put that into words in a way that sounded remotely normal or reasonable, when she hadn't been reacting normally or reasonably? Even when this was the third time talking it out, she still hadn't come up with any sort of detailed answer to that. "I didn't feel like playing anymore." she hedged, knowing that while it was basically true, it didn't really encompass her freak-out at all. To her surprise, however, Kel nodded along to her words, seemingly taking the answer at face value.

("You're lucky anyone accepts that rambling.")

"Oh yeah, I kinda get that, it was totally packed. And you guys were up there with everyone staring at you, too." he said, inadvertently reminding Mari of how she'd insisted to Sunny that being up on stage wouldn't feel any different from practice. Words she now regretted, since they were demonstrably wrong. Glancing down, she found that her hands had started shaking slightly and quickly braced them against the counter behind her to steady them. Oblivious to her thoughts, Kel continued. "Man, it must kinda suck though, it felt like you two were practicing forever." he sympathized, crossing his arms. Mari didn't disagree; while she wouldn't phrase it quite like that, she definitely understood the feeling. In fact, she realized it effectively wasn't too different from what Mrs. Rodriguez had said about the same subject. She sighed, nodding slightly.

"...Anyway, when Hero gets back this afternoon, could you tell him all that too? I don't want to make him worry all day." she said after a moment's pause. Kel tilted his head at the request, then gave her a thumbs-up.

"Sure! You're right, he really can get all mopey sometimes, huh? So you can count on me." he assured her, and Mari exhaled slightly in relief. She knew she should still probably talk to Hero about it in person, and Aubrey and Basil as well for that matter. It'd be downright inconsiderate not to, after she'd gone and left them all worried and... disappointed. No, they all deserved better than that. But she figured that if Kel could go ahead and spread the word that she and Sunny were doing okay, it could at least make things a little less stressful on everyone.

"Thanks, Kel." she said, hoping it came out sincerely. She really did appreciate his willingness to help. The two fell into silence for a few moments, before Kel apparently decided to switch gears.

"...So what'dya think we should do now?" he asked, but before Mari could answer, his expression lit up as if he'd reached a conclusion himself. "Oh! I found some of dad's old comics, remember? The ones you said sounded cool? We never got a chance to check 'em out, so we could-"

"Sorry, Kel." Mari cut him off, though it was slightly rude, already shaking her head. "I can't. Me and Sunny are grounded for a week, and you know our mom says no comics." she elaborated apologetically.

"Really!?" Kel exclaimed loudly, taking Mari by surprise. She felt her eyes widen as she looked at him. "You got grounded for the recital thing? But that's so unfair!" he complained, luckily reigning in his voice at least somewhat.

"Well, I actually understand for me, I did..." Mari found herself trailing off again. She shook herself. "But I agree, I really wish Sunny didn't get lumped in with me. Especially now when he's not feeling well on top of it." She felt a pang of guilt at complaining about her mother's decision behind her back. That was really pretty disrespectful. But she couldn't help but express it anyway, she stood by the statement. No matter how she looked at it, as his big sister, she just couldn't reach any other conclusion.

Kel huffed. "Yeah, that's lame." he said simply. Once again, while Mari wouldn't have worded it like that, she didn't disagree. There was another momentary silence. "But I guess we can still hang out for a bit before you go home, right?" he offered. Mari hesitated for a moment, then realized that she didn't actually know why she was hesitating and inclined her head in agreement.

Stepping through the doorway into her home – after only a moment of fiddling with the old, uncooperative door – Mari immediately got a vague feeling that something was off. It wasn't anything she could put her finger on, it wasn't even necessarily a bad thing. Or rather, she couldn't say if it was a good or bad thing, just that there was something unusual she hadn't quite noticed yet. Her eyes flicked around, scanning the surroundings as she entered... and ultimately fell upon the living room couch, where her mother was sitting, killing time looking over a few indiscernible papers in her hand as she so often did. As if sensing that Mari had just become aware of her presence, her mom looked up and set her papers aside.

"Mari." she greeted, her tone and expression both seeming neutral enough that Mari couldn't get much of anything from them. Before she could even consider how to respond, however, mom continued. "Do you remember when I said you needed to come home?" she asked. Mari's brow furrowed at the question.

"After half an hour?" she replied, her voice forming it into a question. Not because she wasn't sure, she did in fact remember that perfectly fine. She simply hadn't quite figured out where mom was going with this.

"Half an hour." Mom confirmed with a slight nod. "And do you know how long it's been?" she asked, leaning forward on the couch and crossing her arms. Mari felt herself stiffen at the question. Oh no. Now she had a strong suspicion of where this was going. She almost found herself wishing that she didn't.

"...Not quite." Mari was forced to admit, her gaze drifting down towards the floor. She could already feel a hint of that familiar heaviness in her shoulders.

"It's been almost an hour. Nearly twice as long as what I told you." Her mom cut right to the chase. And "cut" was an especially apt descriptor here, as Mari winced at the undeniable sharpness in her tone. "You're still grounded, Mari, you know you can't-" Mom paused and exhaled through her nose. "Eye contact, please, sweetie?" she requested. Though Mari knew it wasn't optional. Her face burning slightly in embarrassment at needing to be reminded of that for the second time in as many days, she quickly made herself meet her mother's gaze. (And definitely didn't have to suppress an instinctual flinch when their eyes locked. There would be no reason for anything like that, after all.)

Apparently satisfied, mom continued. "Anyway, I'm sure you were having fun with Kel, but I told you that you couldn't just spend however long you wanted. You knew that." she said matter-of-factly. Not that Mari actually needed her mom to spell it out, she'd more or less realized the mistake as soon as the time had been brought up... Which actually just reinforced mom's point, didn't it? She absolutely did know that. She just hadn't been thinking about it, distracted by chatting with Kel the whole time. Not that it was remotely his fault – now that she thought about it she hadn't even remembered to tell him she had a hard time limit in the first place. So he simply couldn't have known to remind her of it. No, she'd just been inexcusably careless.

"I'm sorry, mom, I just lost track of the time. I swear." Mari replied, and though the heavy feeling made her want to hang her head, that would obviously entail breaking eye contact. Her mother stared into her for a few seconds, and yet again Mari couldn't help but wonder if there was supposed to be something in her expression that she wasn't seeing. As usual, however, the results of that line of thought gave her nothing. Just as the moment felt like it began to drag, mom clicked her tongue.

"I thought you might have. I hope you understand, that's the only reason why I'm not extending your grounding." she concluded her judgment. Mari... honestly didn't know how to feel about that. She didn't want to be grounded longer, of course, but she hadn't resented the initial punishment either. For herself specifically, that is. She understood why, after disappointing everyone at the recital. She was broken out of that train of thought before it could distract her too much, however, by a sigh. It seemed her mom wasn't done. "But you know why I have to tell you this, don't you, sweetie? What if you were an adult, with a job like mine or your father's? You couldn't just tell your boss you'd lost track. You have responsibilities, Mari, that means you won't be able to use your... difficulties as an excuse for everything."

Mari suddenly found herself clenching one of her hands into a fist. She'd almost – almost – blurted out that she hadn't been trying to do that in the first place. It was the first thought that popped into her head, and quite loudly at that. But she had to stop herself because, even if it was basically true, it would've been incredibly rude. In most conversations, really, but especially when it was mom. She was the one who'd brought the scolding upon herself by not being careful enough with the time, she was the one who messed up something that should've been simple to do perfectly with no issues. She couldn't turn around and be disrespectful about it now.

("No, go ahead, say it. Dig yourself deeper, you're good at that.")

She tried to take a deep breath, unsure of exactly where that rush of frustration had come from. It was just that, the moment her mom had alluded to her being... she didn't know what to call the feeling, but it had been like getting hit by a jolt of electricity. Except not the sort of pleasant crackling energy she felt when she was excited about something, this was just sharp and sudden and off. It clearly didn't make any sense, so she tried to move past it.

Seemingly not noticing Mari's sudden shift in behavior, mom spoke again. "...You know, your father and I got you that nice watch for your birthday a couple years ago. If you wore it more often, this might not happen." she mused.

Mari winced slightly, hoping mom didn't catch it. She remembered that watch. In fact, she remembered what had happened to it a bit too well. It had been tucked into the pocket of her dress on... the day Sunny had fallen into the lake. Mari supposed it must have found a new home embedded in the mud at the bottom of the pond somewhere, because after she'd emerged from the water, it had been gone. Not that she'd given it much, if any, thought at the time. She'd only really noticed that a bit afterwards. She couldn't really bring herself to regret its loss considering the circumstances – after all, as nice as it was, it was just a thing, she really couldn't care about that at all compared to Sunny's safety. That was just a fact, and one she wouldn't apologize for. If put in that same situation again (as upsetting of a thought as that was), she'd do the exact same thing, no questions asked. Yet, even so, when she thought of telling mom and dad about how she'd lost it, such a silly mistake felt humiliating. So, even though she felt a pang of guilt for technically being dishonest, she'd just quietly avoided mentioning it. And continued to do so now. Instead, she simply nodded her head vaguely in response to mom's words.

"...Anyway, that's enough about that. I'll let you go now, just try to be a bit more careful in the future, alright?" Mom said, apparently done for real this time.

"Of course." Mari agreed simply. She had no logical reason not to, after all. Mom nodded to herself, seemingly in satisfaction.

"Now, I'm going to head upstairs, I've got a backlog of paperwork I should really fill out sometime today, so you're free for this afternoon. Try not to do anything too loud, I think your brother's asleep in your room." Mom paused for a moment, tapping a fingernail against her chin. "Oh, and I've got some scheduled calls later this evening, so you might be on your own when it comes to fixing dinner." she added.

"Oh, that's okay. I can handle that, I don't mind." Mari assured her. With that, her mom stood from the couch – taking a moment to grab the files she'd set aside a few minutes earlier – and strode off without another word. Only once the sound of her footsteps echoed from the stairs did Mari notice the odd tension that still gripped her body start to ease. In fact, she suddenly realized that she'd never unclenched her fist, stretching out her fingers with an unexpected sting. Her palm was raw and red from the nails pressing against it. Not bleeding, the skin hadn't actually split or anything like that, but Mari was still surprised she didn't notice until now... Well, there was nothing for it. With mom gone upstairs, as she'd said, the rest of the afternoon was hers.

Chapter Text

Having what was essentially full run of the house – or at least downstairs – wasn't a particularly unusual occurrence for Mari. Quite the opposite, in fact. It was pretty much the unavoidable outcome given how busy mom and dad were these days. After all, she was old enough, and thus expected to be responsible enough, to not need consistent adult supervision anymore. Standard big sibling fare, really, a situation Hero was no doubt equally familiar with, even if it didn't seem to come up quite as often for him. But maybe that was just her outside perspective. She certainly didn't feel the need to elaborate on every time she and Sunny had the place to themselves, because why would she? It was a perfectly normal state of affairs, an utterly mundane, regular event at this point. So it felt safe to assume Hero and Kel wouldn't be much different... Though now that she thought about it, there was the one caveat that at least their parents both worked in town. That might have been something of a difference-maker. But that wasn't the point, Hero understood where she was coming from anyway, slight discrepancies in how often it happened and such were simply nitpicks.

Even though she should by all rights have been completely used to it, however, it wasn't long after her mom went upstairs that Mari found herself feeling just the slightest bit... off. She became aware of this odd sense, like something coursing beneath her skin – she couldn't say exactly how long it had been there, but now that she'd noticed it, it was impossible to completely ignore. It wasn't a literal physical sensation like the needles of pain that plagued her leg, or the heavy scratchiness of her less-favored clothes. More like a vague impression. The more she thought about it, she realized that if she had to compare it to anything, it was almost like the crawling feeling she got when she could tell that were eyes on her back. Except... no, that was wrong, it was the complete opposite of that. For some reason she was just suddenly very aware of the total absence of anyone nearby. It was just her, by herself. Mom and Sunny were in the house, of course, logically she knew that perfectly well. But both were shut away in their rooms upstairs and it wouldn't be right to disturb them – mom because she was busy and Sunny because he was ill. They weren't available, so for all practical purposes, it really was just her. Something about that thought seemed to make that unnamed sensation intensify, like it was pressing in on her, and for some reason Mari couldn't help but let her mind wander, conjuring images she couldn't quite explain. Herself standing alone under a spotlight, or isolated on an island in the middle of nowhere. Brief thoughts, but for a moment they felt...

("Quit. Being. Melodramatic.")

Mari shook her head, blinking a couple times. The empty living room greeted her vision, looking just the same as it always did. Nothing had changed with it in the last few moments, so she didn't really know exactly what she'd just been thinking about. There was no real reason for her to be feeling off, or really be feeling much of anything for that matter, there was absolutely nothing happening right now. She glanced down and slowly unfurled her fingers from her collar – her navy sweater didn't have any buttons, but that didn't stop her from simply bunching up the fabric in her grip. Not that she'd even realized she was doing so until now. ….Actually, now that she considered it, perhaps it was because nothing was going on that she'd been feeling weird. It was probably just a bit of restlessness and she was overthinking it. Yes, that made a lot more sense, didn't it? Of course she wouldn't want to spend all afternoon literally standing here doing nothing, that was ridiculous to even think about. In order to get rid of this troublesome energy, she just needed something to do.

It was a perfectly reasonable conclusion, but the only question was, well, what to do? Normally Mari would've been fine with carrying out a few chores, tidying up here and there before she went looking for leisure activities. With how busy mom and dad were, she was often the best one available to handle such tasks. It was just an everyday fact, and not one that bothered her. (She certainly wouldn't shove it off on Sunny, after all. That'd simply be irresponsible, and besides, he had his own things to take care of.) She really didn't mind cleaning in general, it was often easy to develop a rhythm to get things done efficiently without having to think about it too much – if anything, she found there was something almost relaxing about that. There were a few specific jobs she didn't much care for, even if she couldn't always find quite the right words to explain why. But those were the exceptions, not the rule.

Today, however, she found that weren't really many chores that needed doing. A cursory glance around the living room quickly revealed that it was more-or-less spotless. Easily "invite guests over" quality. There wasn't even much in the way of dust accumulated on top of the TV or behind the couch (in fact, Mari suddenly recalled that she'd taken care of those just a couple days ago). Other rooms in the house were probably no-goes as well. She knew the piano room was impeccable, she always made sure of that. Storage might be dusty, but mom and dad didn't like her poking around in there without supervision. Some of the rooms upstairs might or might not benefit from a little tidying – Mari wasn't sure of the last time the underside of Sunny's bed had been cleared out – but given that not disturbing Sunny was her explicit goal, that obviously wasn't an option. Tromping about in the bathroom presented similar problems. So those were out. The only obvious room left was the kitchen, but of course, she already knew it was clean, it had been that morning and nothing had really happened since. Barring perhaps a few dishes from breakfast that had been moved to the sink, but she could take care of those in the evening along with whatever kitchenware she used from dinner.

….The short answer was that cleaning was out, unless she suddenly thought of something she'd overlooked. If/until that happened, she'd need some other way to kill time while keeping the restrictions of grounding in mind. The most common way she'd typically fill her afternoons, of course, was with music practice. One might think that'd be the obvious answer. Yet she found herself dismissing that thought almost immediately, even though it felt extraordinarily odd to do so. With how critical it was to get it all right, she'd normally never be so quick to skip out on it. But with... the recital behind her, for better or worse-

("Worse. It's worse.")

-Mari didn't feel quite as much pressing need to practice today. She'd need get back to it soon, naturally, keeping her skills up would be important for next time and she knew that. But a day or two off in the immediate fallout couldn't hurt too much, right? And besides, Sunny was sick today, and while she could theoretically practice without him – she'd been playing alone before he'd joined her, after all – something about it didn't really... feel right. She didn't think that was a particularly weird idea to have: he was her little brother and her partner on stage, of course it they would get better results when they could practice together.

No, she'd simply have to find something else to do until it was time for dinner... Wait. Dinner. Mari felt her eyes widen slightly as she turned her head to the kitchen. She'd just remembered, she'd offered to make soup for Sunny earlier. He'd turned it down on account of insisting she stay and have lunch with Kel instead, but now that was done and mom had specifically said getting food was up to her tonight... so that put the option back on the table. Her little brother would probably be quite hungry whenever he woke up (or she assumed so, he'd said he was more tired than anything earlier, so she hoped that meant the nausea wasn't too bad). That would be perfect, she could make a pot of soup that would be easy on Sunny's stomach and still have plenty leftover for herself. With the day chilly enough to warrant her favorite sweater, it was good weather for hot soup too. Mari clapped her hands together, glad to have the decision made. She'd been dawdling here for what felt like awhile. As soon as she went to take a step towards the kitchen, however, she stopped, her energy running headfirst into a brick wall of realization. It was too early. While a good soup could take its time simmering, it was probably not even one o'clock. She still had several hours to pass first. She couldn't stop the groan that came from her throat.

The sky outside the windows was just barely beginning to turn orange when Mari stepped into the kitchen. Glancing around with her hands on her hips for a moment, she saw that nothing was out of place – no stains on the stove that needed scraping off or anything of the sort – and nodded to herself decisively. Time to get started. The first order of business was bending down to one of the low cabinets to retrieve the (in her opinion slightly oversized) soup pot within, which was set on the stove for later. Then she grabbed for a small wooden box that had been set next to said stove, opening it to reveal a bundle of notecards within. Already knowing which one she was after, it didn't take Mari long to flick through them. This was the recipe she intended to use. While she could honestly say she enjoyed cooking, she'd never quite been able to keep it all straight in her head, and she couldn't play things by eye in the way Hero did. That was why she'd always admit he was the better chef by miles, he had the instinct for it. But, well, there was nothing abnormal about keeping step-by-step recipes on hand, that was what they were for, so she didn't feel too bad for relying on it.

Squinting at the handwriting for a moment, she went around the kitchen to start gathering ingredients. She was pretty sure that they had all the key stuff on hand, mom had thankfully gone on one of her rare "stocking up on everything" shopping trips fairly recently. She paused for a second. It shouldn't be a problem to use everything she needed either, right? She'd been given permission to take care of her own dinner, that logically included cooking. She assumed mom would've mentioned not using certain things if that were an issue. As long as Mari wasn't outright wasting food, which she had no intention of... It should be fine. Chicken stock, actual chicken, onion, a bit of celery, a carrot, an appropriate amount of garlic (normally Mari's personal definition of "an appropriate amount" would be considerably more garlic, but this was meant for an upset stomach, so she'd concede this time)... It looked like they had everything, alright. There were a few potential substitutions scribbled on the back of the card if necessary, but there was something oddly satisfying about being able to go down the list as-written.

("That literally would not matter to anyone but you.")

Finding herself going about the preparations with an almost fervent efficiency, Mari was honestly just glad to have something hands-on to do. For lack of being able to think of better options, she'd burned away the afternoon by subjecting herself to daytime television. It was a mind-numbing distraction, probably less compelling than what Sunny could come up with while daydreaming. Although perhaps that wasn't a fair comparison, as she couldn't help but envy his creativity sometimes. She'd tried to look for shows that would at least be interesting – a fascinating documentary or some such – but hadn't had any luck. (One would think a channel about history would actually include neat history facts rather than alien conspiracy theories she recognized as being stolen from the plot of a Spaceboy issue. And not even one of the good Spaceboy arcs.) Picking at loose threads on the couch was honestly more engaging, though she'd had to stop herself from even doing much of that. Mom would definitely have scolded her if she'd seen. But that wasn't the point.

About an hour and a half later, the somewhat overcast sky had substantially faded to purple, the last bits of sunlight at the horizon sending fiery streaks across the clouds. For some reason Mari couldn't fathom, it seemed like the most dramatic sunsets always happened when she was indoors at home, never when she spent an evening outside anywhere scenic. Ah well. It looked nice nonetheless. She actually caught herself staring out at the shifting colors for so long that, were it not for the timer ringing on the stove, she may have lost track of the time. As she hurried over to shut off said timer, her knee suddenly picked that moment to jab her with pain. Taken by surprise, Mari stumbled forward slightly, throwing her hands out to catch the counter to the side of the stove and steady herself. Her knee banged into the door of the oven, and she flinched at the second needle it sent out, but she stayed standing.

Her eyes glanced pointedly down at said limb. She'd suspected the ache would flare at some point – the hot shower that morning, while lovely, had only been a temporary reprieve and she'd known that all along. She hadn't expected its return to be quite so abrupt, however, it usually wasn't. Perhaps all the bustling about the kitchen had something to do with it. It didn't particularly matter, though, it was already fading back to the more familiar background soreness that she could, and did, regularly ignore. A hearty blended scent of chicken and onion had slowly pervaded the kitchen as the soup simmered, which only intensified when Mari removed the lid from the pot to put the finishing touches on it. Reaching a long barbecue fork into the broth, she began to pull the now-extremely-tender chicken apart into smaller chunks. She wasn't entirely sure why this was necessary (couldn't she have simply sliced it more finely before?) but the recipe insisted, and it was important she follow it properly so she could be sure it came out perfect. So she she wasn't going to argue.

Fortunately, it was seeming like it was indeed perfect – it certainly looked and smelled just about right. Feeling a surge of lightness from having accomplished her goal, Mari couldn't help but bounce her shoulders back and forth, standing up on the balls of her feet. Almost like bopping to music only she could hear. If mom were downstairs, she'd undoubtedly remind Mari that it looked ridiculous, but letting a little energy out when she was alone couldn't hurt, could-

"Mari?"

Sunny's voice – soft, yet echoing across the quiet kitchen – made Mari jump, her feet actually leaving the floor for a split second. A faint throb went up her bad leg in protest. Whirling around, she brought a hand to her chest to try to steady the sudden spike in her heartbeat. Sure enough, there he was, her little brother standing there behind her. When had he come down the stairs? Had she really been so caught up on the soup that she hadn't noticed that? Though the moment of alarm had faded as easily as it arrived, her cheeks were now burning. That was just embarrassing. Sunny was glancing up at her awkwardly, and now that Mari took a good look at him, he... really looked about as well as she could've expected. He'd been in bed all day, after all, so the messy hair and the lines below his eyes weren't remotely surprising. He didn't appear any more pale than usual, nothing about him was obviously sickly to her eyes. But then, that had been the case before lunch as well, so maybe it wasn't a good metric.

"Sunny! I didn't hear you come in! How're you feeling?" she decided to go ahead and ask. Sunny blinked a few times, perhaps having to parse what she'd just said – which was fair, the words had come out rather more quickly than she'd entirely intended.

"...Mmmfine." Was his reply, or at least that's what it sounded like to Mari. She mentally translated the mumble to "I'm fine". With that, Mari felt something seem to lift slightly, the bit of concern that had been prickling in the back of her chest ever since he'd announced he was sick beginning to lighten. The feeling wasn't gone, yet, but... hopeful for improvement. That was it.

"That's great!" she exclaimed, only to cringe slightly at her own volume, the words reverberating across the kitchen. Sunny too seemed to startle at the sound, his eyes flicking around the room in what Mari assumed was an instinctive reaction before refocusing. It probably didn't help that their house had always had rather weird acoustics; sounds tended to echo in odd and unpredictable ways. The piano room, fortunately, was one of the only rooms not to suffer too badly from this. "I mean, I'm glad you're feeling better." Mari amended at a more reasonable pitch.

("Even little kids can understand the concept of an 'indoor voice', why can't you?")

"Mmh." Sunny agreed vaguely. Or at least Mari was choosing to interpret that grunt as an agreement. There was a brief moment of silence and then Sunny glanced past her, towards the large pot on the stove. "Did you...?" he started to ask before trailing off. Mari understood what he meant anyway.

"I made you soup!" she confirmed brightly, turning back to the pot and grabbing the nearby spoon to give said soup a final stir. Just for good measure. Partway through, however, she paused, noticing that Sunny hadn't responded, and a thought occurred to her. "If you feel like eating right now, of course. It's fine if you don't." she said, tapping the spoon against the inside of the pot idly. "We can always save some for later, this soup apparently reheats pretty well, supposedly it might even taste a bit better if you do. I don't know exactly how that works, but I got this recipe from Hero, and if he swears by it you know it must be onto-" Mari suddenly realized that she was starting to babble and stopped herself, shutting her mouth awkwardly in a way that made her teeth click together.

Sunny stared at her for a few seconds, an expression she couldn't quite make out on his face. "You didn't have to..." he said at last, voice still quiet. Mari felt the corners of her mouth pull down ever so slightly, though it was probably not an outright frown. Hopefully. She didn't exactly have an easy reflection to check.

"Of course I did." she replied immediately, actively trying to put a hint of seriousness into her tone. She just wanted to make sure he understood that she was being sincere. She really didn't mind cooking for him one bit – in fact, quite the opposite, she'd outright enjoyed it. Sunny looked away, his shoulders hunching inwards a bit (though not enough to be outright slouching). Though Mari still couldn't identify exactly what his expression meant, she could guess that it was somewhat uncomfortable. She wasn't entirely certain why that would be. Had she been too forceful, made it sound like she was scolding him or something? That wouldn't do. Her goal was to make him more comfortable, not less. Clearly she needed to shift gears. Brighten the mood a tad. "...After all, this is my dinner too! Surely my little brother isn't going to make me eat by myself, right?" she said in a much lighter voice, almost jocular. On a sudden whim, she gave a wink at the end to make it clear she was teasing.

"I-" Sunny began, only to cut himself off when a low rumbling emanated from his stomach, loud enough to be clearly audible. His face fell into an expression that could only be called abject betrayal. Slowly, very deliberately, Mari raised a single eyebrow at him, curving her mouth into a knowing smile. "...Fine, I'd like some now." Sunny admitted, averting his eyes, face slightly red from embarrassment. As if sensing his sister's continued amusement, he exhaled through his nose. "It smells really strong, okay?" he tried to defend himself. Graciously, Mari decided to concede the point. It was objectively true, after all, the kitchen (and probably most of downstairs) was well-permeated with the aroma at this point. She could hardly blame Sunny's stomach for responding appropriately. With (what she hoped looked like) a genial nod, she swept an arm towards the table, gesturing for him to sit while she went to grab some bowls.

Soon the two were seated at the table, hot soup steaming away in front of each of them. Sunny picked up his spoon and poked it around in his bowl carefully, a slight set in his brow that Mari recognized as his analytical face. After a second of examining the chunks of chicken and vegetables, he looked up at her.

"...There's no beef?" he observed, and Mari had to stifle a snicker at the exaggerated sense of letdown in his tone. She pointed her own spoon at him with a slight flourish, like a noblewoman dramatically brandishing a foil.

"Don't start that again." she warned him archly. "I know you like more that just different kinds of steak, don't try to fool me. Besides, it's supposed to be easier on your stomach, so chicken's perfect." she added matter-of-factly. Sunny huffed and Mari saw his eyes roll slightly, but she was well aware that he was just playing it up. Indeed, he soon dug into the bowl of soup properly, and she saw the feigned exasperation melt away in record time. Really, she didn't even care to be too smug about it, she was mostly just glad that it had seemingly turned out just right. That was good. Nodding slightly to herself in satisfaction, she turned her attention back to her own bowl – wouldn't want it getting cold, after all.

By the time dinner wound down, the sky outside had gone completely dark, the sun quite definitively set. It was cloudy enough that there wasn't much in the way of moonlight breaking through so far, so even though it wasn't really late at night, the view from the windows was pretty much pitch black. If one actually went out and looked, they'd probably see that it was technically dark blue or purple, not black, but... Mari shook her head slightly to herself. That was just nitpicking at that point. Conversation had tapered off between the two siblings as they'd eaten, leaving them sitting in silence for a few minutes once they'd finished. Mari couldn't quite put her finger on why, but for some reason it had almost felt... slightly awkward? Just a little off compared to the comfortable downtime she'd shared with Kel at lunch. It was strange, Sunny being quiet was nothing remotely new, but this time it had just felt like there was something else. Perhaps the way he'd been surreptitiously (or at least, what he seemed to think was surreptitious) glancing at her every so often. She'd decided not to press him on it when she'd noticed, more focused on her own meal at the time. No matter, though, the feeling was vague enough that it wasn't actually bothersome, so Mari had left it be.

Now she was standing in front of the sink, cleaning out their bowls and rinsing off the utensils – both the ones they'd eaten with, and the ones she'd used for preparation, of course. The cutting board had already been scrubbed clean and set aside to dry. It only made sense that she be the one to handle all the cleanup, she figured, given that it was all her idea in the first place. Meanwhile, there was still quite a bit of soup left in the pot, enough for several servings' worth. It had, in hindsight, probably been somewhat overkill to use a whole-family-portion recipe for a meal meant for the two of them, but she wasn't going to apologize for it. Not only would mom be able to reheat some if she wanted it whenever she came downstairs, but it would work just fine as leftovers later in the week. So nothing had actually been wasted. That was fair enough, right? And besides, it was easier to perfect it by following the recipe as written than to try to modify the quantity of ingredients on the fly and then have to work out in her head how that would impact cooking time and so on. She'd already been over that.

("Then why are you still trying to justify to yourself?")

"Umm, Mari?" For the second time that night, Sunny's sudden voice took her by surprise. As embarrassing as it was to admit to herself, the only thing stopping her from startling again was the fact that she'd been vaguely aware that he was still in the kitchen. Even if she hadn't registered him getting up from the table and moving behind her until just then. "Can we talk?" he asked, obviously uncertain. She wasn't sure what this was about, but even Mari could immediately sense the shift in mood, sparking a wave of concern.

"Of course." she agreed without hesitation. "Just let me finish these up real quick, okay?" As she said that, she lifted the bowl she was in the middle of cleaning for emphasis. Fortunately, it was the last of the dinnerware to take care of (well, besides the soup pot, but she'd deal with that a little later) so, working with mechanical efficiency, it only took about twenty seconds and then she was setting the bowl aside with the other clean dishes. Just as promised, she immediately turned her attention to where Sunny was waiting behind her. As expected, he looked a bit nervous about something. It was lowkey-enough that if she didn't know him she likely wouldn't have noticed, but as it was, Mari was able to see it. Well, there was no point speculating about it right now, was there? "Alright, what's up?" she asked, only to immediately regret the casual phrasing – she didn't want to sound dismissive. Sunny didn't appear to notice, though.

"...It's about the recital." he said, after a few moments' hesitation.

Oh.

"Oh." Mari voiced it aloud, the only thought that immediately came to her. It made perfect sense when she actually considered it, of course. She had told him "tomorrow" or something to that effect when she'd been exhausted, hadn't she? And it was tomorrow now. It was entirely reasonable that Sunny would still want to talk about it. The only reason she was remotely surprised was because she'd gotten so caught up in distracting herself with the rest of the day that it had almost started to fade from her mind. Not forgotten, exactly, but more like a feeling that it just... wouldn't come up again, that it wasn't really a big deal after all.

("So it's your fault for trying to put it off, in other words.")

Oblivious to her thoughts, Sunny continued. "Sis, about what happened, I'm really sorry. I-" he apologized, head hanging as his gaze fell down towards the floor. He had cut himself off at the end, presumably uncomfortable, but Mari got the point well enough anyway. She found herself staring at him, the barbed coiling sensation from before jabbing at the inside of her chest at the sight.

"Oh no, Sunny!" The words burst out of her mouth instantly – she suddenly felt she needed to reassure him right away, it was imperative. "You don't need to apologize for that, really!" she hastened to add, realizing as soon as she said it that the initial exclamation might have sounded like scolding if she didn't clarify. Which was, of course, the exact opposite of the intent here. Sunny glanced back up quickly, eyes peering at her past his dark bangs (which part of Mari noted were just about due for a trim, she knew her little brother preferred to keep them a bit shorter, though she swiftly set that thought aside for later).

"But it was my fault..." Sunny protested. "I'm the one who messed up." He said it flatly, nearly matter-of-factly, but for some reason, that almost made Mari more uncomfortable than if he'd sounded openly dismayed. She wasn't sure exactly why – wasn't it a good thing that he didn't appear to be too distressed? In any other circumstance she certainly would have thought so, but here it... didn't feel any better. The fact that she couldn't put her finger on it was even a bit frustrating, but she immediately shoved that feeling down. Not the point right now. Her first thought for correcting Sunny was to tell him that it was ultimately her fault, that she was the one who'd really ruined the recital, just as mom had informed her. But she usually wasn't supposed to repeat things mom said in their private discussions, it was incredibly rude. She could practically hear her mother's voice reminding her: "it's called private for a reason, sweetie".

"I'm not upset about that, though, I promise." she said instead. It was simply the truth: while there was a lot that felt wrong with the recital, blaming Sunny had not remotely been what she was thinking about at the time, and it still wasn't now. "After all, I messed up too, and I'm the one who-"

("Gave up. Freaked out. Threw a fit like a child.")

"-quit playing first, so... You don't have to say sorry for that." Mari concluded, trying to give Sunny a reassuring look, though she honestly had no idea if it actually came across or not. Nothing in his body language gave any indication of whether he'd caught the expression or not, or if it actually made him feel any better. Instead he simply blinked up at her, almost as if confused. Not that she entirely knew why he would be.

"...Really?" he asked her simply. For a second Mari thought something sounded slightly off in his tone, but she couldn't actually identify what was unusual or why it would be, so she tried not to worry about it.

"Of course." she replied right away. "We can say things turned into a bit of a mess for both of us, right? But that-" Mari paused and swallowed slightly. She knew she was understating it by a significant degree. Glossing over how badly the recital had failed, how much it had left everyone disappointed. Mess didn't even begin to sum it up. She shook herself slightly, that was the opposite of the point: all that stuff was on her shoulders, not Sunny's, and she knew that. She needed to be encouraging right now. "-that just means we'll get it perfect next time instead." she concluded with (admittedly slightly forced) brightness, giving Sunny a smile for emphasis. Sunny, however, did not respond how she might have expected. At her words, he went still – not that he'd been moving around much to begin with, but his sudden stiffness was noticeable – his hands curling at his sides. He shut his eyes tightly, his brow furrowing sharply. It almost gave Mari the impression that he was fiercely debating with himself about something, but before she could ask if he was okay, he opened his eyes again and looked back up at her. Something about that expression was offputting, and though Mari tried to hold his gaze, she couldn't help herself from instinctively shifting her eyes away somewhat. She wasn't quite sure where that look came from, confusion prodding at the back of her mind.

"Mari..." Sunny finally said after several dragging moments of silence. Even his quiet voice seemed to slash through the air between them. "There's not going to... be a next time."

.

.

.

What?

("What?")

"What?" Mari found herself asking dumbly. Her smile had fallen off her face in record time, and now she wasn't sure exactly what her expression looked like. If it was anything like the inside of her mind, probably some sort of blank stare. "What, what do you mean?" she tried to clarify, almost too quickly. Surely he wasn't saying what she'd almost thought for a second there, right?

Sunny averted his eyes at last. "There's not going to be another recital, I'm done. I can't do it." His words were slow and tense, as if he didn't really want to say them. Normally Mari would have immediately apologized for it, she hadn't been trying to make him uncomfortable, but this time... the actual content of the words were the only thing she could think about. She must have been misunderstanding him somehow. She must have.

"You can't... Is this still about what happened onstage?" Mari asked him, still trying to clarify. Hadn't they just gone over this? Sunny didn't immediately reply, so she continued. "But that was just a bit of stage fright, remember? We can work with that, we don't have to-"

"It wasn't." Sunny cut her off abruptly, and Mari's mouth clicked shut as she stared at him, the confused feeling in her gut beginning to churn unpleasantly. "It wasn't stage fright. I was just saying that." he admitted, crossing his arms over his chest.

"You... were lying?" Mari internally cursed herself for the dumbfounded way that thought tumbled out of her mouth. But she was feeling well and truly lost now. She didn't even know why it bothered her, exactly. She wouldn't consider Sunny dishonest by any means, she could say with full confidence that he was a trustworthy person in general – and that wasn't just her defending him as his big sister. However, he was still a kid, and he told the occasional fib just like any kid would. Harmless things, usually, like the time she'd found him with a pair of her socks mixed up in the laundry, and rather than admit the error, he'd claimed to her face that they were his. Even though they would be so long on him that they went up past his knees. (She'd honestly found it more amusing than anything, so much so that she'd considered buying him long socks for his birthday as a joke.) But this admission felt different somehow. Maybe it was because she... genuinely hadn't had any reason to suspect it wasn't the whole truth until now. It had sounded perfectly reasonable, it even made sense with her own experience too, why would she even consider otherwise?

"Mom said it first." he defended himself with a huff. Mari... supposed that was true, mom had been the one to suggest it as an explanation, hadn't she? That still didn't resolve the issue of why he'd just agree with it if he didn't mean it, but... That wasn't really what was important right now, was it? Mari was getting distracted nitpicking minor details. She tried to force herself to refocus.

"But then what do you mean, you can't do it?" she felt the need to ask again. Sunny exhaled sharply through his nose, in a way that reminded her oddly of mom for a moment. He probably hadn't done it on purpose, mom's exasperation was usually not directed at him like that as far as Mari knew, but even so, it was almost uncanny. He must've been getting annoyed with her nonstop questioning, but... she really didn't understand where this was coming from.

"I mean I can't do it." he replied, looking back at her again with another expression she didn't know how to fully decipher (though the deep frown was a pretty severe hint). "No matter what I do, I can't get it right... so I'm done." he said after a small pause. Mari felt her eyes going wide as she looked at him, that ugly stabbing sensation starting to form in her chest again, and she didn't have any immediate ideas on how to alleviate it this time. She was vaguely aware that her hands were starting to shake, but she didn't really have the time to devote to making them stop.

"That's not true!" she exclaimed, her voice hitching a little louder than she intended. "I know we can get it perfect, we already did it once, so we're already pretty much there!" She almost felt like she was edging close to babbling, but it was imperative that she get her point across, wasn't it?

But Sunny's expression only intensified. "Stop saying that. Just because I got lucky once..." he trailed off with a sharp shake of his head. "I still messed it up again. Still wasn't right."

"It wasn't just luck, we were already really close. With just a little more practice, I-" Mari started to say, but Sunny cut her off again.

"No! No more practicing!" he snapped, so suddenly that Mari almost jolted at the increase in volume. Sunny's arms fell to his sides again as he took a couple deep breaths. "No more practicing. It takes forever and it's still... never enough!" he almost growled. It sounded absurd in Mari's head to describe Sunny's actions like that, but she didn't know what else to call it. One of her shaky hands came up to tug at her collar, but she caught it this time and awkwardly lowered it. She shook her head to herself.

"Sunny, I... don't understand." she admitted uncomfortably. But that was apparently the wrong thing to say. Something seemed to shift somehow, like the air in the kitchen had suddenly become heavier, which she normally would've written off as her imagination, but it was the only warning she got... Before suddenly Sunny was shouting at her.

"OF COURSE YOU DON'T!" His frustrated voice echoed around the kitchen, loud enough to make her ears ring. "YOU NEVER UNDERSTAND! BECAUSE YOU'RE-"

He stopped himself abruptly, one hand almost instinctively coming up over his mouth, his eyes blown wide. But Mari was barely paying attention to any of that. The words had felt like she'd been kicked in the chest, knocking the air from her lungs and replacing it with something freezing cold.

"What?" The word came out lower than she was expecting as she rasped for breath, almost a hiss. Her heart was thrumming loudly in her ears. Had he really just alluded to her being-? The hand that had been reaching for her collar a moment ago was now frozen at her side, fingernails pressing hard into her palm. She... she needed to try to be calm. Freaking out wouldn't help anything here. Sunny clenched his eyes shut again, his own fists balled up at his sides.

"You don't... You don't get it. It's always the same over and over and we keep doing it!" he said bitterly, and Mari couldn't interpret it as anything other than an accusation. The cold feeling in her chest was spreading. Was this that paralyzing chill that had haunted her at the recital? She couldn't tell. It felt exactly the same, but also not at all the same. That didn't make sense, and the fact that it didn't make sense was something that she really didn't like, but she still couldn't find the word.

"Are you saying you suddenly don't want to practice with me?" she responded warily, a hard edge to her voice... She hadn't intended to do that. She needed to try to be calm. Calm.

"No! And I don't know why you do!" Sunny snapped back. Mari genuinely hadn't been intending to loom over him. She hadn't even realized she had stepped forwards until all of a sudden she was looking down, her shadow falling over him. He looked back up at her with an expression she could only recognize as a glare now. Her chest was cold.

"You know exactly why. It's for our recital." she retorted, just as icy as she felt. No, wait, that was all wrong. She needed to try to be calm.

"Your recital!" Sunny grit out immediately, his lips open slightly to reveal clenched teeth. "You're the one who wanted it! You're the one who keeps talking about it! You're the one who acts like it's so important!"

"It is important! Everyone was looking forward to it!" Mari was snapping back now. She needed to try to be calm.

Sunny stamped his foot on the floor. "I wasn't! But you don't think about that, do you? Everything always has to be 'just perfect' with you! It's like the only thing you care about are those stupid instruments!" he ranted, words almost spilling out in his burst of fury.

"I- You-" Mari suddenly found herself struggling to even string her thoughts into anything coherent. She needed to try to be calm.

"I wish... I wish I never got that violin! I wish I'd smashed it into a thousand pieces!" Sunny didn't even seem to notice Mari's stumbling at this point, too caught up in his head of steam. But she did notice what he was saying. She needed to try to- She needed-

("Oh shut the hell up with that!")

It was like a switch had been flipped, and all of a sudden the ice in her veins was replaced with fire.

"HOW COULD YOU SAY THAT!?" she demanded, so harsh that even Sunny's tirade was momentarily silenced. "That violin is a gift! You can't just-! All our friends worked to give that to you because we- AND YOU'RE SAYING YOU HATE IT!?"

"I don't care! Now leave me alone!" Sunny regained his footing, clearly not wanting to talk anymore. Mari's heartbeat was almost deafening, and she could've sworn she could see the red-hot blood pumping in the corners of her vision. Sunny turned to leave.

"Hold on!" Immediately Mari was stepping forward, reaching a hand out to catch his shoulder. "We're not-"

"I SAID LEAVE ME ALONE!"

Before Mari knew it, a hand swung back and struck her clear in the stomach. Not a metaphorical hand this time, but Sunny's actual fist lashing wildly backwards. He didn't even seem to notice or care that he'd actually hit her, already running away. But she noticed. For just a second it was like everything was in slow motion – Sunny's retreating form, herself reeling backwards, her own hand reaching for the counter behind her to steady herself... And then, as she stumbled back, her heel struck the floor hard, sending a shock up her leg...

And then pain.

The impact caused her bad knee to flare up, but this wasn't the normal aches and pains she was used to. Rather than a needle, it was like a lance of molten metal had pierced through the entire length of her leg. In that instant, she couldn't see anything. She couldn't hear anything. She couldn't feel anything. Anything but the pain in her leg. She'd thought she'd felt fire before, but that was nothing at all compared to this, she saw that now. With an odd clarity, she realized that she knew exactly what this was, too, why it felt so familiar. It really was... the worst.

Her leg had given out completely.

And then she hit the floor, collapsing into a pathetic approximation of a sitting position. The back of her head struck the counter behind her, stars briefly bursting into her vision... but compared to her knee, it really wasn't any worse. She became aware of an odd sound, almost like a low whine, and-

Oh, that was coming from her throat. She hadn't noticed she was doing that.

She didn't know how long she sat there.

Sunny was long gone, probably upstairs. He probably hadn't even seen her fall.

The pain in her leg was fading. Eventually.

But it still hurt. Not just her leg. Her chest. Her stomach. Her heart. Everything. It was all wrong.

That didn't make sense. It was really a tiny fall. She wasn't even injured.

.

.

.

.

She was still sitting there. The floor beneath her was cold.

Her heartbeat was still too loud. Why was it loud? She wasn't doing anything.

Sunny didn't come back downstairs.

Sunny had yelled at her.

She'd yelled at Sunny.

It was too much. It was all wrong.

Something in her eyes burned.

Was she crying?

She didn't understand.

Chapter Text

When Mari opened her eyes, she found herself staring up at the ceiling above her in confusion for a few seconds. That wasn't the ceiling of her bedroom, it was too high and too wide. No, even within the clouds of her tired mind, it was obviously the living room. An involuntary groan echoed from her throat as she swung her feet off the couch and pushed herself up into a sitting position from where she'd been stretched out across it. Her head felt heavy, like someone had piled rocks on top of it, and the very first thought to come to mind was that she wanted to lay back down and doze off again. But no, today would be Monday, wouldn't it? That meant school. Blinking blearily around the silent living room, Mari noted the dull gray light that filtered in from the windows – the dense clouds that had taken over the sky in the evening must have stuck around, then. It might've even rained sometime during the night, though she couldn't remember hearing anything like that to be sure. Now that she was thinking about it, however, she stopped to listen and…. Yes, there it was. A very faint pattering against the walls of the house. It hadn't just rained that night, it was still raining a bit now.

Speaking of remembering, however, she tried to recall what had led her to this situation in the first place. In those first few moments after sitting up, the clouds of sleep still hanging over her, Mari couldn't seem to think of why she had taken refuge on the stiff couch instead of her lovely memory-foam-layered bed. And then, as if on cue, it hit her. Immediately Mari leaned forwards, pressing her face into the palms of her hands as if covering her eyes would physically block the recollection out.

The events of last night. The argument.

It didn't feel real, the memories hazy and black-and-white, like a shoddy recording of an old movie. The words they spoke muffled and dull, yet at the same time somehow echoing piercingly loud in her ears. The first thing it made Mari think of was the sort of nightmares she sometimes had. (The ones that had always made her grateful Sunny was such a heavy sleeper, he didn't need to be disturbed by how difficult her rest was.) But this clearly wasn't a dream. The very fact that she was sitting here in the living room was proof of that. There had been absolutely no way she would've made it up the stairs so soon after having her knee buckle like that. Not a chance, not when they already bothered her even on the best of days. So she'd dragged herself to the couch instead. She didn't exactly remember when she'd actually fallen asleep, the rest of the night was pretty much all just a blur from that point…. Really, it had all sort of been a blur even at the time. She just remembered not wanting to try the stairs, the back of her head hurting (were there bruises under her hair?), memories of Sunny's angry face and her own furious voice playing back over and over, and….

Mari lowered her hands, blinking as she looked out across the living room. There was nothing there, silent except for the light rain outside. Just the same as it had been a minute ago. She didn't know exactly why she'd expected anything else. But for some reason, it had almost felt for a moment like something was in the room with her, a weight in the air pressing in on her. Like being deep underwater with dark shapes swimming around her. (She'd never been afraid of that, but Sunny had described a similar nightmare once and…. After that day at the lake, she could almost see it.) It obviously was just her imagination though. Nothing was happening right now. Perhaps it was all some combination of her tired mind and her headache; she winced as the burden upon her skull took that as a signal to remind her of its presence.

("Get it together already, this is ridiculous.")

She shook her head slightly. She needed to calm down. Just take a deep breath. It wasn't as scary as she thought.

Thinking about everything that happened last night wouldn't help anything right now. Nor would just sitting here like this, for that matter. Now that Mari was awake, she needed to focus on getting ready for her day. She could figure out what to do about…. about Sunny, and the violin, and the recital, and…. herself…. after she'd taken care of the basics. That must've been it, right? It was all her mind's overly complicated way of telling her that she needed to get moving. Or at least she had to assume that was correct, because if it wasn't then she couldn't think of what else to do. Pushing herself to her feet, she groaned at the crackling stiffness of her knee, but at the same time, she was honestly just grateful that it was holding her weight at all. After the fall last night, that wasn't a given.

Mari looked around at the empty kitchen, feeling some sort of frown pulling at her lips almost automatically. She'd suspected she would find it empty, of course, the noticeable lack of sound had made that a fairly safe bet. Unless mom or dad had inexplicably been sitting totally still at the table and doing nothing else, there presumably would've been some noise from them moving about that she could have picked up on. Once she'd started listening for the rain, it hadn't taken long to realize that her ears were feeling a bit sensitive today – not to that horrible extent where it was drowning out her ability to think, and thank goodness for that, but rather a slighter, subtler effect. Like the smallest sounds, the little shuffles of movement and shifts in the air, were just that tiniest bit louder in her head. Enough to be noticeable, but not so much that she could really put her finger on what to call it. Or why it would be like that.

("Oh please. You know exactly why.")

Regardless, the kitchen was predictably uninhabited. A quick glance at the sink revealed a couple bowls and spoons piled up. And since Mari had already taken care of the ones from dinner shortly before…. she and Sunny…. Not the point. She shook her head sharply. Anyway, she quickly deduced that the presence of these new ones could only mean that mom and dad had already had their breakfast and left for work. Now that she was thinking about it, if that was the case, Mari was a little surprised that neither of them had woken her as they left. They obviously would've seen her. In fact, dad in particular had multiple opportunities to notice her there on the couch, since he must've come home after she'd fallen asleep. Perhaps they'd just counted on her to get up on time by herself? That would seem sensible enough, she was expected to be responsible about handling that sort of thing. It was perfectly reasonable, really, regardless of how unusual it was for her to be sleeping on the couch. That wouldn't be any excuse.

….Wait a moment.

If mom and dad had finished breakfast and were both gone already – and probably a little while ago, since Mari had still been deep enough in slumber to not hear them leave – then that meant…. Mari's gaze immediately whirled to the clock on the stove, and she felt her eyes widen slightly. In that moment she felt an indescribable urge to cup her face in her hands and let out the loudest groan possible, though she resisted. She wasn't tardy for school, there was still time, but it was a lot later than when she usually tried to be up on school days. Especially if she wanted to catch the bus. And today she very much did; while she'd usually be fine walking to school, between the rainy weather and just really not wanting to push her knee right now, it wasn't a good option. All that meant that she wouldn't have time for a shower, not if she also wanted to be able to eat a proper breakfast. Between food and shower…. She wished she could go for the hot shower, she couldn't even think of the word to describe how much in that moment. But not eating before school was a bad idea, something she knew from experience. Her stomach seemed to protest at the very thought. (There were all those corny cartoon PSAs about eating a nutritional breakfast too. Something about blood sugar? Mari felt like her memory had merged them all into one big colorful mishmash, but they all said the same things anyway.)

So, breakfast it was. With a small sigh to herself, Mari headed over towards the countertop. Maybe she could at least grab a warm washcloth to wrap around her knee while she ate or something. It'd be a bit embarrassing, mom would probably not approve, but she was out of better ideas.

("So you know it's not normal and you're doing it anyway? ….You're lucky it's just you here.")

Breakfast, unsurprisingly, had been a quiet and uneventful affair. If anything, Mari would honestly say that once she'd gotten herself seated at the table, she'd barely even paid attention to actually eating. Though she made the effort to finish her food, it was really more of an automatic action than anything. Her brain conjured images of industrial engines mechanically carrying out their tasks. It wasn't bad, her stomach hadn't rebelled at the thought of eating or anything. But it wasn't really good either. She didn't have that content sort of feeling that came from being comfortably full. It was just a thing that happened, a thing she needed to do so she did it…. Actually, now that she was thinking about it, it had the same sort of feeling that she'd had ever since waking up. That odd, unreal haziness that seemed to color everything. It wasn't a new feeling, she'd felt things like it before, but that didn't mean she knew the word for it either. But she tried to shove that to the back of her mind as she tromped up the stairs. Now wasn't the time. She was grateful, at least, that her knee seemed to have subsided enough to let her get up without too many problems, though she still found herself wincing by the time she reached the top of the staircase.

Just a few moments later, and she was standing in front of her and Sunny's bedroom. Mari paused before the closed door, simply staring at it for a long moment. The doorway was fairly high, like most of the others in the house, but this time Mari felt like she had to look up…. and up…. and up. It was looming over her, absolutely towering in comparison. It was like she was a little kid again – dad had called her a late bloomer once, because she'd actually been quite short before growth spurts had made her one of the taller girls her age. For some reason the high doors had made her uncomfortable, something she distinctly remembered mom scoffing at. She'd learned to get over it by reminding herself to be brave for her little brother back then, but now…. Mari blinked. That didn't make sense. There was no reason why she should be feeling like that. The door was just a door, it wasn't any taller than usual and she wasn't any shorter, it certainly couldn't loom. She didn't know why she would even be standing here frozen imagining that, it wasn't remotely normal or reasonable.

("You're just wasting time now .")

She shook her head, she needed to go ahead and get a move on. Taking a couple steps closer to the door, she slowly raised her hand. This was it, the moment of truth. She rapped her knuckles against the wood, three short taps, the same way she'd usually get Sunny's attention when he was in there alone. There was a brief pause, and then she heard – or at least thought she heard, it was hard to tell muffled by the door – a slight noise. If she'd interpreted it right, then it was something recognizable: the sound of creaking bedsprings.

"Sunny?" Mari called through the door. The creaking stopped and the hallway fell silent again (incidentally proving that said noise had not been her imagination). For the sake of thoroughness, she tried the doorknob, but wasn't surprised when it was locked. "….Can you let me in?" she asked after a moment. Mari waited, but there was no response, only further silence. Something started to twist in Mari's gut. "If you can hear me, please open the door?" she tried again. Sunny's bed creaked again, louder this time. He'd definitely heard her and was moving around. Mari stood there expectantly, but still nothing happened. She knocked again, noticeably louder this time – though she wasn't actually trying to put that much force into it, it just happened. "Please open up?" Still no response. That feeling in her stomach was turning into something winding and thorny. At this point he must have known what she wanted, right? He was just….

He was just ignoring her.

Mari felt her heart rate picking up, her breathing growing sharper. A familiar sting came from her palm as she pressed her fingernails into it. Before she even realized she was moving, her knuckles pounded the door in one more, now very loud, knock. "Sunny, open the door!" Her voice echoed sharply around the hallway, surprising even herself. She hadn't been intending to shout, she honestly hadn't. She didn't even know if what she was feeling could really even be called frustration, or…. something else. That didn't sound right. But that feeling in her stomach burned, it felt like venom, like vines of poison oak had wrapped themselves around her guts. She didn't understand what it could be, but she didn't want it. She was sure of that much. This wasn't helping. Mari knew that she needed to calm down, that freaking out here wasn't what anyone needed. She took several slow breaths, being extra sure to completely fill her lungs before gradually letting it back out. In through the nose and out through the mouth, the same way she'd shown Sunny how to do after he had a particularly bad dream. (The same way she dealt with her own nightmares when he wasn't looking.) That felt like ages ago now, she was a little surprised she even still remembered it so well. But it should still work, right?

For several long moments – she wasn't sure exactly how long – Mari simply stood there trying to calm herself. It seemed to be working somewhat, the feeling of stinging tendrils receding as she attempted to push down the whirlwind of thoughts that had been swirling all morning. It wasn't truly gone, though, she could still feel it there in the background. Of course it wasn't. There was simply too much going on, too much that had happened and she still didn't know what to make of it, and now- She tried to forcefully cut that train of thought short as well. It still wouldn't help the current situation at all. Speaking of which, even now after that outburst, Sunny still wasn't responding. Mari took another deep breath, her stomach squirming one more time, and tried to steel herself.

"Sunny, I-" she tried to begin, only to stop and swallow sharply. "I'm-" But she stopped again. She was what? The words wouldn't come, it felt like someone had jammed a rock down her throat and she couldn't get it out….. She didn't even know what she wanted to say. Did she want to try to convince him to talk to her? To more tactfully ask him to let her in? To apologize for shouting at him just then, or maybe for…. for something else? In that moment, she genuinely didn't know. She had absolutely no clue what to do here. It felt like she'd stepped onto a minefield, except she'd been blindfolded, and nobody had actually told her whether there were live mines there or not.

("As if there's anyone to blame for that but yourself.")

"I… I need to get dressed for school." she settled on at last, the words lame even as she said them. She could feel her shoulders hunching inwards. What in the world was that? That was all she could think of? It was an objectively true statement, in fact it was precisely why she'd come up here in the first place, but still. That was it? Despite being otherwise a perfectly normal and necessary request, something about saying it here and now just felt that slightest bit off, but she couldn't describe why. Almost like how it felt when she slipped up and revealed something weird without realizing, or noticing exactly when or how, but she knew it'd happened because of the way people looked at her. This wasn't quite the same (nobody was here to look at her, obviously), but it was the closest feeling that came to mind.

And then, after a brief moment of silence, there came another sound from behind the door, jolting Mari out of her thoughts. More creaking from Sunny's bed, but it didn't stop there. Mari leaned forwards slightly, listening intently. There was the faint shuffling sound that could only be Sunny moving around the room, another noise she'd heard so often as to be instantly familiar with it. The footsteps paused, and Mari stood there frozen. Listening. For a few moments there was nothing beyond a couple vague thunks she couldn't identify nearly as well, and then the movement resumed. The shuffling very clearly seemed to get louder, and she sucked in a small breath when she realized it was coming right up to the door. Almost without even realizing it, Mari took a tiny step back, and right on cue the door squeaked open. Just a crack. Immediately her eyes snapped to the opening, trying to get a look at Sunny, but she barely managed to catch a glimpse of messy black hair before an arm thrust through the gap. He shoved something in his grip towards her stomach, and her hands came up to catch it on instinct. Some sort of bundle was deposited in her arms – it felt like bunched-up clothes, part of her realized dimly, but she didn't look down at it. Couldn't look down at it.

"Su-" The word started to burst out before she could even consider stopping it. But it wouldn't be heard. The door slammed shut with a sharp thud, far more abrupt than how slowly it had opened. The sound of the lock clicking into place again followed. "...nny…." Mari found herself trailing off weakly. It felt like her face had fallen somehow, though she definitely hadn't done so on purpose. Normally she would've wondered what her expression looked like, but right now she couldn't focus on anything but the door. He'd really just…. shut it like that. She'd known, of course, that he didn't really seem to want to talk to her. It really shouldn't have surprised her, given how long it had taken to get even this much, but- She didn't know. Ignoring her knocking had been one thing, but totally and deliberately walling her out when he was right there? It felt…. different somehow. She was just left standing there in the hall. Silent. Alone. All of a sudden that horrible feeling in her gut returned, twisting and roiling with newfound fervor, synchronizing with the dull pounding in the back of her skull to create a resonance that left her wanting to retch.

Mari almost staggered towards the door, hugging the bundle of clothes tight to her stomach as she leaned forwards all the way until her forehead was pressing against the cool wood. Her eyes clenched shut as she tried to take a deep breath to calm down again. All of a sudden, she really…. really didn't want to go to school today. Her head hurt. Her stomach hurt. Her knee hurt. She just didn't want to.

("But you know why that's not an option.")

She had to, though. It was important that she kept up with the work to make sure her grades stayed high, she'd gotten straight As last semester and she would be expected to do so again. Mom and dad probably wouldn't be happy if she was obviously letting them slip. Not to mention what would happen when they found out she skipped. Unlike Sunny, Mari didn't have the excuse of being home sick today. The school would call mom about the absence, and just imagining her mother's reaction to being interrupted at work by that…. Mom'd be so disappointed, Mari could almost hear the words, and she found herself really wishing she couldn't. There was no way that could be allowed to happen, it wasn't reasonable. Today was a school day and it didn't matter how she felt about it. She'd just have to get over it. She needed to get a move on, with how long she'd been up here there couldn't be more than ten minutes before the bus arrived.

Maybe she could try to talk- Or…. Or figure out something about Sunny later.

Exhaling slowly, she pulled away from the door (immediately missing the soothing effect from the cool surface as she did). She finally looked down at the clothing in her hands, unraveling the hastily-bunched wad to see what he had grabbed for her. A cream-colored skirt, thankfully one of the long ones more suitable for the chillier weather, and kneesocks to go with it. The black vest and red ascot of her school uniform, of course. And…. Oh. That was the sweater she'd found yesterday. The pale pink one with the white stripes, the one she'd never worn because the fabric felt so rough against her skin, even just from holding it here in her hand. But she couldn't go to school wearing yesterday's clothes, especially not after sleeping on the couch in them as well, and especially especially on a day when she had to skip the shower. She sighed. There was no way Sunny would have known she didn't like this one, it wasn't as if he could have done it on purpose, she knew that. He hadn't even been awake when she'd discovered how unpleasant it felt. It must've just been the first one at the top of the drawer because she'd left it there and forgotten about it until now.

Well, there was nothing for it now. She trudged off to the bathroom to get changed. It was going to be a long day, wasn't it?

Chapter Text

In hindsight, Mari's hope that she would be able to manage getting through the school day with relatively little issue was, perhaps, somewhat optimistic at best (and incredibly poorly-thought-out at worst). She tried to keep her attention focused on her classes, she genuinely did. But she couldn't shake the feeling that this was rather like saying that a house on the beach tries its best to keep from being swept away by a tsunami. It may be, on a technical level, completely true: the supports of the house really do offer as much resistance as is possible from their construction. Yet in practice it generally doesn't amount to much, if anything, in the face of the rushing tide looking to drag it down. It generally doesn't matter at all. Those struggling supports were what Mari's ability to concentrate felt like that day. Which meant that the tsunami in that comparison would equate to all of the…. everything else. She couldn't even come close to finding a good word to sum up all that had happened, between yesterday and that morning, but it was definitely there in the back of her mind, no matter how much she tried to-

("Get a grip.")

She shook her head in a vain attempt to clear it as she stood out in front of the school, umbrella twisting idly in her hand. That metaphor had gotten away from her, but it still felt accurate enough. She probably should've known it wasn't going to be a productive day from the moment she got off the bus that morning – she'd somehow gotten so distracted staring out the window that she hadn't even noticed it had arrived until one of the other students bumped into her shoulder on the way out. Classes themselves weren't any better. After homeroom, the first proper period on Monday was English, usually one of her favorites, but today it felt completely off somehow. She'd tried to listen to the teacher's lecture, and even must have succeeded since she managed to jot down some useful-enough notes on the topic. Yet now that she was thinking about it, she found she could barely recall anything her teacher had said. If it weren't mentioned in the notes, she would've had no clue they had been discussing Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. It was like she'd been on autopilot.

And it had only gotten worse from there, in every class she'd just found new things to be distracted by. The pounding pain in the back of her head that wouldn't recede. The twitchiness of her hands when she let them rest. The constant scratching from the sweater on her back. Everything except school itself. By the time she got to the last lesson of the day, Algebra, it had barely even felt real. If it weren't for how vivid the sensations claiming her attention felt, she would've been half-expecting to wake up back home in her bed to find it was all a dream. But no, at the same time she was uncomfortably aware that every second of it was real. Math had never been a subject she'd liked much – she knew that was a little odd, since it should match well with how precise she liked being, but she just didn't – but this time she could honestly say she couldn't get anything out of it at all. Unlike the earlier classes, she didn't even have notes to fall back on. It was a good thing this teacher didn't deviate much from the textbook, so she could at least go back over it herself to review what she'd missed. That would have to be the only thing saving her score on the next test.

("And you are so lucky that's the case. You know you have to do better than that.")

Even the lunch period had just been…. nothing, the churning feeling in her stomach had left her feeling paralyzed when she thought about eating, so her tray had gone almost untouched. She'd been sitting alone, too, which might've been for the best. She wouldn't want to be rude to anyone by ignoring them trying to talk to her, and with how distracted she was feeling, that almost certainly would've happened. Not that she tended to talk to people much at lunch even on normal days. Due to some quirk of bureaucracy, Hero had an entirely different schedule from her this year: they didn't share any class periods and his lunch was thirty minutes earlier. And he was of course the only one of their friend group in high school with her. That left Mari without a much of a social circle at lunch – sometimes the twins would come over to talk to her (for some reason they occasionally sought out her opinion on whatever new type of bread they'd concocted), but that was about it.

So, all in all, it was just a total wash of a school day. One of the worst she'd had in years, right up there with that time she'd forgotten her coat on an icy January day and spent the whole time feeling like she was going to freeze. But at least that had a straightforward cause that was easily remedied. Today, however…. She shook her head to herself again and forcefully shoved that line of thought down. There was nothing she could do about it. That brought her back to now: leaving the school and pausing to decide whether she wanted to take the bus again, or walk home. If there was one small saving grace of today, it was that the pain in her knee hadn't persisted. It wasn't gone, Mari could tell that if she really pushed it, it would come back with a vengeance. She could still collapse again. But it had subsided enough compared to last night that she felt like she could make it home if she so chose. On the other hand, the bus would get her home quicker, but…. She paused. Was that really a good thing? What would she even do when she got home? Study? Piano practice? Both were very important, of course, but when she thought of being at home her mind went to Sunny. It wasn't like anything would have changed from that morning, he still wouldn't…. She didn't know, nothing sounded quite right.

"MARI! HEY GUYS, I FOUND HER!"

Mari startled out of her thoughts at the shout that sliced through the air, accidentally sending a few droplets of water flying from her umbrella as she spun towards the source. That line of thinking would have to stay derailed for the moment. She'd instantly recognized the voice – it was one she heard quite regularly, after all, it'd be hard not to. And sure enough, there was Aubrey hurrying up to her along the sidewalk, pink umbrella bouncing in hand, having apparently just finished shouting over her shoulder or something of the sort. Presumably some of their other friends wouldn't be too far behind, then – once Mari took a moment to parse the words, there really wasn't anything else it could mean. Nothing that made sense in this context, anyway. She didn't find herself with much of a chance to consider that, however, because as soon as Aubrey reached where she was standing, her gaze was immediately drawn to-

"Oh my goodness, Aubrey! Your hair!" The exclamation tumbled out of Mari's mouth the very moment she'd processed what she was seeing. She regretted it instantly, shuddering with a suppressed flinch – she really couldn't even be polite enough to say "hi" first? Still, it would be easy to see what had caught her attention. Streaking through Aubrey's dark hair were a pair of locks dyed hot pink, a few shades brighter than her umbrella, saturated enough that they looked quite vibrant even under the grayish, washed-out lighting from the clouds above. Aubrey slowed to a halt a few steps in front of Mari, blinking a few times in surprise at the outburst.

"Huh? ….Oh!" Aubrey's brows lifted in (what Mari assumed was) realization. She raised her hand to tug lightly at the end of one of the pink strands. "Yeah! I finally saved up enough to get one of those bottles at Hobbeez, you know the ones." Mari nodded – of course she remembered that, Aubrey had mentioned it multiple times over the last few months, and stopped to stare at the dyes longingly more than once. "I started with a few streaks, just to see how it came out…." she trailed off, looking up at Mari. There was just a hint of something almost expectant in her expression. Anxious? Hopeful? Mari couldn't quite tell.

"Well…. It looks fantastic!" Mari tried to put a bit of brightness into her tone to show that she really meant it. The shade of pink, while eye-catching, seemed to complement the younger girl extremely well – even though it was brand new, Mari found she could easily imagine Aubrey having it her entire life. Mari remembered reassuring her that the color would probably look perfect for her, and it seemed she'd guessed right. Fortunately, Aubrey appeared to notice her sincerity, her eyes glinting as a smile formed on her face. "Oh, and I love the new bow to go with it too. Good thinking." Mari added, eyes drifting to the accessory in question. While Aubrey usually favored pink (in fact, Mari was fairly confident she owned at least five different identical pink bows), today she'd adorned her hair with a lovely blue bow instead. It contrasted well against the pink: clashing, but not in a garish or offensive way. Mari was fond of color contrasts in general, really. She wasn't sure quite why. Visual artistic qualities weren't something she'd call her area of expertise…. that was really more Sunny's wheelhouse…. but she knew there was just something appealing about them nonetheless.

Aubrey beamed. "Heh, thanks! I thought so too." she said happily, twirling her umbrella in one hand. Despite the mess of thoughts still bunched up in the back of Mari's head, the shorter girl's enthusiasm seemed a bit infectious, as she felt like was still able to form a genuine smile for a moment in response. After a few seconds, however, some of Aubrey's cheer seemed to fade and a small frown that Mari would guess was meant to be thoughtful appeared on her face. She looked up at Mari, her gaze seeming to follow the flow of Mari's own mass of black hair. Mari found herself shuffling a little, slightly uncomfortable when she realized where Aubrey was looking – she'd been in enough of a rush that she hadn't been able to maintain her hair that morning, so it probably looked something of a mess. If Aubrey noticed, she didn't comment, though. "….It's too bad your mom won't let you do yours though, I bet purple or blue would've looked awesome." she said instead, crossing her arms in what almost looked like a pout.

Mari's smile fell and she nodded in agreement before glancing away. It was true, her mom had shut down the request the very moment the word "dye" had left her mouth. Mom'd said she was worried it would draw the wrong sort of attention, that people would think Mari was a delinquent, and besides, her normal hair should already be lovely enough. Mari hadn't tried to broach the matter again since.

("Why would you even ask anyway? You of all people really don't need to look more unusual.")

Honestly, she had no clue how Aubrey had secured permission from her own mother – or, in fact, if she actually had – but didn't want to be rude by prying about it. After all, it really did come out great and Aubrey was clearly happy with it. That mattered, and the last thing Mari wanted to do was be discouraging when she could avoid it. The two of them fell into silence for a couple seconds – not outright uncomfortable, but Aubrey did glance at her once or twice. Mari reached up to scratch one of her shoulders idly (this sweater was so itchy!) for a moment. Before she could think of anything to say, however, another voice called out to them.

"There you guys are! Hey!" Kel exclaimed, running up to them. Mari noticed that he seemed to have foregone an umbrella entirely; perhaps he'd been sharing Hero's and simply broken out from under it to get ahead, as approaching from the direction he'd come was Hero himself, umbrella in hand. Not only that, but the top of another umbrella peeked from a few steps behind Hero, and a quick glance told Mari that Basil was the holder. The sight wasn't really much of a surprise given that, before being distracted by matters of hair, Aubrey had been calling out for them anyway.

"Finally! I was starting to wonder if you heard me." As if reading Mari's mind, Aubrey promptly raised exactly that point to Kel, who shook his head slightly in response.

"Pshh, I think the whole town heard that. You're really loud, you know?" he replied with his usual level of subtlety (which was to say, not much). Mari actually had to stop herself from chuckling, just a little – while the comment definitely wasn't very polite, she privately had to admit that Kel wasn't exactly wrong. Aubrey certainly had some rather impressive vocal chops when she wanted to, capable of shouting louder even than some adults if she really got worked up. It was a bit of a shame she didn't have much interest in singing, there were some genres she'd be perfect for. Aubrey, meanwhile, balled up her fists on the sides of her raincoat.

"Shut up, Kel!" she snapped indignantly, whirling on him with an angry set in her brow. "If it's so bad, then what took you so long?" she challenged. Perhaps this was starting to get a little out-of-hand. Before Kel could retort, or Mari could consider stepping in to defuse things, Hero and Basil reached the three of them.

"Guys…. You haven't even been together ten seconds. Really?" Poor Hero sounded so put-upon that Mari got the strong suspicion this wasn't the first argument he'd heard today. Unfortunately, there was a greater-than-zero chance it wouldn't be the last either. She tried to give him a sympathetic look as she glanced at him, though with his focus on the bickering pair, she wasn't sure if he noticed. "Aubrey, we're here now, okay? And Kel…." Hero paused and looked his brother over briefly. "...You know mamá's not going to be happy with you getting home soaking wet." he noted. It was a little more blunt than usual for him, but it was still raining enough to be noticeable and Kel's hair already looked damp, so it wasn't like he was wrong. Aubrey crossed her arms and looked away, but didn't press the argument, while Kel rubbed the back of his head (but made no effort to rejoin Hero under the umbrella).

"Hi, Mari." Basil greeted her with a small wave and equally-small smile, perhaps deciding to take the initiative since Hero was momentarily distracted by making sure the other two didn't start up again. Mari noticed that his blonde hair wasn't adorned with any flowers today. That was a bit of a shame, since they usually looked nice, but she supposed it made sense with the cold, rainy weather.

She tried to give him a friendly smile in return. "Hey Basil, good afternoon." While Basil bobbed his head in a small nod, she glanced over at Hero. "And to you too, Hero." she added, just slightly louder, trying to get him to refocus his attention. Evidently, this worked, as Hero's gaze whipped over to her and then he blinked a couple times and scrubbed his hand across his face in a gesture Mari recognized as a bit flustered. Had he actually forgotten she was there for a second?

"Aha….!" Hero chuckled awkwardly. "I mean, yeah. Hello, Mari." he added quickly, perhaps trying to brush past that moment of embarrassment quickly. Or at least that was Mari's best guess. She decided to let him have it this time – maybe on another day she would've ribbed him about it a little, but….

"….Anyway, what's going on, you guys?" she asked instead, deciding to try to get to the point. Not that she minded meeting up with her friends at all – of course she was happy to see them – but they'd clearly been looking for her specifically (Aubrey's call of "I found her" made it a rather easy guess). She couldn't help but wonder what it was about.

"Well, most of us haven't really seen you in a couple days…." Hero began slowly, like he was trying to decide what to say. Mari felt like a bit of weight was starting to shift in the conversation, though she wasn't quite sure why yet. "I mean, Kel mentioned you stopped by and you were doing fine-"

"-I toldja you could count on me to pass it on!" Kel interjected, shooting Mari a wide grin that she thought made him look a little cheeky. On reflection, she realized that he was right, she had asked him to give a message like that, hadn't she? It was strange, she barely remembered saying that, when it had only been yesterday – it seemed so long ago, what with all the….. everything else.

"It's so unfair that only Kel got to talk to you…." Aubrey pouted, though she said it under her breath, quietly enough that Mari wasn't sure if anybody else was actually intended to hear it. In fact, if her own hearing weren't so sensitive, she might very well not have been able to make it out herself, even with Aubrey standing only a few feet away from her.

"I also heard something about Sunny being sick?" Basil spoke up, his voice taking on what sounded like a hint of concern. Kel readily nodded his head a few times in confirmation, but Basil wasn't really looking at him, gazing over at Mari instead. It made perfect sense that he'd be concerned, really, everyone knew he and Sunny got along pretty well even compared to the rest of their friend group. Of course he'd ask about it if he'd heard Sunny wasn't doing so hot. There was nothing surprising there.

"He's-..." Yet, even so, Mari found herself hesitating, her train of thought grinding to a halt for a moment. For just a brief minute there, she'd almost been able to shove the thoughts that had been plaguing her aside. The odd, hazy weight that had been hanging over her all day and making it impossible to focus had almost seemed to abate in the face of the company of her friends. Having Aubrey drawing attention with her hair, hearing her and Kel bicker over the littlest things, seeing Hero's sheepishness and Basil's soft smile…. Just them being there together with Mari had allowed her to distract herself, if only for a few moments. It was just…. Nice. In a way she couldn't quite put her finger on.

("They're good friends, they always have been…. Have you?")

But now Basil's question, even though it was obviously meant to be well-meaning, seemed to bring reality crashing back in on her. Perhaps it was just hearing Sunny's name, reminding her of all the things that she still couldn't make sense of. The things she wondered if she might not ever be able to make sense of, because how could she without even being able to see him- Mari found that line of thought cut short as she had to suppress a wince, blinking a few times to clear away a sudden ache. These occasional thrums of sharp pain in the back of her head weren't helping. Nor was this the itchiness of this sweater, for that matter – she scratched at her shoulder again, trying to subtly shift her arms so the fabric didn't feel as rough, but it didn't really work.

She realized abruptly that Basil was still waiting for an answer. Fortunately, in reality, it had only been a couple seconds. Not long enough for her friends to think she was strange for hesitating (or at least, not long enough to consider it notable enough to comment on). Which was for the best, it wasn't like her problems were their fault, or that she even knew how to reasonably explain said problems in a way that would sound normal. And…. she really just didn't like worrying them.

"I mean, that's right. Just some little stomach bug, I think. He mentioned being a bit nauseous." she hedged for an explanation. She felt her mouth tilted to a small frown. "He seemed to be doing better yesterday evening, but…." Don't think about what he'd said after dinner. (What she'd said either.) That wasn't the point right now. "….I guess mom let him off school today, just to be safe." she concluded. Basil got a look on his face, a slight frown that seemed a bit…. disappointed? But he nodded his head in acceptance of the answer anyway.

"That's too bad though, I think we were kinda hoping to talk to him too." Aubrey commented, roughly matching Basil's expression. Kel nodded emphatically in agreement beside her, though he'd of course already known Sunny was ill anyway. Before Mari could ask what they meant, however, Hero cut back in.

"Anyway, that's what I was getting to. We figured we should meet up because we all sort of…. Wanted to talk to you, Mari." he explained, looking at her earnestly.

"Talk to me?" she repeated curiously, frown remaining on her face. "About what?" She was starting to get the feeling she'd missed something here, but when piled on top of all the other feelings she had, she couldn't reasonably figure out what.

("As if you missing out on the obvious is anything new.")

Hero blinked, as if slightly confused by her asking. "About what happened with the recital?" For some reason he phrased it almost like a question. "I know you must've been pretty disappointed after that, so we wanted to check in and…. see what was up." There was still a note of awkwardness in his voice, but he gave Mari a small smile at the same time. She, however, was too distracted trying to make sense of the words themselves to interpret the meaning of that.

The recital. Of course. She really had barely even been thinking about that today, somehow it had almost slipped her mind. But her friends didn't know, couldn't have known, about everything else that had happened since. To them, it was still the biggest and most pressing issue for Mari and Sunny. It made perfect sense when she tried to think of it from that perspective. She shivered slightly, remembering the cold rainy weather suddenly, and scratched at the arm of her sweater again. Truth be told, she'd almost blurted out that she wasn't focused on the recital right now. But she stopped herself – she wasn't really sure if she was focused on anything, so it'd just be rude. Her friends were trying to be considerate towards her. And…. Now that she thought of it, hadn't she told herself she owed them all an explanation for the recital thing, or something like that? She thought she remembered that, and it'd make sense anyway. Before she could respond, however….

"Oh yeah, but if we're gonna talk, can we go somewhere else to hang out?" Aubrey interjected suddenly, seeming like an idea had just occurred to her.

"Um, what do you mean somewhere else?" Basil asked the question Mari had just been thinking, looking at Aubrey curiously. Aubrey actually visibly paused, raising one index finger in the air like she'd been about to make a point only to stop when she realized she didn't have an immediate answer. Kel snorted slightly, and that seemed to be what it took to spur her back into action.

"W-well!" she huffed, cheeks slightly red in embarrassment. "We could go to the park or something!"

"Aubrey, you know it's rained all day, right? Everything's gonna be totally soaked!" Kel protested, looking at her incredulously.

Aubrey crossed her arms, scowling right back at him. "Ugh! I got that! But if we're going to be standing around talking about serious stuff, we can at least go walk around somewhere a bit nicer than school, okay!?"

"….She has a point, Kel. We should probably get a move on before the faculty gets mad at us for loitering." Hero pointed out, rubbing his chin thoughtfully with the hand not holding his umbrella.

"Okay, okay, jeez…." Kel mumbled, relenting – albeit a little sullenly, though it wouldn't surprise Mari if he were playing it up a bit on purpose.

"I think it could be nice." Basil said, smiling softly at Aubrey. This appeared to mollify her somewhat, at least enough to get her to stop glaring at the side of Kel's head anyway.

And then, as if through some sort of unspoken coordination, each of them turned their gaze back to Mari. She had to stop herself from instinctively flinching at the sudden scrutiny. Why were they all staring at her like that? Did they want something from her, had she missed some sort of cue to say something? These hazy feelings in her head really weren't making this any easier. What had they just been talking about again….? She shook herself slightly. Oh, right, going to the park. Of course. Her friends were just waiting for her opinion, which made sense given that she was the one they'd gathered to talk to. If she refused, it'd sort of break the whole idea, wouldn't it? But she didn't want to do that: besides it being incredibly rude to disappoint them like that, she really shouldn't be doing anything to worry them even more. They deserved better than that.

She nodded slowly. "Okay, if you guys want to go down to the park, I'm alright with that too." she agreed.

For some reason, she was suddenly hit with the feeling that she was forgetting something important when she accepted, but since she didn't have the faintest idea what, she tried to ignore it.

Faraway park was…. gray. Mari wasn't sure if she'd ever come here in the rain or not – given the sorts of things their friend group often got up to, it wouldn't surprise her if she had. But even so, she couldn't remember any specific occasion. Perhaps it was just her memory being faulty again. Either way, however, she was struck by just how dulled everything looked. It hadn't been so noticeable on the sidewalk outside school, presumably because concrete and asphalt aren't colorful to begin with. But here, with the wide open park stretching out before them, the world just looked…. washed out. The rich greens of the grass and trees, the dots of color from the occasional patch of flowers, even the smooth sand of the playground. All of it had just been replaced with tones of gray beneath the dim light of the cloudy sky. There was a faint haze in the air, too, a slight blurring at the edges of everything. (But she couldn't be sure that wasn't just her imagination.)

"Whoa! There's like, no one here!" Kel's voice shook Mari out of her train of thought for a moment. Glancing over at him, he was staring around the park with slightly wide eyes from where he stood beneath Hero's umbrella. (Hero had managed to cajole him into not letting himself get completely soaked from the drizzle. Mari wondered how long it'd last.)

Next to him, Hero glanced down. "Well, what'd you expect, Kel? Most people aren't going to want to be out in this for long." he said. They were right, though, for as colorless as the park looked with the weather, it was equally devoid of activity. There was no sign of anybody asides from their group in sight from where they were standing, and it wouldn't surprise Mari to learn it really was just them. Even those guys who were obsessed with recycling were absent, and it seemed like they were out here every day.

"Yeah, I know, but still." Kel replied, crossing his arms halfheartedly. He didn't seem to actually have a good comeback.

"It's too bad it's a little too wet to really do much…." Basil observed thoughtfully, glancing around the park as well. "It could be sort of fun, just for a little while – if that makes sense?"

"Hey, yeah!" Aubrey agreed brightly, turning to Basil with what looked like an energetic smile. "We'd have the whole place just to ourselves! It'd be like our secret hangout spot, but bigger." Though initially cheerful, however, a moment after Aubrey said that she seemed to think of something and abruptly stopped. She not-so-subtly glanced over at Mari, her smile falling awkwardly. It took Mari a few moments of confusion to figure out what was going on behind those expressions, but…. Once she did, it was obvious in hindsight. Aubrey had mentioned their spot by the pond, the spot Mari herself had insisted they stop going to. Of course it'd be awkward.

She felt a jab in her stomach at the realization, but she wasn't going to suddenly take it back. Not about this. That place was where Sunny had…. had almost drowned. If that had happened on one of the days where she was busy with piano practice or homework, or even if she'd been there but her knee had seen fit to act up at the wrong moment, or any of a thousand little things…. She didn't want them going back there anymore. Even thinking about it made her feel sick. Under almost any other circumstance, Mari knew acting that way would have been incredibly unreasonable, and even as it was, she didn't feel particularly good bossing her friends around like that. But she just didn't feel like it was a point she could back down on either.

("Because being pushy is definitely how you make people want you around, right? It worked so well with Sunny this morning.")

She shoved that train of thought down as forcefully as possible. Fortunately, while Aubrey had clearly realized the issue after accidentally bringing it up, she didn't say anything about it. Nor did any of the others, though Mari felt a sensation of eyes on her that made her think they might have known what she was thinking too. Instead, after a moment, the conversation started back up – Hero somehow managed to segue into something about Kel's English homework, Kel gave some sort of retort about their dog Hector, Aubrey jumped in….

Mari, however, found it hard to really follow much of what they were saying. It wasn't that she was trying to tune them out. That wasn't it. Somehow, though, before she even realized it her mind had drifted from the hangout spot to going over all the times she'd come here to the park with her friends. The times she could remember, anyway. They'd hung out here countless times over the years, enough that it mostly blended together in Mari's mind – though not in an unpleasant way. It wasn't surprising, really, there were only so many places a group of kids could go in a small town like Faraway. And of those places, the park was one of the only options to meander around and have fun outdoors, unless you just wanted to just wander off into the woods (and that was dangerous). But the one thing that really struck Mari was that…. it was weird to be here without Sunny. Really weird.

There had been plenty of times when Mari had been too busy to join the rest of her friends, of course. (An increasing amount of such times, recently.) It was unfortunate, but between schoolwork ramping up in high school and the increased pressure to perfect her piano skills, it was unavoidable. So there'd been days when Sunny would go hang out with the others while she had to stay home. But the reverse very rarely happened: even after Sunny started…. violin practice…. he'd been staying home with her, not by himself while she went out. She'd been really impressed with how dedicated he'd seemed to staying and practicing with her when she'd asked, but…. The point was, he was pretty much always with Mari whenever she went to the park (even if sometimes they'd split up to do their own things). Her coming here without him was extremely uncommon. So much so that she couldn't recall the last time it had happened. Or if it ever even had.

.

"-ari? ….Maaarrriii? You there?"

.

*SNAP!*

Mari flinched violently at the sudden sharp noise that stabbed at her left ear, pulling in a high breath. Before she even realized it, one of her hands was cupped over the ear in question as if the shield it from further assault.

"Kel!" Hero barked. Dimly, part of Mari noted that it wasn't often she heard him so annoyed.

"Aw crap, ehehe…. sorry!" Kel replied sheepishly. It wasn't clear whether it was meant for Mari or Hero. Possibly both. Mari blinked a few times, needing a couple takes to make sense of the scene in front of her. Kel was standing fairly close to her, having unsurprisingly not stayed under Hero's umbrella, rubbing the back of his head ruefully. Had he snapped his fingers next to her ear or something? That would explain the sound, and his proximity. But…. Why? The rest of her friends were standing around her in a rough semicircle. Hero was shaking his head, his eyes closed for a moment – if she listened closely, she thought he might have murmured something under his breath, though she wasn't sure. Aubrey had her trademark 'annoyed-at-Kel' glare at full focus – a sight Mari had seen often enough to instantly recognize the tells. Basil was standing back a step or two with what looked to Mari like a small frown, though she wasn't sure what it could mean.

"Uh…. What's going on, now? What was that for?" Mari asked, and then immediately cursed herself in her head. The questions had spilled out almost instinctively, before she could think of a way to rephrase them that didn't make her sound so…. clueless. She really was a little confused about what was happening, but she didn't like looking dumb either. (But did anybody, really?) As Kel stepped away from her, Hero's attention shifted to her with a frown.

"….Mari, are you sure you're okay?" he asked, the hint of concern so clear in his voice that Mari didn't even need to look for it.

"I'm fine? Is something the matter?" she replied right away, looking towards Hero in turn (though not feeling quite confident enough to attempt eye contact). She felt guilt bubbling in her stomach, as it was a bit of a lie and she knew it. She wasn't sure 'fine' was really the right word here. Physically, there was nothing wrong with her. Or at least, nothing beyond the usual issues; her bad leg aching, a migraine, her skin being sensitive to things like the ridiculous itchiness of this sweater- The point was, that was all fairly normal by itself, wasn't it? But with how off she was feeling today regardless, saying it was fine still felt wrong. But complaining about nothing like that would only worry him more.

"You were totally spaced out just now!" That was Aubrey. Mari's eyes flicked over to her, seeing that she was apparently done staring holes into Kel's head for now, though making out anything else in her expression was unclear. "You were just kinda staring at nothing, it was…." Aubrey trailed off, apparently not have an appropriate adjective. Mari had a suspicion about what it meant anyway.

("They definitely noticed you acting weird this time. No two ways about it.")

"Right." Hero agreed. "And it's not just now. I tried to call to you in the hall between classes earlier and it didn't look like you even noticed."

Mari felt herself frown. "You did? I really don't remember anything like that." she said honestly. She was quite sure she would have been able to recall that happening. Even knowing how unreliable her memory could be, she'd just been thinking about her and Hero's school schedules earlier. She could even roughly guess when such an encounter was most likely to have happened, just based on which classes they had at what times that would lead to them passing through the same hallways in different directions. Yet when she wracked her brain, nothing came up. It wasn't like she'd noticed him and deliberately ignored it – she wouldn't ever want to do that in the first place! It was like Hero said, apparently she just hadn't even realized he was there.

"At the time, I figured you just might not have heard me, but…. I can't help but be a little concerned, you know?" Hero said, frown still etched on his face. Mari didn't really like it, not just because she thought a smile suited him a lot better (though it did), but because causing him to direct that worry at her…. It was the opposite of what she wanted.

"I'm sorry, I guess I have been a little distracted today." Mari admitted. That was an understatement, of course, but a deliberate one this time. Nobody needed or wanted to hear her complaining about her off-kilter day at school.

"Is everything really alright?" Basil asked. She'd had a feeling that question was going to come from one of them – it wasn't much of a surprise that Basil got there first though. He'd always been sensitive about things like that, she suspected it was one of the reasons he clicked with Sunny so well.

"Don't worry! It's not as big of a deal as you think." Mari replied, trying to reassure them. How many times had she used some variant of those words to calm Sunny? (For that matter, how many times had she done so to keep herself grounded?) That had always been sincere. Yet when she said it to her friends now, it felt more like a lie. Guilt squirmed in her stomach again – for reasons she didn't entirely understand, since wasn't soothing their worries the goal here in the first place?

"Is this about what we were going to talk about? With the recital?" Hero wondered. He didn't seem like he was mollified by her reassurance at all. If Mari didn't know better, she'd almost wonder if he even heard her.

"Huh, yeah! We totally get it if you're a little upset about that." Kel spoke up, nodding his head to himself. At least someone seemed confident. "I know you said not to worry about it 'cuz it was just a bit of stage fright messing you up, but…."

"It wasn't really stage fright." Mari replied automatically. Then she felt her eyes go wide, and she had to stop herself from instinctively cupping a hand over her mouth. She hadn't been meaning to get into that! The words had just blurted out without thinking.

Kel blinked. "Huh?" he said eloquently. Mari cursed herself internally, all her friends were looking at her with a few expressions that she couldn't quite decipher right now, but she assumed were probably varying levels of confusion. There was no way to backpedal on this now, was there?

"Or, maybe it sort of was for me, I remember feeling heavy with everyone watching me, so that part was true." Mari amended herself quickly, feeling like she needed to try to correct course. She didn't know if it was working or not. Her friends were still waiting on an explanation. "But Sunny said he didn't really feel that way, he only claimed it because our mom wanted him to, but then he said a lot of things that I don't-" She cut herself off. She was getting too hasty, on the verge of starting to babble. But it was surprisingly difficult to focus and put together a way to explain herself properly, and trying to force herself to was easier said than done when her headache was still throbbing. (Or perhaps it wasn't surprising at all, given she'd been feeling like that all day.)

"What'dya mean, Sunny said a lot of stuff?" Aubrey asked, audibly confused even to Mari's slightly disoriented mind. Mari simply stared at her for a moment, not knowing how to respond. She hadn't been planning on bringing that up either. And maybe there was part of her, a tiny part usually shoved down for being unacceptably rude, that would just rather not answer at all. Not that she really wanted to listen to that thought, but she couldn't quite deny that it existed.

("All you had to do was not make everything about you and worry everyone even more. How did you mess this up?")

"Mari, did…. something happen with you and Sunny?" Aubrey tried asking from a different angle. Mari felt herself stiffen, momentarily as still as a statue. There was no way Aubrey could've known it, of course, but she'd just cut right to the heart of the matter. 'Something' was certainly a word for it. Mari was still having a hard time believing it had really happened, if she didn't know for a fact it was real it could've easily passed as a really bizarre dream. (Or perhaps a nightmare.) How would she even describe it? Sunny had been strangely aggressive. Mari had acted cold and weird. She'd screamed at him. He'd hit her.

Rather than say any of that, though, she looked away. "We had an argument…." she said instead, after a long moment of oppressive silence. Another severe understatement, it felt like, but hedging it like that was the best she could manage to think of right now. She didn't try to meet any of her friends' gazes, but she could tell they were staring at her in surprise. It wasn't an unexpected reaction, all things considered, because-

"What? But you guys never fight! Or, not for real anyways." Kel was the first one to speak, unknowingly echoing what Mari herself was thinking. She was sure the others must have been on the same wavelength as well. It was simply the truth, after all, she and Sunny usually saw eye-to-eye, at least about things that actually mattered. It was part of what made the 'something' last night seem so unreal, it just didn't add up.

"I've barely even heard you bicker, honestly. You're like the opposite of Kel and Aubrey." Hero commented. Aubrey coughed in surprise and Kel shot Hero a dramatic, exaggerated look of betrayal. On another day, Mari might have found the it kind of funny, but as it was, it really didn't help. Hero being so uncharacteristically blunt could only mean he was starting to get really worried – as if he hadn't been already.

"What happened? Was it something to do with the recital?" Once again, Basil took it upon himself to ask the straightforward question, looking at Mari with an inscrutable frown on his face. Another reaction that wasn't surprising, really, of course he'd be especially concerned. Not just because of his friendship with Sunny, though that was almost certainly part of it, but because he'd never liked Aubrey and Kel fighting. Obviously he wouldn't be happy hearing about an argument between Mari and Sunny either.

"Yeah." Mari admitted, swallowing slightly. She hadn't wanted to talk about this right now, she really hadn't. But it was too late to keep it bottled up now, and besides, she found herself not wanting to outright lie to them – more blatantly than she already sort of had, anyway, doing that had felt plenty bad enough as it was. She tried to take a deep breath to steady herself, noticing that her hands had started twitching at some point. It didn't really help much. "We were talking about what happened, but when I mentioned doing a redux, he…. I don't know, it seemed like he got agitated. He said he couldn't do it and refused to practice anymore. I really didn't understand it, but that just seemed to make him angrier. He…. said some stuff that really hurt, and it made me angry too. It was….bad." she tried to explain, only to find it trailing off lamely at the end. She still didn't know how to put that part into words. Or if she even should. It just felt all wrong, not just Sunny's behavior, but her own too.

"That's-" Aubrey was the first one to speak, but she hesitated, frowning deeply, not seeming to actually know what to say. "….Weird. It doesn't really sound like Sunny." she settled on awkwardly. For once, Kel didn't see fit to rib her over the stumble – in fact, he actually looked like he was nodding in agreement.

"….Mari, why didn't you say something sooner?" Hero's voice was so thick with worry it was painful. It felt like someone had run a lance through Mari's chest, and she had to stop herself from retching at the sudden shock. It was…. a perfectly valid question, she knew that. Coming here and trying to act like everything was normal after the day she'd had was a mistake. There was no other way she could think about it at this point. Mari shivered, her fingers looking pale as they gripped her umbrella – it was a chilly day today, but had it been this cold when they'd first gotten to the park?

"Because I don't even really understand what happened either." she replied, knowing that it wasn't a satisfactory explanation even though it was still the truth. "Sunny suddenly seemed so…. angry about practicing with me. And I don't know why, he was always really dedicated to the violin before."

"Uh…." That uncertain sound was Basil. Mari turned towards him, and she saw the other three doing much the same. Basil almost looked like he was steeling himself for something, closing his eyes for a moment before turning his attention back to her. "Mari, did Sunny…. ever actually say he liked practicing?" he asked, voice soft yet carrying clearly over the faint pattering of rain. Mari blinked at the question, her train of thought completely thrown off for a moment.

("….Huh?")

"Huh? Basil, what're you talking about?" Kel asked, once again succinctly echoing Mari's own thoughts on the matter before she could find a way to phrase it herself. "Him and Mari spent a ton of time on that."

Basil frowned. "I know, but that's not quite what I mean…." he said, looking away slightly. Mari felt herself drawing in a slow breath, her eyes fixed intently on Basil, like some instinct was telling her a shoe was about to drop. "He was willing to do it, but, did he actually enjoy it?" he asked quietly. "….Because I don't think he did." He paused and his eyes widened slightly. "I mean, I don't know for sure, I know it's not nice to be making presumptions or anything." he added hastily.

"Hey, no, you're okay, I get what you mean." Aubrey cut in to reassure him just as quickly, nodding her head sharply for emphasis. "And now that you say it like that, I think you might be right. Sunny kinda stopped talking about the violin after awhile, didn't he? I'd just figured it was going fine, but…."

"Huh, yeah! I didn't realize 'til just now, but he never really said anything about the recital unless someone else brought it up, did he?" Kel agreed with a look of what Mari assumed was realization.

"And I remember you telling me about how you had to keep him on task so he wouldn't go off and do something else when you were practicing." Hero said, addressing that comment at Mari. She vaguely remembered telling him something like that once or twice. But everything they were saying was…. No. It wasn't really wrong, was it? It sort of made sense when she really thought about it like that. Sunny had been even more quiet than usual, but she'd assumed he was just being diligent and trying to stay focused. She knew he liked to go off and take breaks whenever possible, but she'd assumed that was just because he was a kid – she'd been easily distracted when she was twelve too. She'd assumed it was all still normal.

("That's the problem, isn't it? You assumed. ")

"I-I didn't….!" she stammered, only to very quickly stop herself and shake her head. That wouldn't do, losing control of her tongue now on top of everything was the last thing she needed. She could almost hear her mom's voice: "Use your words, sweetie, you're not three years old." She exhaled slowly and tried again. "I didn't realize anything like that…." she admitted uncomfortably, not meeting anyone's gaze. She felt a faint tug of the sweater's coarse fabric against her neck and realized the hand not occupied by an umbrella had come up to clutch at her collar, rumpling the red neckerchief she wore with her uniform vest. She didn't immediately let go.

"Hey…. Mari, it's okay, that's why we're talking about this, right? Nobody's really expecting you to notice everything, you know?" Hero was the first to reply, voice almost painfully earnest as he tried to encourage her. She knew he meant well, and she'd always appreciated that about him…. But she couldn't really believe it this time. She was Sunny's big sister. It shouldn't even be a discussion, she should already know the answers. And she suspected Hero wouldn't have given himself that much leeway if he ever got into a real fight with Kel – though it would probably take something catastrophic for that to happen.

"Yeah, that's what we're here for!" Kel himself agreed readily. "We know it's extra hard for you too, 'cuz you've got that thing with your brain and all."

.

.

.

Mari froze. What? What did he just say?

"Ugh. It's called autism, Kel, don't be a jerk!" Aubrey snapped at him.

("….No….")

No. They didn't. They couldn't.

It was like everything in Mari's mind had stopped in an instant. Her mind had been a swirling maelstrom all day, but with just a couple short sentences, it was all swept away. Everything she had just been thinking about halted so unbelievably quickly. Frozen in time faster than the blink of an eye. The only thing she could hear besides her friend's voices was a faint buzzing, like static from the TV. The only thing she could feel was the cold air around her.

She couldn't have understood them right.

"What, what are you talking about? I'm not au-" She choked on the word, not wanting to say it. "I'm normal."

She looked around. All her friends were staring at her again. From what little she could tell from their expressions, they seemed even more confused than they were a few minutes ago. Kel and Aubrey both looked sort of surprised and puzzled. Hero had his concerned frown. Basil's eyes had gone slightly wide.

"You know that, guys. It's me, Mari. I'm-" She cut herself off again when something in each of their expressions seemed to shift. Or she thought it did, she might have just been imagining it with how subtle it was…. but something behind her friends' eyes looked familiar. It reminded her of the expressions she'd seen on their faces after she'd messed up the recital.

"….You know?" she whispered in sudden realization, looking between them again. "You all know?"

There was a long pause. Her friends glanced at each other, but she couldn't begin to guess what they were thinking.

"Was it…. Supposed to be a secret?" Aubrey asked hesitantly.

("No no no no no-")

Before Mari knew it, she was moving, feet stumbling over themselves slightly as she scrambled back a few steps.

"Whoa, Mari-"

"I have to go."

"Wha-"

"I HAVE TO GO!"

Suddenly feeling her heart pounding in her chest so hard it felt like it was going to burst, Mari turned and set off towards the park entrance, legs carrying her away at a stride. It was taking all her self-control not to break out into a run. Even with her mind still feeling so bizarrely stalled, she instinctively knew her bad knee wouldn't appreciate that.

"Mari, wait! Please!"

Mari felt something catch her arm. The touch was careful, hesitant – more to get her attention than actually grab her, yet she jolted to a halt anyway. She recognized the hand resting on her arm, and sure enough, she turned to see it was Hero who'd caught up with her. Even though she didn't want to, Mari tried to meet his gaze, just for a moment.

She regretted it instantly.

That look was there again, in full force this time, not hidden by anything. That horrible expression that felt like it was peering into parts of her that she didn't want anyone to see.

This had to be…. Pity.

What else could it be?

She didn't want to be looked at like that. But she especially didn't want for him to look at her like that. For any of them to.

Her stomach twisted, and then, in the blink of an eye, it was like all the sensations that had been washed out of the world came flooding back.

The damp air.

The pounding pain in the back of her head.

Sharp splinters jabbing from her knee at random.

Her tangled hair hanging at her back.

Her stomach writhing and wrapped in vines of poison.

A tiny bit of warmth from Hero's hand, still on her arm.

The constant scraping, scratching fabric of this goddamn sweater-

Hero tried to say something, but Mari couldn't hear him.

Her heartbeat was so loud. She needed it to stop.

Too much. Too much. Too much this was too much it was wrong wrong wrong ALL WRONG

.

.

She flinched violently, she couldn't stop it, ripping herself free harshly from Hero's light grip. He stared at her, shock on his face so clear that it was obvious even to her current state. She saw the rest of her friends standing a little ways back, almost frozen.

She couldn't bear to look anymore, turning away to leave.

Nobody stopped her.

Chapter Text

Mari stared up at her house seeming to loom over her for a few seconds. With its beige roof tiles, beige shutters, and beige garage door, the house wasn't exactly distinctive even before the cloudy weather leeched it of any hint of color. But it was instantly recognizable to her nonetheless, and she found herself blinking slowly a few times in surprise. Somehow, she'd actually managed to make it back here. In any other circumstance, she might have been a little impressed with herself: she knew her way around town so well that she could reliably get back home even on a day like today. As it was, however, she mostly just felt a bit disoriented. She didn't actually remember the last several minutes of walking. Or, no, she was aware of doing it, vaguely, but it felt…. blurry somehow, like a dream changing scenes and just sort of brushing over the logistics of how it got from point A to point B. She supposed she must have just been so used to walking to and from the park that she'd been able to do it without needing to really think about it, but it still felt off. ….Maybe it was because, whenever she was taking that walk, it was always with…. Sunny and her friends….

("….Friends. How long will they want to call you that now….?")

Don't think about that. She didn't want to think about that. If she thought about that, about the fact that they all knew she was- That from what they'd said, they had all knownshe wasn't normal and she didn't even have any idea how long and she couldn't say anything to make it better and it was too much-

Don't. Don't think about it.

Breathe. She needed to breathe.

She took a deep breath. In through the nose and out through the mouth. And another. In through the nose and out through the mouth. It wasn't as scary as she thought. It couldn't be as scary as she thought. It wasn't. It wasn't…. It wasn't really working. Why now, of all times, did that mantra have to stop feeling like it was working? It had always helped her to feel at least a little calmer before, even when she was freaking out – it didn't magically solve her problems, of course, but a little improvement was still worth its weight in gold sometimes. That consistent effectiveness was a big part of why she'd tried to teach Sunny how to do it too. Maybe she was just doing something wrong somehow, but this time she really just didn't seem to be feeling any calmer, no matter how much she tried to control each breath. If anything, thinking about how it wasn't working was somehow proving to be a more effective distraction than the breathing exercise itself. Which was completely backwards. Why couldn't one thing today just make sense?

Don't think about it. Breathe.

….This wasn't going to accomplish anything. She shook her head sharply, the abrupt motion jostling her umbrella a bit, enough for a few droplets to roll off it and patter onto the sidewalk. The rain hadn't lightened up any during the walk home. In fact, she'd say it was raining a bit harder now. If it kept up this pace, by this evening it'd be absolutely pouring. She was glad she'd remembered her umbrella today. (The only thing that had gone right.) ….Actually, now that she was thinking about it…. She looked at her hand holding the umbrella in a death grip. Her fingers had turned eerily pale white, almost like the keys of her piano, and though she hadn't registered it until just now, they were starting to hurt just a little. How long had she been clutching it so tightly? The whole walk home, she supposed, though she didn't remember doing anything like that on purpose. Not that the umbrella had even remotely been what she was paying attention to at the time. For that matter, why was she paying attention to it now?

She needed to just get inside before anything else could happen. She wasn't exactly sure what that "anything else" might be, really, but with the way today had gone, she couldn't shake the feeling. It was just all wrong. Either way, standing around out here in the rain all day wasn't really an option, was it? Gradually, she started trudging the rest of the way over to her house. For some reason, the first few steps once she started moving again were slow and shaky, and she felt like she was having to force herself into action, but she quickly tried to swallow the feeling and pick up the pace. A twinge shot through her knee to let her know exactly what it thought of that decision. She hadn't registered much real pain from it on the way home (not that she'd really registered anything), but she had a sinking suspicion that she would regret the harried walk later this evening.

("….Sure, that's what you're going to regret.")

Striding past the car parked in the driveway, she made her way up to the front door and folded up her umbrella. When she reached for the door handle, however, it made an odd clicking sound and failed to open when she pushed against it. Mari felt her brow furrowing. The door definitely shouldn't be locked, so…. Of course. It was just being sticky again. Dad had a little issue with that the other night, after the recital, didn't he? So it wasn't a surprise in hindsight. But why did it have to choose now of all times to happen? Rain pattered against Mari's shoulders, seeping through her school vest and into the scratchy sweater below – she'd already closed her umbrella, after all, expecting to be inside within a couple seconds rather than standing here jostling a stuck door handle. It took nearly a minute of fiddling, not helped by her hands feeling oddly numb making her clumsier than usual. But eventually, as she tried leaning her shoulder against the door, the added weight seemed to make something click into place and the door swung open.

With a sudden impulse, she turned to glance behind her momentarily. Nobody was there, though. For a second she'd thought she'd see Hero or Kel approaching: they lived just next door, after all, so it'd be easy for them to follow her. If anything, the fact that they hadn't followed was more telling than the alternative. They must have intentionally left her to head home on her own, presumably staying back with Aubrey and Basil instead. Her friends…. must have all talked about her. Might still be talking about her. With the way she'd left, and what they all knew, she wondered…. what they were thinking of her now.

.

.

Maybe they were realizing they'd be better-

Don't think about it!

Having already wasted more than enough time, Mari stepped inside.

With the umbrella and her sodden shoes set next to the front door to dry out, Mari found herself standing aimlessly in the living room for a few moments. What to do now? She hadn't really planned that far ahead. In fact, she could think of plenty of colorful things to call her flight from the park, but "planned" was absolutely not one of them. She'd just felt the desperate need to get out of there and get safely home before things could possibly find a way to get worse. If that were even possible. But now that she actually was home, she only ended up hesitating. She didn't actually have any idea where to go from here. There was a sudden urge to just head up to her room, change out of these damp clothes, and just collapse into her bed for the rest of the day. (Maybe some tiny part of her was still holding out hope that tomorrow this would all turn out to have been some unnervingly realistic dream.)

But that wasn't really an option, was it? Though it may have been pushed from the forefront of her mind by…. the things at the park she didn't want to think about…. it wasn't like Mari had forgotten the encounter with Sunny that morning. She didn't think she could forget him shutting the door in her face like that, no matter how much she might or might not have wanted to. That situation wouldn't have changed at all, would it? There was no sign of Sunny having come downstairs at any point today, as far as she knew he'd still be shut away up there. Even though he was right here in the house, he wasn't really any more approachable than the idea of going back to the park, was he? In any other circumstance, it might almost be funny, the way doors were shutting metaphorically and sometimes literally no matter which way she looked. Maybe she shouldn't be surprised, now that everyone knew.

Stop thinking about that.

Either way, that plan seemed doomed to failure, even though she really wanted it. What was she going to do, go upstairs and pound on the bedroom door until he finally got annoyed enough to let her in? Even just thinking of it, that sounded like completely the wrong idea in pretty much every way. Absolutely not. That didn't mean she necessarily had any better alternatives, though. She supposed she needed to try to find a way to kill some time until maybe she could think of some way, any way to dig herself out of this hole. If such a thing even existed. Normally, she'd fill the afternoons on school days with homework and piano practice. But her teachers didn't tend to assign much on Mondays, and from what little she could recall of today's classes was no different. She didn't even have extra college prep work this week. And just thinking about the piano was…. No, it wouldn't work out. She knew she should feel guilty for skipping it two days in a row, but she could just instinctively tell there was absolutely no way she'd be able to focus on it today. The idea was laughable, and not the funny kind of laugh. But then what-

"Oh, there you are! Mari Takahashi, where have you been!?"

Mari startled at the sharp voice that suddenly assaulted her eardrums, rather like having a nail jammed into her ear. That was almost certainly hyperbolic, it wasn't actually that loud in reality, but with how raw all her senses still seemed, it certainly felt like it in that instant. She stumbled at the sound, hand catching the back of the couch to steady herself before she turned to look. Approaching from the direction of the kitchen was her mother. Where on earth had she….? Oh. Mari wanted to kick herself. The car. She'd passed by a car in the driveway on her way inside, of course it would've been mom's car, which could only mean mom was home. That was blatantly obvious with even the tiniest bit of thought, wasn't it? She didn't have any right being taken by surprise like this.

("But you were too busy thinking about yourself to notice.")

Mom stopped in front of her, and even just something about her posture immediately made Mari feel like she was on edge. Or, more on edge than she already was after everything else. Mom crossed her arms, dark eyes peering at Mari intently. Perhaps that gaze was part of her unease, she had the sudden inexplicable urge to shy away from it. Unbidden, her mind momentarily conjured the absurd image of the entire staring audience from the recital somehow concentrated into a single look.

"Well?" Mom pressed sharply. Mari blinked at the question, but quickly realized what it meant without further prompting. She'd been so taken aback by mom's sudden appearance that she hadn't actually considered the words right away. She hoped mom hadn't noticed her momentary confusion.

"I was…. Down at Faraway Park with my f-friends." Mari admitted. She wasn't able to stop her voice from catching on the word friends. Even just thinking of them indirectly was enough to make her stomach lurch, like she was teetering on the edge of a bottomless abyss. (They weren't supposed to know what she was like. But they did.)

Something in mom's expression grew stormier. "I see." she said, and something about her tone in those two words made Mari pause. It was like suddenly realizing you were too close to a bear trap – one wrong move, and it'd snap shut on you. Except she didn't even know why it would feel that way. "Do you know why I'm home early today, sweetie?" Mom asked suddenly, cutting off Mari's train of thought.

The apparent non-sequitur combined with the sudden shift to a tone one might almost call conversational nearly gave Mari whiplash. She felt like she wasn't keeping up with this conversation at all, but they'd only been talking for a few moments, how could she already have been missing things? Was she really that out of it?

("Like you don't know why.")

Either way, mom was waiting on a response. Mari shook her head quickly. Mom stared at her, eyes still narrowed, and exhaled audibly from her nose without saying anything. What was she waiting- Oh. Verbal response. Right, of course. Mari needed to focus. Even with everything else that had happened today, there was no excuse for being rude to her mom, she'd just have to power through.

"Not really?" Mari said out loud, though she still wasn't able to keep the questioning lilt out of it.

"You know, it's the funniest thing. I got a call from the school office, saying Sunny apparently wasn't in class today." Mom replied, still with that odd tone that sounded like she was chatting with the cashier at the Othermart checkout. Mari didn't understand what this had to do with- "Imagine my surprise, when I came home to find not only my son sleeping away in the middle of the day, but my daughter was nowhere to be seen…. Even though school should've ended almost an hour ago."

Ah. Was that what she was missing, then? Had it really been nearly an hour? That didn't sound right to Mari, the park wasn't that far from their house. And while the way the conversation with her friends ended may have made it feel like a long nightmare, she knew logically that feeling was all in her head. (Not that she was wrong to feel it.) How long had she been wandering around town in a daze, then? She hadn't thought it would be that long, all things considered, but if mom was telling the truth – and why wouldn't she be – then it must've been awhile.

"Ahem!" Mom's pointed throat-clearing snapped Mari out of her thoughts. "Have anything to say for yourself, young lady?"

"I-" Mari started to reply, then paused. Wait a moment. What exactly had mom just said a second ago? She blamed her frazzled state of mind for the fact that she didn't notice right away, she definitely needed to try to pay better attention, but something didn't seem to make sense here. "….Wait, didn't you already know Sunny wasn't in class today? You let him stay home because he was sick." she pointed out. Though she'd meant it earnestly, not in an argumentative way, mom didn't seem to take it that way. Or at least, she certainly didn't look any more impressed than she had a moment ago – anything beyond that was outside Mari's ability to immediately parse.

"I did no such thing! Where did you get that idea?" Mom denied. She shook her head and seemed to mutter something under her breath, though it might've just been Mari's imagination. "Use your head, sweetie. I know you're a smart girl when you want to be. I had to go in to work early today, Sunny wasn't even up yet, when would I have had time to talk to him about that?"

Mari froze. That was…. That was a perfectly valid point, wasn't it? Mom and dad had already been gone when Mari herself woke up, and she knew for a fact Sunny had still been in bed when she'd tried to talk to him through the door. So there wasn't really any way mom could have checked in on him and given him permission to skip, was there? When put like that, it seemed like the perfectly obvious conclusion. She'd assumed…. No, now that she was really thinking about it, she couldn't seem to find any good reason for why she'd assumed that. While Sunny staying home because he was sick was entirely reasonable in theory, she didn't know where she had gotten the impression that mom had okay'd it, when mom had obviously never actually said that.

"Honestly, I understand if you thought your brother needed to take today off." Mom continued on, seemingly unaware of Mari's thoughts. "But you should have called me so that I could know to inform the school."

"….I'm sorry, mom. I didn't think of it." Mari replied quietly, shuffling her feet slightly in discomfort. She couldn't really think of anything else to say to that. Her mom was completely right, after all, it was one-hundred percent her fault, especially since calling to confirm was such a simple solution that she could've done at any point that morning.

"Hmm." Mom hummed vaguely in acknowledgment. "But this is-"

A couple faint thumps echoed from upstairs, very subtle sounds that were probably only made noticeable by their house's strange acoustics. Mari instinctively found herself looking up at the ceiling curiously. That was probably too loud to have been Mewo; the little kitty tended to move around near silently at almost all times and was usually pretty good about not knocking things over. So that was almost certainly Sunny moving around up there. But hadn't mom said he was sound asleep? Had he just woken up, or-

"Look at me when I'm talking to you, Mari. How many times do I need to ask you that?" Mom's voice cut through her train of thought yet again. Chastened by having to be reminded of that again (was that three for three when it came to conversations with mom in the last few days?), Mari quickly forced her gaze to meet her mom's eyes. She couldn't stop herself from flinching slightly this time, though if mom noticed, she didn't comment. Mari knew it was supposed to be the polite thing to do, but whatever she was supposed to be picking up from the look, she just…. wasn't. Mom's dark eyes might as well have been the empty void of space for all the good it did her. Today was probably worse than usual, with how hard it seemed to focus after everything, but the truth was that it was always like that.

"But all this is beside the point." Mom continued regardless of Mari's discomfort. "When I came home, I expected you to be here, Mari. And instead I find out that you're off gallivanting around town with your friends – when you're supposed to be grounded! What am I supposed to do with you, sweetheart?" Mari stiffened at those words, feeling like she'd suddenly been doused in ice water. Or perhaps she'd just become uncomfortably aware of her still-damp clothes sticking to her skin. Either way, it wasn't a pleasant realization. Grounded. She was grounded this week. Of course she knew that, she'd obviously been listening when the punishment was handed down, not to mention the multiple times it had come up yesterday. Yet, somehow, when it was perhaps the most relevant, it hadn't even occurred to her. And she couldn't even blame it on being distracted with the realization of what her friends knew…. She'd obviously agreed to go to the park before that happened. She'd made a terrible mistake, hadn't she?

("Probably a lot more than just one, but yes.")

"I completely forgot about that at the time…." she was forced to admit, shivering uncomfortably as she did so. Her mom, however, did not appear remotely mollified by that, even though it was the truth. Quite the opposite, in fact. It might've just been Mari's imagination, of course, but the already heavy feeling in the air seemed to grow even more oppressive somehow, the impenetrable look in mom's eyes shifting to something even more intense.

"Oh no you don't." Mom replied sharply, and Mari blinked, taken aback by the declaration. "I let you off for that yesterday, but I already told you why you can't just use that as your excuse for everything." She shook her head to herself again, more forcefully this time. "No. If that's all you have to say, consider yourself grounded for another two weeks." she decided, voice taking on that tone of finality that said she absolutely wouldn't be swayed otherwise. She continued to look straight into Mari's eyes for several seconds afterwards, and for some reason Mari got the odd impression that the look was almost daring her to challenge the judgment. But that couldn't be right, it didn't make any sense. Not that Mari had been planning to fight it anyway, wasn't it what she deserved for screwing up so blatantly? Whatever mom was looking for, though, she apparently didn't find it, as after a few moments, she exhaled a noise that almost sounded like a scoff. "Honestly, sweetie. This wouldn't have to happen if you stopped letting your difficulties control you, you know? Is it really so hard for you to try to act like a normal girl your age?"

.

….What?

Everything in Mari's mind paused for just a nanosecond at that question. It was almost like that sensation of being splashed with cold water again, but somehow in a completely different way. Had mom really just said that? Just said that? ….There was only one thing she ever meant when she said "difficulties" like that.

Why did she have to bring that up now?

Why today?

Wasn't it enough for her friends to bring it up today?

….Mari just really didn't want to talk about…. About being autistic.

Without warning, a surge of white-hot frustration shot through her veins, and before she knew it, her fingernails were pressing hard against her palms.

"I am trying, mom!" The words burst out without even a moment's consideration, echoing around the living room.

It was only a second later that Mari realized exactly what she'd just done and froze, the rush of anger flooding away as quickly as it came and leaving only creeping cold realization behind. She shouldn't have said that. In front of her, mom looked almost startled by the outburst, but only for a moment. She quickly affixed her gaze back on Mari, and…. was her face reddening? Oh no. That only happened when mom was really angry. Of course Mari would only notice when it was too late, how typical – her mom must've been trying to hold back her frustration this whole time, even more than Mari had thought. She'd really messed up now, as if she hadn't before. She wouldn't have time to ruminate on that for long, though.

"Do not backtalk me, young lady!" Mom snapped back with a sharpness that put Mari's own agitation to shame. "You want to talk to me about trying? I'm the one who's trying, Mari!"

Even more than before, Mari realized she really didn't want to be here. She regretted saying anything. She regretted getting home so late. She wanted this conversation to stop.

Mom exhaled through her nose, presumably to try to steady herself. "I am trying…. So hard to be patient with you! But you just can't make it easy for me, can you?"

Mari didn't reply. She just wanted this to stop. It was clearly a rhetorical question anyway, as mom continued.

"First you threw away your recital, and for what? ….Did you know, one of my coworkers came up to me this morning and tried to talk about what happened there? Do you have any idea how embarrassing that was for me?"

How could Mari have possibly known that? She wanted this to stop.

"And it's always like that! Can you imagine how awkward it is to hear other parents talking about how my daughter can't even seem to smile properly? How humiliating it is for me when you break down crying in the middle of a church service or throw a tantrum at the supermarket because you've decided it's 'too noisy'?"

Mari couldn't remember doing either of those things in the last five years. She wanted this to stop.

"Do you ever stop to think about how your behavior affects me, and everyone else around you? Do you?"

Mari wanted this to stop.

"It's not my fault you were born the way you were, you don't get to use that as an excuse to be a self-absorbed brat! I've tried to be nice about teaching you that, but you just don't seem to listen!"

Mari wanted this to stop.

"Some days I can't help but think, ever since you broke your leg, it's like you stopped even trying to be normal! I thought you were getting better about it recently, but over the last couple days it's like you've gone crazy!"

Mari wanted this to stop.

"And what kind of example are you setting for your brother? Don't think I didn't hear you two making some ungodly racket in the kitchen last night!"

Mari wanted this to stop.

"If you keep up acting like this, nobody's going to-"

"STOP!" The scream tore its way out of Mari's lungs with a force to rival even Aubrey at her loudest. "JUST STOP! FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE CAN YOU JUST-"

*CRACK!*

Red-hot stinging pain exploded across Mari's cheek, clearing every other thought from her mind, her head snapping to the side from the sudden force. For a moment, it was like she'd been blinded, deafened. Totally cut off from all sense of the outside world. The only thing she could feel was the pain in her cheek. But only for a moment. As her senses returned, something about them felt oddly detached, like Mari was watching a scene on TV rather than actually seeing it through her own eyes. With that inexplicable window of clarity, she looked at her mom, who was breathing heavily, retracting her hand.

Mom had hit her. Smacked her with the back of her hand. Not a little smack to make her come to her senses either. From the way her head was ringing, this was hard. She hadn't even realized mom was that strong. Funny.

Mom's eyes widened, almost in slow motion, and she looked down at her hand with some sort of dawning look. Something about it almost seemed.... exaggerated somehow.

"Mari…. Sweetie, listen…." She started to reach out towards Mari again.

The moment of detachment shattered. Cold cold cold why was Mari suddenly so cold? Her cheek hurt. This was too much, it had been too much from the start, why was it still happening?

Mom had hit her.

Her mom had hit her.

Before she even realized it, Mari was scrambling back and away, the back of her legs slamming into the couch before she could remember it was there. Dimly, she realized she must have looked somewhat like a cornered animal. Mom paused for a moment. The look in her eyes shifted again, gaze narrowing. Her hand curled into a fist and she lowered it to her side, looking away.

"….Go upstairs, Mari."

Mari breathed heavily, not daring to move, back still pressed up against the couch.

"Just go upstairs! I can't…. I can't deal with you right now." Mom commanded.

Seeing the opportunity to get away for what it was, Mari went.

Chapter Text

Leaning her hands against the sink to prop herself up, Mari blinked slowly as she stared into the bathroom mirror. The sight that greeted her wasn't a pretty one. Yet, in some ways, it was exactly what she expected to see. Her curtain of black hair was a tangled mess, ends fraying and locks escaping from where she usually tucked them behind her ears to hang in front of her face. Some of the other girls at school had claimed to be jealous of her hair a few times – part of her wondered if they'd feel the same way if they saw what it was really like, now. Her skin was eerily pale, washed out under the bathroom lights to the point where it looked almost like paper. She'd removed her uniform vest and neckerchief, but the rest of her clothes, rumpled and damp from the rain, sagged and clung uncomfortably to her skin. Glancing down momentarily, she saw a few grass stains on the hem of her skirt that she hadn't noticed earlier, presumably caused by her flight from the park.

Bizarrely, and completely inappropriately, for just a moment Mari felt a sudden urge to laugh. Her reflection looked almost exactly like one of those ghost girls from that Japanese horror movie marathon Kel had convinced them to watch a couple years ago. If her clothes were a little more torn up, it'd be uncanny. She couldn't stop the absurd thought bubbling up in her mind that Halloween was only a week away: maybe she had a costume idea.

Shaking her head, Mari tried to shove down that delirious, intrusive thought. (As if all of her thoughts didn't feel somewhat delirious right now.) Refocusing her gaze back on her reflection, she found her eyes drifting to the spot that she couldn't seem to ignore. No matter if she wanted to. Her left cheek, just a bit below her eye, was marred by a reddened splotch, stark against her skin. The spot had already swollen slightly, just enough to make her squint her eye a tiny bit on that side. It was…. probably going to bruise badly. Almost certainly, in fact, she had more than enough experience, both with her own bumps and tending to Sunny's bouts of clumsiness, to recognize such things. With how large it was, once it started to turn black, it'd be impossible to cover it up – or, impossible without using more makeup than the average rodeo clown, at any rate. In fact, looking at it more closely now, from the way the red splotches were arranged, Mari could even see the faint outlines of…. of her mom's fingers. The more concentrated, deeper red points where the knuckles would be. That part was…. new. Nothing quite like this had ever happened before.

A faint, repetitive tapping sort of sound caught Mari's attention and she glanced down. The source of the noise would immediately become apparent: Her fingernails were jittering against the counter around the sink as her hands shook violently. Just how long had that been going on without her noticing? She didn't know. She didn't think she'd been staring into the mirror for that long, but then, how would she know? How long had it been since she'd fled upstairs and shut herself in here to begin with? She didn't know that either. There was no frame of reference she could use in here. The bathroom had a small window, sure, but the outside was still the exact same rainy gray it had been all day. It could've been five minutes, or an hour, and it'd still look the same, that was no help. And there was no way Mari would have been able to tell the difference herself, in her state. Even concentrating on this tangent enough to try to think it through felt like her mind was wading through a pit of tar right now.

She tried to get her hands to stop shaking. They didn't. She tried harder. The chattering fingernails seemed to speed up slightly.

She gripped the sinktop more tightly, enough for her already-pale knuckles to turn stark white, forcing them to be steadier to support her weight leaning on them.

Then she looked back at her reflection.

.

.

Mari wouldn't consider herself a hateful person. In fact, if someone were to have asked her for whatever reason, she would have honestly been able to say she didn't think she hated anybody. Oh, there were people she disliked, certainly. Like Ms. Candice from the Othermart sweets shop. Once, when Mari had been about eight, Ms. Candice had accused her of trying to steal from one of the candy displays. She hadn't done any such thing (she was just awed by the arrangement of colorful wrappers and packages), but mom had made her go home without any candy anyway. She and Ms. Candice had never really gotten along ever since that day – Mari genuinely did make an effort to be polite, both because the woman was an adult, and to set a good example for Sunny, but it was always pretty tense and she was sure everyone knew it. Something about Ms. Candice's behavior just grated on her, for reasons she didn't know the right words to describe. Kel had even jokingly called them "arch-enemies" once. So that was an example of someone Mari could admit she really didn't like very much.

But hatred? Hatred was something different, wasn't it? Deep down, Mari felt sure it had to be. It wasn't the same as just being frustrated or finding something unpleasant. Those weren't things people really wanted to experience, obviously, but that could generally be dealt with. Something you hated, though…. That was a thing you really couldn't stand. That you wouldn't want near you, that you wouldn't want to even look at. It was always described in books and movies as this burning, absolute sort of feeling. The sort of thing you'd know deep in your soul if you ever truly felt it. Mari had always had a hard time imagining that, or at least imagining directing something like that towards a person. It just sounded too extreme to be real, even though she of course knew that it very much was.

.

.

.

(….But look at that girl in the mirror.)

(Her expressionless face. Her blank eyes that stare dully into nothing.)

(You've read enough horror stories. It's always the eyes that give away the monsters; the zombies, the body-snatchers, the things that look human but are really all wrong…. What would that make that girl?)

(A demanding girl, who needs everything in the world to cater to her, or else she'll throw a fit.)

(A stupid girl, who misses obvious things even when they're right in front of her.)

(A wasteful girl, who throws away every talent and opportunity she's given at the drop of a hat.)

(….)

(A selfish girl, who says she loves her brother, but doesn't pay attention to even the most basic things about him.)

(If you had to hate someone…. Shouldn't it be someone like that?)

.

.

.

Mari's hands were shaking. Her legs were shaking. Her shoulders were shaking. Everything, everything was shaking. If it were even possible in this part of the country, she would've had the absurd thought that it was an earthquake. But it was her, it was all her. Her body was just trembling and she couldn't get it to stop. She tried taking deep breaths, she tried calming down. It wasn't working any better now than it had earlier. Everything was too much, everything was all wrong, she didn't want to be here.

She didn't even know where she did want to be. Just not here. Not now. She wished she could go back in time so it wouldn't be today anymore. Maybe she could relive the day of the big beach trip with her friends, that had been a lovely day, something they'd been planning for awhile that went perfectly. Or maybe her last birthday, it was only a couple weeks after Basil's yet her friends had still insisted on throwing another party just for her. Or maybe it didn't have to be a big occasion, she'd take any old day. A regular picnic in the park with everyone there, or a rainy day shut indoors re-reading her favorite issue of Spaceboy ("Captain Spaceboy versus the Starscourge General!"). She'd even accept the first half of the day of the recital, before everything had seemed to go off the rails.

That was it, wasn't it? The point where things had gone all wrong, she'd just been trying to pretend otherwise for the last couple days. But that's all it was, just pretending. She lied to herself and then turned around and told the same lies to her friends. As if she could ever convince anyone that her massive, glaring mistakes weren't obvious. As if she wasn't just embarrassing herself and everyone around her by trying. That was why she was shaking, why her knees banged against the sink with every tremor and sent needles racing across her bad leg. Why her cheek was swollen and stinging. It was no wonder that mom would be furious with her, with the way that she was.

And still. Still. The girl in the mirror's eyes were dull.

That white-hot rush of anger surged through her veins again, and Mari was moving before she even knew it. A wordless scream echoed around the bathroom, scraping at the back of her throat. Her curled fist slammed into the mirror with a solid "thud!", hard enough to rattle the glass in its frame. She regretted it immediately, of course, a lance of pain shooting across her fingers and up her arm from having just punched a hard surface with all her might. It wouldn't be at all shocking if she'd just earned herself some more bruises from that. (Not that more really made a difference, if so. At least they'd be smaller this time.) Pulling her hand away to hold her throbbing knuckles, she saw…. oh.

That was a small crack formed right across the spot. One that definitely hadn't been there a second ago…. Actually, on second thought, she wasn't sure why that surprised her. It probably shouldn't have. "All her might" wasn't insignificant after all, she'd been the softball team's darling for a reason – and breaking her leg didn't do anything to weaken her arms. Either way, though, there wasn't going to be any way to cover that up. The house only had one bathroom. Everyone was definitely going to notice that.

Mari didn't know what she'd been thinking.

No. She hadn't been thinking.

For a moment she just…. couldn't stand that reflection anymore.

She needed to focus. She needed to calm down. But nothing was working anymore. The only thing she got for her trouble was this new pain in her hand.

….

(Pain? Doesn't that sound…. familiar?)

Struck by a sudden idea, Mari found herself looking down to pull open the cabinet beneath the sink, already reaching into it with a purpose in mind. It took a bit of rummaging to find her prize, but after a minute she pulled out the small blue package from where it'd fallen to the back of the cabinet. She held it up to the light to confirm it was the right one, and sure enough. Razor blades, for shaving. Dad used to use these all the time, needing to be clean-shaven for work, until mom had gotten him that electric shaver a few years ago. He'd found that he vastly preferred it, saying it was less irritating on his skin, and stopped using the old-fashioned razors pretty much completely. But he'd never gotten around to actually throwing them out either. Mari'd had to retrieve things from that cabinet for one reason or the other plenty of times, so she'd always seen them still left sitting back there.

Pulling open the package, she pulled out one of the disposable razors. She didn't need the shaving head it came with, pressing her fingers against the sides to detach the rectangular blade itself with a small click. After all, she wasn't planning on using it for hair. It was…. it sounded like a crazy idea. She knew that. But nothing else was working, the things she needed to work weren't working and it was all wrong. But there was something else she remembered making her mind feel clear, even if only for a few moments. She'd seen it a couple times during the disastrous last few days, even. When Sunny had pushed her over and her leg had given out. And again, just earlier, when mom had hit her. There were those inexplicably bizarre moments where everything had seemed to still, the storm in her head going silent for a moment and letting her observe the situation through a detached lens. She knew she couldn't have been imagining that, she'd been able to easily and correctly piece together what was going on after all. Even if it was only for a few seconds, it had to be better than she felt right now.

Anything would be better, right?

.

She looked down at the stainless steel blade in her left palm and hesitated. Was she really going to do this?

She had to, didn't she? She'd cracked the mirror because she couldn't stop freaking out, her body kept shaking, her headache hurt, her leg hurt, her cheek hurt…. It was too much. It was *too much*. She just…. didn't want it to be like that anymore. She just wanted to clear her head and focus, that was all. Was that really so much to ask for?

Mari curled her fingers around the blade slowly, holding it in her fist. And then she began to tighten her grip, slowly starting to press the sharp edge of the blade inwards against her palm.

(If you're going to do something, do it! Half-assing things is how you ended up like this to begin with.)

Inhaling a sharp breath, Mari clenched her fist hard, and then-

Pain

Painpainpainpainpainpain

The blade cut clean into her palm, her skin splitting apart against its edge like it was barely even there. She wasn't even putting her full strength into it, and yet it burned. The razor may have been a few years old, but this disposable blade had still been in its packaging untouched. There was nothing to dull it. She'd been aware of all that – been counting on it, in fact – so nothing about this should have surprised her. But it did. The breath Mari had taken in now tore from the back of her throat in shock.

"Ah….! Fuck!" she gasped. Or perhaps more like screamed. It was the first time she'd sworn out loud in years. She'd always tried to keep that sort of language contained, both because it was incredibly disrespectful to say those sorts of things around adults, and perhaps even more importantly for Sunny's sake. Right in that moment, though, that was pretty much the last thing on her mind.

The blade…. It hurt. It hurt. It hurt. She'd known it would, of course, that was the whole point of this desperate idea, but not…. Not like this! That feeling, of her skin tearing, of the metal pressing into her flesh. It was…. Indescribable. In the most literal possible sense; she legitimately did not know a word that felt like it could properly describe it. It was pain, but that was like saying the sun was warm…. She had somehow almost convinced herself for sure that she had been prepared for what this would be like. She hadn't. She really hadn't.

But then where was it? It hurt so badly, so incredibly badly she almost didn't believe it, people said you couldn't feel pain in dreams, but she almost felt like this had to be one, it just couldn't be real! But it was! So where was that moment she'd been expecting? She hadn't been imagining that sense of clarity. She hadn't. It had to have been real. It had to have. Those agonizing moments couldn't have just been for nothing. So why wasn't this working!? Was this really not enough!?

….

Would she…. Would she have to do more?

Gritting her teeth, Mari tried to prepare herself to press the blade in harder, but her arm just shook uncontrollably at the thought. She tried to steady it, even grabbing it with her other hand, but it didn't help even the slightest bit. She didn't…. she didn't want to. It hurt. Her palm hurt so much-!

.

.

"MARI!?"

Mari flinched violently at the sudden shout that echoed across the bathroom. Her fist unclenching, the razor clattered to the floor with soft "clink!". It might as well have been a gunshot to Mari's ears. Whipping around, her hand pressed against her chest almost instinctively in shock, she saw him there. Sunny was standing in the bathroom doorway (how had she missed it opening?), staring at her with his eyes blown wide. What in the world was he doing here? Mari hadn't even really known he was awake – she'd thought she'd heard him moving around earlier, while she was with mom, but it wasn't like she'd had any way to be one-hundred percent sure. But now he was definitely up, and out of their room, and standing here. Why? Had he…. heard her screaming? She'd probably been making an unholy racket. He started to take a step forward, then stopped abruptly, the motion aborted like he didn't know whether it was even safe.

"What are you doing!?" he demanded before she could even try to muster the effort to say anything, his voice breathless like he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing – or, maybe, didn't want to. Something about it struck Mari as…. almost afraid.

"Sunny, I-" Mari started to say, but something caught in her throat. She looked down at her left hand, pressing against her chest. There was something dark under it, the light pink sweater now marred with small splotches of dark red, the largest such stain still spreading out a little before Mari's eyes. Her gaze drifted down to the razor where it lay on the tile floor. The same color was coating its edge. Blood, bubbling out from her sliced open palm, of course. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sunny's gaze drifting down towards the blade as well. She looked back up at him, slowly, and it felt like her own eyes had gone wide too.

"I don't…. I don't know…." she said, voice barely above a whisper.

Her palm was still burning, the pain had lessened slightly with the removal of the blade, but it still hurt so much it was making her almost dizzy. Slowly, she pulled her hand away from her chest and chanced a look down at it. She saw a line of red oozing out, and- All of a sudden, something in Mari's stomach twisted violently, like someone had clenched a fist around her guts. The bathroom almost looked like it was spinning, and before Mari knew it, she was stumbling into motion. Her feet scrabbling almost desperately against the floor to bring her over towards the toilet. The very second her eyes could manage to register that she was in front of it, she bent over, her hand (the unhurt one, of course) wrapping around her stomach, and then she retched.

She'd eaten very little today, with a meager breakfast and a lunch she'd barely picked at, so it was mostly bile that burned the back of her throat as she coughed it out into the toilet, sucking in raggedy breaths between each hack. At some point she'd slumped to her knees, wincing uncontrollably as the bad one struck the tile – somehow even the pain in her palm wasn't enough to fully distract from that. Moments later, unexpectedly, she heard a shuffling noise behind her. And then a set of pale fingers reached out to wrap around her mass of black hair, slowly enough so as not to tug at it. Cautiously, Sunny's hand pulled her hair back, holding it carefully away from her face as another retch wracked her body. An undignified wheeze rasped from Mari's throat, and she felt what must have been Sunny's other hand thump her on the back twice in response. It helped to dislodge the remaining film of spit and bile that had been clinging to her throat, and she coughed a few times.

It took several more moments of hyperventilating before the wave of nausea started to recede, and Mari slumped backwards. Sunny released his grip on her hair, letting it fall back down across her shoulders. Tilting her head up slightly, Mari closed her eyes while breathing slowly through her nose, in and out, trying to get her breath back under control after the violent retching. She didn't know how long she sat there like that, exactly. A few seconds, or an eternity. But it was only when her lungs stopped feeling like they were being squeezed in a vise that she opened her eyes again. She looked over at Sunny, still standing next to her. The first time she really had a chance to get a proper look at him all day. He was still wearing the same clothes from yesterday: beige pants and a black sweater, though he'd rolled up the sleeves on the latter. Mari supposed that he must not have felt like changing into his pajamas last night – which was fair, as she hadn't either (not that she'd been able to regardless, but that was beside the point) – and presumably hadn't bothered this morning either since he wasn't going to school.

His facial expression was unreadable as she gazed up at him. Even briefly trying to meet his eyes didn't help. Perhaps he was just waiting for her to collect herself, but…. Mari couldn't shake the feeling that she was being judged somehow. Or maybe that was just what she expected to see. Sitting here like this, knees splayed out and shivering on the bathroom floor, her hair draped wildly across her back, her hand still burning with pain from where she'd been…. she'd been…. that he'd seen…. And seeing Sunny looking down at her in that moment, when she couldn't even begin to think about trying to mask her state…. It made her feel small. And ugly.

"Sunny, this isn't…. This isn't a good moment for me." she said, her voice quiet yet seeming to echo around the bathroom anyway. "Nobody was supposed to see me like this." That he, perhaps more than anyone, wasn't supposed to went unsaid.

Sunny's hands curled at his sides, his eyes narrowing. "Why? So you could keep hurting yourself?" he challenged. The unexpected flare of anger in his voice left Mari stunned, her mouth clicking shut in surprise. Something in his tone had ignited that all-too-familiar stabbing feeling in her chest. What could she even say to that? The correct answer that part of her urged her to blurt out was "no, of course not!", but considering the circumstances…. it felt weak. So instead of saying anything, she just looked away, her head hanging so that her dark bangs fell in front of her eyes. She didn't even know why, it just felt better than continuing to try to look at him then. Was this…. shame? Silence fell across the bathroom for a moment, and then Sunny exhaled slowly.

"….Lemme see your hand." his voice said after a moment. Mari found herself blinking, unsure if she'd heard him properly, and peaked out from behind her hair with one eye curiously. (As she gazed up at him, a tiny, absurd part of her mind couldn't help but wonder if this was what she seemed like to Sunny when he used to hide behind his bangs.) Before she could actually ask to confirm what he'd said, he seemed to take notice of her confused glance. "Your hand. I wanna take a look at it, okay?"

"Oh…." Mari replied blankly, averting her eyes uncomfortably once more when she realized what he was asking. "You…. don't have to do that, Sunny, I'll-" she started to say. But Sunny cut her off.

"Stop talking and just let me do it, sis!" he snapped, the forcefulness once again surprising her. But it was that last word that really caught her attention. It felt stupid to focus on that of all things, but with the way he'd shut her out of their room, and then everything else that day had piled on top of it…. Mari didn't feel like anything could be taken for granted anymore. It hurt, but the truth was that deep down it wouldn't have surprised her if Sunny didn't want anything to do with her anymore. She knew she was clinging at straws, it was just one word, but it was better than she'd been expecting to get. He probably didn't know it, but just hearing that was what really convinced her to listen to him right now.

Slowly, Mari held out her hand towards him, though she kept her head down and didn't look as she did so. (She didn't want to chance seeing that again, not when the disgusting nausea from the first time had only just passed.) Her shoulders shook in an uncontrollable flinch when uncurling her fingers from her palm made the burning pain spike violently, though thankfully it at least subsided quickly. Her fingers felt unpleasantly sticky, presumably from blood. A hissing sound came from Sunny's direction, like sucking in a sharp breath through his teeth, and Mari could only surmise that her palm looked exactly as nasty to him as she'd expected. She felt his fingers curl around her wrist, carefully pulling her hand a bit closer. Though she still kept her gaze averted, she felt safe assuming he was just examining more closely. What else would he be doing, after all?

"….Not as deep as it looks…." Sunny muttered, almost under his breath. Mari wasn't sure that the comment was really intended for her, but she caught it all the same. There was a hint of something odd in his voice, almost like relief, but she couldn't tell for certain. It was the words themselves that really grabbed her attention once she stopped to consider them, though. Because they didn't make sense. The cut wasn't that deep? How could that possibly be true? With how badly it had been hurting, she felt almost certain now that she'd probably have put herself in the hospital before ever reaching that moment of clarity she was after. If it even existed. It was…. just a really stupid idea all around. That was it. And Sunny wasn't supposed to see something like that, ever. How could it ever be shallow? ….But she supposed it wasn't unreasonable that he'd be able to tell either, he'd scraped his knees and accidentally nicked his fingers with kitchen knives and all sorts of little injuries over the years. He may have come to Mari to help take care of them, but it stood to reason he still knew what a cut looked like. If he said it wasn't too deep, she pretty much had to trust him on it – unless she wanted to examine it herself. Her stomach twisted warningly just from the suggestion.

Another tug on her wrist pulled her out of her thoughts. Sunny had probably seen whatever he was looking to see, then. Rather than releasing her arm immediately, however, after a moment he tugged again, slightly harder.

"Hey. Get up and come over here." he instructed. Was that a hint of impatience? ….Oh, he'd probably said it once already and Mari had simply been too distracted thinking to register it. That would make sense, all things considered, especially today. Either way, she glanced up at him again (his expression was still unreadable) and brushed her hair from her face with her uninjured hand. Then, gradually, Mari complied, pushing herself back up to her feet. It wasn't just the uncomfortable situation that caused her to stand so slowly: her bad knee was jabbing needles at her again, having clearly not appreciated that slouch, and she really didn't want it to flare up on top of everything. It was a little awkward to suddenly be standing over Sunny again, reminding them both that she was the substantially taller one. It was usually Mari who had to tilt her head down to look at him, rather than vice versa like he'd been doing a few moments ago.

Not that she'd be able to dwell on that awkwardness for long, as without another word, Sunny turned and led her back over towards the sink. Mari followed along dumbly, distracted by yet another surreal oddity about this situation. When they were younger, it had always been her pulling Sunny around town by the hand. The role reversal, even if it was only for a brief moment, just felt odd in a way she couldn't quite describe…. She really had been pushy back then, hadn't she? Not that she was much better about it now either.

Stopping in front of the sink, Mari saw in the reflection the exact moment when Sunny's eyes spotted the new crack in the mirror, and he immediately turned back to her, one eyebrow raised ever-so-slightly. He clearly already knew she was responsible, there was no other way to interpret that look, but she instinctively gave a faint nod of her head anyway. There'd be no point even trying to lie about it. Fortunately for whatever tiny scrap remained of Mari's pride, Sunny apparently decided not to press that issue right now. Instead, he turned away and immediately set about rummaging through the cabinet without a word. Mari had a sneaking suspicion of what he was looking for, and sure enough, he soon pulled out a black plastic bottle and a pink box. It was blatantly obvious what they were – Mari had seen them only a couple days ago, after all. Hydrogen peroxide disinfectant, and band-aids with licensed Sweetheart branding. In any other situation, Mari might have laughed. It made sense logically, of course it did, she wasn't so out-of-it for the reasoning to not be clear, but….

Setting the medical supplies aside for the moment, Sunny reached over to turn on the sink, grabbing a washcloth from next to it and wetting it beneath the faucet. He made a vague gesture towards Mari's hand and she offered it to him again. She also took that as her cue to close her eyes. It felt childish and embarrassing, but she still just couldn't stomach the thought of looking at her hand right now. She'd never considered herself to be afraid of blood – though seeing Sunny or her friends hurt would be incredibly upsetting, it wasn't blood itself that was the problem. (In fact, her most terrifying moment, Sunny's near-drowning, had been utterly bloodless.) It was gross, certainly, but not frightening. Yet for some reason, her body's absolute aversion to the mere thought of seeing her palm covered in her own blood simply wouldn't go away. She didn't really think she'd be able to work out the reason even if now were a good time to think about it, which it wasn't. She just…. didn't want to see it.

Once again, however, Sunny didn't seem interested in pressing her about it. He simply exhaled slowly, a sound that could really mean anything as far as she knew, and took her hand. Mari had to stop herself from flinching when she felt the washcloth against her fingers – between the coarseness of the cloth, and the cold water it was soaked in, the texture was extraordinarily unpleasant against her sensitive skin. She actually did flinch when the cloth ran over the cut itself in the middle of her palm, the brief spike of pain making her shoulders jerk. Sunny huffed when she almost pulled her hand from his grip, holding her wrist a little tighter. Fortunately, it didn't seem to take long for him to scrub away the partially-dried blood after all. Perhaps there just wasn't as much of it as Mari had thought. That would make a certain amount of sense if the cut really were shallow like Sunny had claimed.

Sunny released her wrist momentarily and a second later, a hint of sterile scent reached Mari's nose. She'd never been very fond of the smell of disinfectant, but she'd really grown to dislike it after her trip to the hospital when she'd broken her leg. The whole place just smelled faintly like it, constantly, and she'd never been happier to return to the familiar scents of home. Even then, she had been half-convinced the smell was subtly clinging to her for a few weeks after. But she understood why it was necessary, obviously, just like she understood the same thing now.

"Grit your teeth, it's going to sting." Sunny spoke up to warn her bluntly. It was good advice, though, that she herself had given in the past, and sure enough, Mari clenched her teeth and set her shoulders to steel herself. A second later, she felt the disinfectant wash over the cut. It started to bubble, and…. The muscles in her arm tensed sharply, a hissing breath pulled in through her teeth. There was the burn, alright. She'd obviously known it was coming even before Sunny's warning, but that didn't make it even the slightest bit more pleasant. She reached out almost instinctively with her other hand to grip at the edge of the sink. Yet, honestly, compared to inflicting the cut itself? This was nothing. Just a few seconds of stinging and then it was done. No mess, no big fuss, that was something Mari could deal with.

A few moments later, she felt something being pressed carefully against her palm, and took that as her cue that it was safe to open her eyes again. Sure enough, she saw that Sunny was just finishing sticking on one of the band-aids. Withdrawing his hand once he was done, he paused for a moment to stare at the alarmingly-neon-pink bandage in question for a moment. Shaking his head to himself, he glanced back over towards the box, with an image of Sweetheart's smirking face on the front, and pulled an expression Mari interpreted as disgust.

"….Who wants her on band-aids anyway.…?" Sunny muttered to himself in disdain. To her own surprise, a small laugh bubbled from Mari's throat despite the circumstances. Sunny visibly froze at the sound, perhaps not realizing that Mari could hear him. It'd always confused Mari a little seeing how often people, even people who'd known her forever, seemed to forget just how precise her hearing could be. When she wasn't distracted by other sensations, that is. The flash of amusement faded as soon as it had come, however, as she remembered the situation she was in. From the slight hunch in his shoulders and the way his hands had fallen to his sides, it seemed he'd realized something similar. Now that her hand had been taken care of, there was nothing urgent to pull their minds away from the tension. Still, there was something Mari needed to do.

"….Thanks, Sunny." she said, quietly. Sunny sucked in a small breath, perhaps in surprise, his eyes flicking over to her intently. "For helping me take care of that. You didn't have to, but…. I appreciate it." The words were awkward enough to almost make her cringe, but she meant them. She didn't really want to think about it right now, but she just had a creeping suspicion that she would've ended up feeling a lot worse if he hadn't burst in.

"….You're welcome." Sunny muttered. He sounded just as uncomfortable as she was, if not more. Still, however, he seemed to steel himself for something and looked up at Mari's face. Not trying to make eye contact, it appeared (and good thing, too, Mari wasn't sure she could hold that right now). Just at her face in general. "Did you…. I mean, was that bruise you, too?" he asked.

Mari blinked at the question. Right. She'd…. almost forgotten about that, with everything else. She raised her hand up to touch her cheek slowly, only to wince and pull it away almost immediately. Still swollen, of course, it'd only been a few minutes in reality. She wasn't sure why she was expecting that to have changed at all.

"N-no." she stumbled over her words slightly and shook her head in an attempt to clear it. "No, this wasn't me, don't worry about that. It was-" But Mari cut herself off before she even consciously realized it. She tried again. "It-" The words seemed to be stuck in her throat. "….I don't want to talk about it." she was forced to admit. She didn't really want to think about it, either.

Sunny frowned. "Mmh." he grunted, apparently in acknowledgment, yet his eyes narrowed as he continued to stare at the bruise. Whatever he was thinking, however, Mari had no clue, and she wouldn't have long to puzzle over it, since he broke his gaze away a moment later.

"I-" Mari started to say, but paused, realizing she didn't actually know what she was saying. A faint buzzing – not really a sound, more like a feeling – seemed to be filling her head. Like when a TV signal was a bit off, just enough to layer everything in a haze of static. "I…. I'm tired, Sunny." she realized. That's what it was, having her thoughts just constantly spiraling like that was so unbelievably exhausting. But she'd been wrong before, being in pain wasn't…. wasn't any better at all. It was worse. She flexed her fingers unconsciously, only to stop when she felt her palm twinge hotly beneath the fresh band-aid. No, all those dramatics had only served to tire her out even more. Sunny looked back at her again. She exhaled a small sigh. "I'm just…. really tired. It's been a long day." she admitted.

Sunny paused. He bit his lip slightly, perhaps unconsciously, as if thinking. And then he slowly nodded his head.

"….Fine. Come on, then." he said. Without waiting for a response, he turned and started to walk out of the bathroom. Slightly confused at the sudden development, Mari found herself hesitating. Sunny stopped when he seemed to realize she wasn't following and looked back at her, raising his eyebrows pointedly. The message to get moving was clear, and Mari decided to just not question it right now – she really didn't have the energy to be trying to puzzle out his motivations. Especially since it'd probably become obvious in short order anyway. Slowly, her footsteps feeling heavy, she trudged out of the bathroom after him.

Sure enough, the destination became apparent within seconds, as he led her right over to the door to their bedroom and pushed it open. Mari blinked in surprise, and Sunny turned to her expectantly again, so she slowly stepped inside. She…. wasn't really sure why she'd been expecting to see anything different. It was just their room, and she'd only been shut out of it for a day. Besides the mess of blankets on Sunny's bed that he'd no doubt been using to cocoon himself, and one of her dresser drawers hanging open – presumably from when he'd retrieved her clothes that morning – nothing at all had changed from the last time she'd been here yesterday. She didn't even know what she'd been imagining, exactly, but somehow it just felt a little surreal to be standing here in her room, unchanged, when she'd spent the day feeling like her whole world was shaking apart one piece at a time.

"Mew!"

Something brushed against Mari's legs, and she looked down to see Mewo rubbing up against her skirt, looking up at her with expectant eyes. Right, she usually stayed in their room, so she hadn't seen Mari all day. Mari hoped Sunny at least remembered to let her out so she could get to her litterbox and food bowl. Kneeling down carefully so as not to hurt her knee, Mari went to scratch behind Mewo's ears (with the hand that didn't have the band-aid, of course, Mari didn't want to get cat hair all over that), but the kitten seemed to evade her fingers and started rubbing against the back of her hand instead. Well, whatever, that would do just fine too, who was Mari to dictate how a cat wanted to be petted?

While she was distracted with that, Sunny had stepped over towards the laundry hamper, sifting through it for a couple moments. He seemed to find whatever he was looking for fairly quickly – apparently it was near the top – and turned around. He tossed the white bundle of cloth to Mari, who had to stop petting Mewo to catch it. Unfurling it, she saw that it was her favorite nightgown, the really soft one she'd spent half the day of the recital wearing. She looked up at Sunny, and the confusion on her face must have been visible – though she wasn't trying to make any particular expression – because he replied to the unspoken question.

"You need to sleep, so do it, okay?" he instructed, gesturing vaguely towards her bed. Mari almost sagged in relief at that suggestion. She wasn't usually one to nap in the middle of the day, but right now, that sounded unbelievably tempting. Even if she couldn't actually sleep, just getting to lay in her own bed and close her eyes sounded worth its weight in gold. Not giving her a chance to argue (not that she was planning on it in the first place), Sunny turned and walked right out of the room without another word, shutting the door behind him. He hadn't said what he was planning to do instead, but…. it was too late to ask. He probably would've just been annoyed if she tried to pry anyway.

Shooing Mewo away carefully so that she wouldn't risk stumbling over her while changing, Mari finally had a chance to get out of these damp clothes. The relief when she took off the accursed pink sweater and pulled her favorite nightgown over her head instead was palpable. It was like night and day being able to get rid of that horrible scratchy feeling on her shoulders. Even if the nightgown wasn't as clean as she usually liked – it'd still been in the hamper from the other day, not washed yet – wearing it a little more couldn't hurt. It was still such a vast improvement that she'd take it any day, if she had her choice. In a moment of pettiness that Mari knew was incredibly childish, she balled up the sweater and threw it in the laundry with far more force than was at all necessary. The fact she could even muster the energy for that with how worn-out she felt almost sort of impressed her.

Making her way over to her bed, Mari could feel the exhaustion almost pulling her down, and she collapsed onto the mattress in undignified fashion. Her hand burned when she accidentally laid on top of it, causing her to quickly shift her position, but that was about the extent of what she could manage. She didn't even bother pulling the sheets over herself, content to just curl up and press her head against the pillow.

There was a soft "flump!" and something weighed down the mattress next to her. Blinking, Mari saw that Mewo had jumped up to join her. Unceremoniously, the little kitty strode right over and plopped down next to Mari's head.

"Pfft. Mewo. I don't need your butt in my face." Mari protested, a small, surprised laugh escaping from her throat.

"Mrrr." Mewo replied eloquently, shifting position just enough to press her head against the crook of Mari's neck. That would have to do.

For some reason, Mari's eyes felt slightly wet as she shut them.

It was probably just her imagination, as sleep started tugging at her burnt-out mind almost immediately, but for a second she thought she heard the bedroom door creak, just a little. She was out before she could even consider opening her eyes to check, though.

Chapter Text

Mari blinked slowly up at the bedroom ceiling above her, feeling dizzy for a moment. She wasn't sure exactly what had happened in her dream to wake her up – unlike Sunny, who seemed to be able to recall his dreams with vivid clarity whenever he told her about them, Mari often found hers slipping away from her memory the moment she opened her eyes. Not always, of course, sometimes she remembered them perfectly. But often enough to not be surprising. She wasn't even sure it had been a proper coherent dream at all, the only thing she was coming up with was an overwhelming cacophony of sounds and colors. That probably explained the lightheadedness. Yet, as the feeling of disorientation slowly eased, she found to her surprise that the driving pain in the back of her skull seemed to have eased up. She wasn't sure if it was completely gone, it had been so omnipresent throughout the day that she'd almost started to feel used to it. Perhaps she was just so jaded that she couldn't tell the difference between it lessening and it disappearing anymore. Yet either way, the feeling of relief that washed over her was palpable. It was so much better to not feel like someone was going at her skull with a jackhammer. Who knew?

As she became more aware of her surroundings, Mari's body suddenly trembled in a shiver. Right, she'd just collapsed on top of the bed rather than actually tucking herself in, hadn't she? It was a little cool in here, laying like that. It wasn't a surprise now that she thought about it, it was a cold and rainy day outside, and while their house of course had heating, it didn't necessarily reach every room evenly. The upstairs rooms tended to get a little brisk on days like today, and it seemed like this time was no exception. Especially since it looked like it was starting to get dark outside. Or at least, the room was definitely a lot dimmer now than when she'd been brought in here – she couldn't really see out the window from this angle without raising her head off the pillow.

Regardless, though, she was definitely feeling a bit chilly…. except for a spot in the middle of her torso which, now that she was focusing on it, almost felt sort of…. heavy? Mari felt her brow furrow as she looked down at herself. Curled up on her stomach without a care in the world was none other than Mewo. The kitten had apparently gotten tired of Mari breathing on her, or at least so Mari assumed, and moved to lay on top of her at some point instead. It wasn't the first time she'd woken up to Mewo weighing her down, and it probably wouldn't be the last. That cat could be so unfair, honestly, she was always so polite and careful when she snuggled up to Sunny, but she'd flop all over Mari without a second thought. Not that Mari was jealous, it was a good thing Mewo had warmed up to Sunny at all; she hadn't been able to stand him for the first couple weeks after her adoption. Sunny had once claimed they had forged a warrior's bond through their shared affinity for boxes. Mari didn't know enough about cat psychology to dispute that.

Her chest, however, was not an ideal place for a kitty to be, especially since Mari needed to get up. Stretching out her arms, drawing a couple small pops from stiff elbows, Mari carefully reached under the kitten and lifted her up. She felt the band-aid on her palm brush against the cat's fur, only just remembering it was there…. Well, too late now. Mewo opened her eyes slowly, turning to look at Mari with an expression she interpreted as mildly betrayed while Mari set her gently down on the covers.

"Rrow." Mewo expressed her discontent succinctly before pointedly looking away from Mari, making a show of licking at her fur to smooth down the parts Mari's hands had ruffled. She'd probably try not to acknowledge Mari's presence for the next little while as revenge. Mari reached out with her unbandaged hand and scratched Mewo behind the ears a few times anyway. Perhaps that would earn her a pardon a bit faster.

With matters of felines taken care of for now, however, Mari didn't have much excuse to keep lying here like this. Nor did she really want to, with this chill pervading the room. While the white nightgown was indescribably comforting to her skin, it wasn't particularly warm: the faux-silky material was a little on the thin side, letting it breath pleasantly in the heat of summer, but not very well-suited for colder months. Plus, Mari tended to favor an extra blanket or two for cooler weather anyway. Her body did a good enough job making itself feel cold without any external help. With a small groan, she pushed herself up with one arm – not wanting to put pressure on her injured palm, of course – and went to swing her legs off the bed. The instant her feet hit the ground, however, stars exploded across her vision for a moment as her bad knee sent a spike of pain along her body. She exhaled a low hiss that seemed to startle Mewo slightly, the kitten shooting her a sharp look before returning to her sulking.

….Right. There was that. Mari had already been expecting her knee to flare at some point today, hadn't she? It made perfect sense now that she thought about it. Especially since she had been curled up in the chilly air for the last- Actually, how long was it, anyway? Once the ache subsided enough for her to focus again, Mari glanced over at her alarm clock. About seven-o-clock in the evening. So she'd been sleeping for around three hours. That was…. a lot longer than she was expecting, actually, she would've thought she would be lucky to get half that. She was a light sleeper even on the best of days, and she was fairly convinced today was as far from the best as was physically possible. The clock didn't lie, though. And even if she'd had any reason to doubt it, the darkening sky outside the window more-or-less confirmed it. Sighing to herself, Mari stood from the bed, more slowly so as not to agitate her knee any more. It wasn't in so much pain that it couldn't hold her weight, but it was raw enough that she really shouldn't push her luck either.

Stepping carefully over to the bedroom door, Mari saw that it wasn't fully shut, even though she was sure Sunny had closed it earlier. But now it was sitting there having been left open a crack. Like one might do if they were just peaking in…. Well, either way, she didn't want to waste time trying to unpack that. Swinging the door open, she strode out into the hall- And then paused. For some inexplicable reason, she found her eyes drawing off to the side, looking out towards the other rooms upstairs. The light in the bathroom was off – she supposed Sunny must have gone back and turned it off, since she knew neither of them had done so before. They'd been too caught up with…. with what she'd done to her hand-

Her stomach lurched slightly. She really didn't want to think about that. It was stupid. Even now, feeling so much more rested and in control of herself, she still couldn't begin to explain it. Just stupid. Her palm seemed to burn at the mere thought, but she couldn't tell if that was just her imagination or not. Tearing her gaze away from the darkened doorway of the bathroom, her eyes drifted a bit further down the hall. The door to mom and dad's room was shut, and from this angle, she couldn't tell if there was light from below the door or not. She had no idea if mom was in there or not.

For just a moment, Mari half-expected the door to suddenly swing open and mom to come storming out. Before she even realized it, she'd taken a small, defensive step backwards, her eyes shutting for a moment, but….

Wait, what? Why had she even done that? She blinked. Nobody was coming down the hall. And even if mom had been coming out of her room, why would Mari feel the need to retreat from that? Even with what had happened earlier, and the swollen pain in her face (don't think about it), it wasn't like…. It wasn't like she'd done anything wrong by taking a nap. Mom had told her to go upstairs for awhile and she had. There wasn't any reason she should be worried. So why did it feel like her heart had started beating a bit faster for a second there? This was weird. She shook herself slightly. She was just jumping at shadows now – almost literally, in the case of the dark bathroom – perhaps she was still just feeling a little drowsy. It'd probably be best if she just went to head downstairs already, it wasn't like standing around aimlessly out here in the hallway was going to accomplish much of anything anyway.

Of course, actually getting down the stairs was another matter, as Mari was soon reminded. She found herself having to lean heavily against the banister to support herself as she went. Her feet felt like they were dragging, clunking heavily with each step, every strike of her heel on the wood jabbing a needle of pain into her knee. She really, really didn't like these stairs sometimes. But it was worse than usual today; putting her weight against her arms gripping the banister as she made her way down meant putting said weight directly onto her injured palm, pressing down against the band-aid and the cut below. By the time she'd reached the bottom of the stairs, Mari's hand was throbbing unpleasantly. She didn't realize she had grit her teeth until she had to unclench them, taking a deep breath to try and steady herself. How ridiculous was it that even something as simple as walking up and down the stairs had to become a whole ordeal for her? In hindsight, she supposed it was far too optimistic to think that just taking a nap would make her mind less inclined to spiral into dramatics, but she'd sort of hoped….

("….Hoped what? That you'd just magically become a better person?")

Once she was at the bottom, however, Mari paused. She suddenly realized that she…. didn't actually know why she had come down here. What was she even planning to do? Her first thought was of course to go and find Sunny, see what he was up to. But she had to shove that instinct down, she couldn't imagine that he would really want to talk to her right now. He'd come to help her take care of her hand, sure, but…. he'd been pretty quick to leave once he'd led her to their room. Not that she blamed him. It was stupid. Either way, though, it was probably for the best if she gave him some space. It wasn't like she really had any clue of what she could say to him anyway. She shook her head slightly. This train of thought wasn't helping anything. Not wanting to bother Sunny was all well and good, but it didn't actually do much for her current situation anyway. In fact, it was exactly the same: she was still standing here with no clue of what she was going to do next. Her eyes drifted around the bottom of the stairwell idly for a moment…. And then they fell on a particular door. Of course.

The piano room.

She didn't know why it had taken her so long to think of that. She'd been planning on skipping practice earlier, true, but now here she was with her evening unoccupied and no clue how to spend it. And, now that she was thinking about it, she wasn't even quite sure why she'd convinced herself to skip today anyway. She wracked her memory, but the only thing that came up was that she just hadn't felt like it after what had happened with her friends in the park. But that wasn't a good enough reason, was it? No matter how upset she was (no matter how justifiably horrified she was), that didn't give her a free pass to slack off on other things that were important. And her practicing was important. It didn't…. it didn't really matter how she felt about it, or whether she wanted to practice right now or not, that wasn't relevant in the first place – she still needed to do it. Besides, what else was she even going to do for the next couple hours? Usually her evenings on a school day would be filled by one of three things: piano practice, regular homework, or college prep courses. But there was no college prep on the schedule this week, and no homework because it was Monday. So she was out of excuses to avoid it.

Exhaling a slow breath she didn't know she was holding, Mari made her way over to the piano room door.

("Try again.")

One, two, three…. Mari's fingers stretched across the keys once more, gliding smoothly through the opening notes of the piece. It was the waltz from the recital, of course – she had briefly considered running through some other songs from memory to get back in the swing of things, but she had ultimately decided to just tap out a few quick warmups before getting right back into the performance piece. She'd figured it would be more productive to just put her nose back to the grindstone again. Especially since she hadn't touched the piano at all yesterday; best to make up for lost time and all that. It had sounded like a reasonable idea. As if on cue, she felt her finger slip and the jarring plonk of a wrong note rang out across the music room. Mari exhaled sharply, her hands going still for a moment. It wasn't going particularly well. That wasn't the first mistake she'd made in this session, far from it in fact. She wasn't sure exactly how many tries it had been so far – she'd initially forgotten about the importance of keeping count, and by the time she remembered, it was already several attempts in, so she'd just given up on it for now.

("Again.")

One, two, three…. Mari sat up a tiny bit straighter and flexed her fingers before beginning again. Once more, her hands traced out the opening of the song. Yet, mere moments later, another discordant note rang out and she went still again, clenching her eyes shut for a moment.

No, it wasn't going well at all. What was worse, however, was the fact that not only could she not seem to get it perfect anymore, but none of the attempts had even been good. Each time she'd hit a wrong note or caught herself playing a bit too fast or too slow, it was always early in the song. Sometimes only a few seconds in, or – on at least one try – right at the very beginning.

("Again.")

One, two, three…. Mari set her shoulders stubbornly and tried again. Another mistake.

It didn't even seem to make any sense why that would be happening. It wasn't like she had magically forgotten how to play the piece. Even with all that had happened between yesterday and today, it was still only a couple days. The recital had only been on Saturday. No matter how much Mari's mind had been flooded with exhausting torrents of thoughts, it literally wasn't possible for her to forget it that quickly. Even with her terrible memory, the years of general piano practice and months spent honing this piece in particular would not, and could not, just go away that easily. And she could prove she was right about that, too, because she had the sheet music propped up on the piano, yet she hadn't had to double-check it even once. She knew this song. Or, well, she would be able to prove it if only she could actually play it right, even once. That was sort of the issue here, after all, it was clear as day in her mind, but for some reason she just couldn't seem to translate that to actually playing it.

("Again.")

One, two, three….

Another mistake.

It was maddening, Mari couldn't remember the last time she'd had a practice session this fruitless. It was like a microcosm of all of the very worst mistakes she had made in the practices leading up to the recital…. No, not just the worst mistakes, those ones tended to be glaringly obvious, all of her mistakes period. Including the sorts of errors that only she ever knew about, the ones that even Sunny probably wouldn't have realized she made.

("Again.")

One, two, three….

Another mistake.

.

.

.

("Again.")

One, two, three….

Another mistake.

.

.

.

("Again.")

One, two, three….

Another mistake.

Another mistake!

It was all wrong. It was just all wrong. A long, exhausted groan rattled across the piano room before Mari could think of stopping it, the noise grinding at the back of her throat with bone-deep frustration. It was the sort of sound she would have never dared to voice if Sunny were there, not in a million years. Not when it was herself she was really furious at. Before she knew it, she was slumping forwards like a puppet with its strings cut. A horrible cacophonous sound rang out, stabbing at her ears and momentarily drowning out everything else, as her elbows pressed down on the piano keys to prop herself up. It was like all the energy had been drained from her body, the refreshed feeling she'd had when she'd woken up slipping away like a droplet of rain on the window. She cupped her face in her hands – and then winced when she accidentally pressed her bruised cheek too hard against the band-aid. Twin spikes of pain blazed across her palm and her face in tandem, and her breath came out as a hiss. ….Right, there was still that. Today was still today. For a minute there, she'd gotten so focused on practicing that she'd almost let herself forget everything that was going on.

For a little while, the piano room was still. The only sounds in Mari's ears were the rain pattering against her favorite huge window, and her own heartbeat, as she sat there gingerly, letting the aches in her body slowly recede. It wasn't a relaxing or comfortable moment in the least. Her shoulders felt heavy, her wrists stiff, not to mention the rawness behind her bandaged palm that she was only just noticing. It seemed that hand hadn't appreciated the constant flexing of her fingers to play – which made a sort of sense when she put it that way, yet how had she not realized it until now? Pulling her hands away from her face again, she stared down at her palm as if that would reveal the truth. It didn't, of course; all she saw was a band-aid that was so intensely, disconcertingly pink that she felt like it would pull her into another dimension if she looked at it for too long. Exhaling slowly, she lowered her hand. She was just wasting time now.

Glancing up at the window, she saw that it was really dark out now. Between the hour, the heavy clouds, and the fact that the days were shorter this late into October, it looked almost pitch black already. She wasn't sure exactly what time it was, but if she wanted to get anything done tonight, she probably needed to suck it up and get back to-

The door creaked open behind her, hinges squeaking a bit. She'd never liked when they did that, flinching minutely at the sound. Turning her head slightly to look, she already had a suspicion of who she'd see, and sure enough. There was Sunny looking at her from the doorway. It was almost funny how familiar of a sight that was – though at least this time he didn't look so distressed. Actually, he didn't really have any expression, or none she could interpret at any rate. She wondered why he was here.

As if reading her mind, he spoke up the second that thought occurred to her. "I thought I heard the piano. Guess I should've known you'd be in here." he said flatly. Mari wasn't entirely sure what he was getting at.

"I figured I should get some practice in." she replied, frowning slightly. She didn't know why she felt an odd need to defend herself, but she did. "Since I didn't do any all day yesterday, or this afternoon, you know." she added in elaboration. Sunny matched her small frown with one of his own. He looked over her with a hint of something she thought was skepticism in his eyes. Belatedly, Mari realized she was still slouching on the bench, her elbows resting on the keys. She quickly straightened herself up, withdrawing her arms, but it was obviously much too late for it to go unnoticed. There was no way she'd looked like she was diligently practicing when the door opened.

"….Whatever you say." Sunny huffed after an awkward pause, crossing his arms and glancing away. Mari could practically sense the barrier between them in that moment, her mind briefly conjuring images of a towering brick wall blocking her view. That feeling had been there all day, really, in the back of her mind, so it wasn't like it was unexpected. It just seemed more starkly apparent for a second there. But she still had no idea how to even begin to address it.

Maybe…. Maybe she needed to extend an olive branch of sorts?

"You know…. I'm not expecting you to join me or anything." she began slowly, gaze drifting to the side slightly to avoid eye contact. She swallowed as she steeled herself for what she was going to say next. "You don't have to play in the next recital. I can handle it." she offered, her voice dropping quieter, though it was still clearly audible in the hush of the piano room. Sunny pulled in a sharp breath, his eyes snapping to her intently, though she still didn't quite meet their scrutiny. "I can pick a new song that'll sound more impressive for a solo. It…. shouldn't be too hard to find one." She was speaking her thoughts the moment they formed in her head. It wasn't planned. She hadn't really gone over anything about the next recital since that argument in the kitchen, let alone the idea of doing it by herself. It just seemed like something she should offer. She wasn't sure it was a good idea, but she wasn't going to take it back either. Sunny didn't reply right away, letting the weight of awkward silence settle over them once again. He bit his lower lip, flexing his fingers unconsciously, and Mari had enough experience with him to recognize the agitated tics for once. She wasn't sure what, exactly, was going through his head that had him thinking so intensely, though. At last, he exhaled slowly.

"….I just came in to tell you, I'm heating up the soup from last night. If you want some." he said. Mari found herself blinking as she registered the non-sequitur. That was it? ….That was it? Mari felt something cold seeping into her gut, shivering unconsciously at the sensation. She didn't think it was frustration, exactly, but whatever it was, it wasn't pleasant either. She didn't know exactly what response she'd been expecting to get to her offer. Predicting anything about Sunny's behavior felt beyond her right now. But surely it should've at least been something. Having the metaphorical hand she extended be…. not slapped away, but seemingly brushed past…. it just wasn't what she'd been hoping for. She took a breath. But she was being uncharitable, wasn't she? It was easy to assume plenty of things about what Sunny had to say – or didn't say – but that didn't mean she should assume. She didn't exactly have the best track record with assumptions, did she?

.

"Well?" Sunny asked after another long, dragging moment of silence. Mari simply stared at him for a second, not quite sure what he was asking. Sunny sighed. "The soup. Do you want it?" he repeated his offer, and Mari was sure there was a tinge of impatience to his voice. Mari frowned slightly, seriously considering the offer. Maybe…. maybe this was his idea of returning her olive branch after all? It was a little jarring for the feeling in her stomach to switch to a jolt of hopefulness so quickly, but she couldn't help the thought. He still didn't seem especially happy talking to her, but offering her dinner was still a huge improvement over locking her out of their room, wasn't it?

….Wait a moment. Mari paused as another thought suddenly occurred to her.

"Hold on. You're fixing leftover soup for yourself? Then what about….?" her question trailed off, her nerves suddenly spiking for some reason. She wasn't even quite sure why. Almost instinctively, she tilted her gaze up, over Sunny's shoulder to look through the open doorway he was standing in, as if expecting to see someone coming up behind him. But nobody was there.

"Mom's gone." Sunny replied bluntly, apparently having figured out what she was asking.

Mari felt her brow furrow slightly. "Gone? Sorry, what do you mean?" she asked, partially just to confirm she was understanding what he said right.

"Gone." Sunny repeated with an unhelpful shrug, his face still unreadable. "I heard the front door. Earlier. And her car's not in the driveway." he explained vaguely. Mari's frown deepened as she mulled over that information. Mom wasn't even in the house? Mari hadn't seen her since…. since earlier…. but she hadn't known mom had actually left. The fact that Sunny only said he had heard the door, rather than actually seeing her depart, meant it'd probably happened while he was still upstairs in their room. Meaning, while Mari had been shut away in the bathroom. Mom had been gone that entire time and she just…. hadn't noticed.

("Why is that even surprising at this point? You were too caught up in yourself.")

….Well, there was nothing she could do about it now. It was a little odd for mom to just up and drive off without so much as leaving a note. Yet somehow…. Mari didn't really feel bothered by that right now. Shaking herself slightly to try to refocus, she turned her attention back to the question at hand. Sunny was still waiting on an answer, after all. She hadn't really thought about grabbing dinner – in fact, eating had completely slipped her mind – yet now that she considered it, she realized that she actually was quite hungry. She'd barely eaten much today, and some of what she did have was lost to the earlier bout of nausea. It made perfect sense. She'd just been so caught up with everything else that it didn't seem to make her priority list, even though it really should've. So overall, she was incredibly tempted to accept the offer on the spot. All the more so if it really was a peace offering on Sunny's end like part of her suspected.

And yet.

("Aren't you forgetting something important?")

Mari hesitated. Slowly, her vision drifted away from her little brother and back towards the piano. ….She really hadn't gotten anything productive done with this practice session yet, had she? It was just mistake after mistake. If she just got up and quit now, then the last…. however long it'd been would be for nothing. Just a waste of time messing things up that she should know how to do, rather than actually getting any closer to perfecting her skills like she was supposed to. That wouldn't do. That wouldn't do at all. It didn't really matter how she felt about it, did it? She still needed more practice.

She sighed softly and slowly shook her head. "Maybe I'll come get some in a bit, okay? I think I'm going to be at this for a little while longer." she said, refocusing her gaze on Sunny, though still not quite meeting his eyes. "It's just not feeling quite right yet, so I want to get a bit more practice in to get back in the swing of things." she explained. An understatement, naturally, but very much a deliberate one. Sunny didn't need to hear her whining about how much trouble she was having for no reason. There was a momentary pause when she finished speaking, just a second, and she glimpsed Sunny's eyes narrowing.

"….Of course." he muttered, and Mari wasn't initially sure if she was meant to hear it. "Of course." he repeated, louder. "All you want to do is just practice." There was undeniably an undertone of bitterness to that last word, like he didn't even like saying it.

"Sunny…." Mari trailed off, not quite sure what else to say. She'd noticed right away that this conversation was rather uncomfortable, obviously – for both of them. But she was still taken aback by the sudden frustration on display.

"Have to keep going…. until it's just perfect, right?" Sunny continued, as if she hadn't even said anything at all. Mari felt herself frowning at the venom in his voice that was clear even to her. It made that all-too-familiar cold feeling start skittering across her skin yet again.

"Sunny." she said once more, a note of warning slipping into her voice. She hadn't quite intended that, but those words – "just perfect" – and the way he said them…. It just hit a bit too close to their argument in the kitchen to be comfortable. Really, the warning was just as much to herself, it wasn't like the way she'd acted then had been right either. This time Sunny actually appeared to notice her response, matching her frown with one of his own.

"Just…. Why are you even doing this?" he asked, and from the slight strain in his voice, Mari almost got the impression that he was trying to contain his frustration somehow. But maybe she was just imagining it. She didn't really have time to focus on that, though, her train of thought stuttering in confusion at what seemed like an out-of-nowhere question.

"I already said that?" she replied, her brow furrowing slightly in her confusion. She had answered that a minute ago, hadn't she? "I thought I should get some practice done since I didn't do any-"

"That's not. What I mean." Sunny grit out, cutting her sentence short. He exhaled, the breath hissing slightly between his teeth (though the effect didn't seem to be intentional, or at least not that Mari could tell). "I mean…. I mean all of this! Why are you so obsessed with all the practicing in the first place?" he tried to clarify, his voice growing noticeably louder with his mounting agitation. Not outright yelling, but substantially more assertive than the relatively-quiet Sunny usually was.

"It's important. I have to keep my skills up for the recital." Mari replied immediately, even as she felt the creeping cold starting to fill her chest again. She was certain it wasn't just her imagination, now, this was definitely taking a turn eerily similar to their argument. Surely Sunny couldn't be oblivious to the parallels either…. So what was he trying to get out of this?

"Of course it's for the recital, I know that…. But why do you even care about that so much?" Sunny shot back just as quickly, shaking his head sharply in denial. Mari didn't understand these questions – Sunny should really know the answers already, right? He'd been practicing right along with her up until yesterday, surely if he didn't even know why then he wouldn't…. It wasn't even the issue of whether he liked it now, it was a question of understanding. That was different, wasn't it?

("It's because you have to make sure it goes right.")

"What? Obviously I care, because I have to make sure it goes right!" Mari said, her voice hitching louder before she stopped to exhale a breath. Her hands balled up against the fabric of her nightgown in her lap to try to contain the frustration she could feel building. She wasn't sure it was working.

"Why!?" Sunny demanded, his own voice raising to match hers. Oddly enough, he also seemed to almost mimic her action of balling up her hands, though he held his clenched fists at his sides instead. "Who says that even matters?"

("Everyone.")

"Everyone!" Mari was snapping now. She tried to exhale again. It wasn't any more effective than the first time. She didn't want this to go the same way as last night. She didn't. But the ice was still pumping through her veins all the same. "It's for everyone, so they can see that we can do it!"

"I. Got. That! But why do you even want to do that!?" Sunny was almost on the cusp of outright shouting now, scowling at her as if she was the one being stubborn about it.

("It's important.")

"It's importan-" Mari started to say, but Sunny cut her off again.

"That's not an answer!" He stamped his foot against the floor, hesitating for a slight moment after the impact as if he hadn't even realized he had done that. He quickly rallied himself, though. "You keep saying it's so important, over and over, but that never means anything! It's just important because it's important!" Sunny was working himself into a full-on rant now, having broken into outright yelling. Mari felt cold. Freezing. "You're…. You're sitting here practicing so much it hurts, and, and you just ignore it, and you WON'T TELL ME WHY!" His voice raised into almost a roar.

"BECAUSE IF I CAN'T DO THINGS RIGHT, NOBODY WILL EVEN WANT ME AROUND!"

.

.

Silence fell heavily as the echoing shout faded, a choking shroud across the piano room that seemed to snuff out all sound so completely that, for just an instant, it might as well have been the vacuum of space. She wasn't sure she could even hear her own heartbeat.

Sunny had taken a step back at the scream, his eyes blown wide and his mouth opened slightly, like someone had just blindsided him with a punch to the gut. Slowly, Mari started to feel her own eyes widening in turn, as she realized exactly what she had just admitted. The biting cold frustration flooded away even quicker than it had come, but the feeling that replaced it wasn't any warmer. No, if anything, she felt even more frigid now – for a moment, she was certain that she was going to freeze into a statue right where she sat. It was below her skin, frozen slivers prickling across her body like needles. It was several seconds before she became aware of the way her hand was aching, impaled with a lance of raw pain. She had no idea how she hadn't noticed before. Looking down, the reason was obvious: her fists clenched so tightly that her knuckles were whiter than her nightgown. Of course the cut on her hand burned from that. Of course it did, a simple band-aid would be no help there. It was stupid that she hadn't realized it would.

Unfurling her fingers slowly, Mari shivered uncontrollably from the blizzard within her body. Before she even realized it, she was wrapping her arms around herself to try to keep warm. She didn't look back up at Sunny. Couldn't bear the thought seeing him looking at her with judgment and pity in his eyes, now that he'd heard her. There was no taking back what she'd just said, no way to play it off. Instead, she tilted her head down even further, letting her hair fall across her face. It must have looked pathetically bedraggled from the outside, but at least this way she could let her black locks shield her gaze. Pretend that they could block out the world.

"Mari…." Sunny said, his voice barely above a whisper, yet shattering the silence like a sledgehammer crashing against glass.

A long pause, and then….

"….Go away." Mari's own voice was just as quiet. And just as deafening. She shuffled slightly on the piano bench, her shoulders heavy, but didn't dare look past the shroud of her hair. "Just leave me alone." she muttered. There was no sound of movement from Sunny to indicate that he was going to listen. "….I already said you don't have to practice. That's what you wanted all along, wasn't it?" She couldn't keep a touch of bitterness from slipping into her tone. Sunny made a sound, like inhaling a surprised breath through his teeth.

Yet another pause, one that seemed to drag infinitely, even though it could've only been a handful of seconds in reality.

"….No."

Mari glanced up at last, one eye peaking past her hair. She saw that Sunny had his fists curled at his sides again, a set in his brow.

"Sunny." she said. It came out more sharply than she was expecting.

"No." Sunny repeated, shaking his head slightly. "No, this is stupid!" He took a small step towards her. "I'm not leaving you alone right now."

"What're you-"

"I'm not leaving you alone when you're like this! Because…. Because I know what it means now! I saw it!" His voice was rising again, but this didn't sound like his frustration from before. Something about it felt like jabbing a nail into Mari's chest, but she didn't know why.

"While you were asleep, I…. I had to clean your blood off the bathroom floor, Mari! So- So I'm not leaving!"

.

.

Oh.

Oh.

That was it. That was what felt so familiar about his attitude. That was why it felt so painfully wrong.

Fear. Sunny was afraid.

It wasn't like Mari had a lack of experience with recognizing it, quite the opposite in fact – if anything, she was surprised it took her this long. Sunny got scared of lots of things. Some of them were small, silly things, like spiders (none of the spider species that got into their house were even dangerous to humans. Mari almost found them kind of cute, if anything). Others seemed perfectly reasonable, like his more recent aversion to large bodies of water. And others still were more abstract, harder to define, yet real all the same, like the nightmares that plagued him like clockwork. He'd even apologized once or twice to Mari for being scared so easily, even though she hadn't actually minded at all. So no, Sunny being afraid wasn't remotely news to her, and she always just wanted to make sure he was okay above all else. Even for the silly ones. But having that look of fear pointed at her was…. different. She didn't quite know how to describe it, but it was unbelievably different. Something in Mari's chest wrenched, and for a horrible second she almost thought she was going to be sick again.

She hadn't thought about it. She knew that…. that doing that to her hand was an awful idea. But she hadn't stopped to think about how it must have looked to Sunny. Not really. She'd seen the wild look on his face when he'd burst in on her, even. But she hadn't stopped to consider the implications. She'd been too caught up in everything else that was going on…. too caught up in herself…. to realize it. She should have known that seeing that would horrify him, because of course it would! It should horrify anybody! Let alone her little brother! Of course she shouldn't have done that to him – wouldn't have ever done that to him if she'd been thinking straight. But she hadn't been. She didn't know what she had been thinking anymore.

"….I'm sorry." she said, unable to muster the energy for much more than a whisper. She looked at him, slowly brushing her hair away so she could see with both eyes again. "I'm sorry." she repeated. What else could she say?

Sunny bit his bottom lip, averting his eyes. That was probably for the best, as Mari didn't think she could stomach full eye contact.

"I don't-" He paused for a moment to take a shaky breath, as if steeling himself.

"Don't want you to be sorry, I just…. I just want you to come get some stupid soup already…. Okay?"

Mari felt her eyes going slightly wide, pulling in a deep breath before she consciously realized it.

.

And then, very slowly, she nodded.

"….Okay, little brother. If you say so." she replied, trying to give him a hint of a smile, even though she didn't feel it at all.

Slowly, Mari pushed herself up from the piano bench, groaning just a bit as her bad knee ached, and followed Sunny out of the piano room. She shut the door behind her a little harder than she meant to.

Chapter Text

Dinner was an awkward affair. In hindsight, Mari wasn't exactly sure why she would have expected anything else. She found herself with absolutely no clue what she should say – or, for that matter, what she even could say – to start a conversation of any sort. Let alone how to actually address anything that had happened that day. Sunny seemed to be having a similar problem (or at least Mari assumed so, he was generally less proactive than her when it came to such things anyway, so it was possible he was just being quiet). The end result was the two of them eating in near-silence, only broken up by the occasional mundane mealtime phrase. "Pass the salt" and that sort of thing. The silence wasn't outright oppressive, per se, it wasn't like they were being deliberately hostile towards each other or anything. But it was noticeable enough to just be kind of uncomfortable all around, and she was sure Sunny must have recognized it too. The two of them eating dinner together was, by all rights, a perfectly normal occurrence. But it just…. wasn't quite normal, this time, and Mari couldn't really bring herself to pretend it was.

If there was one saving grace of the meal, it was the fact that when Hero had first recommended that soup recipe to Mari, he had apparently not been exaggerating when he said it reheated incredibly well. Somehow, sticking it in the microwave had only served to bring out the chicken and the garlic, enriching the flavors without becoming overpowering. Mari did not know enough about the chemistry behind cooking to understand why that worked, but she couldn't deny the effectiveness. She'd been a lot hungrier than even she realized, too. She'd practically inhaled two bowls full before Sunny had even finished his one. It wasn't uncommon for Mari to eat a bit more than him – that'd probably change once he got into his teenage years proper, but at the moment it was fairly typical. She was both older and tended to burn more energy in a day than he did, after all. But more than double Sunny's portion? That was a lot. That was more like the type of thing Mari would've expected to see from Kel, if anything. But she'd just felt so drained from everything else that she ended up devouring it with a ferocity that surprised even herself.

Which, on some level, probably only served to make the silence between her and Sunny even more awkward. Not that there was anything she could do about it now.

Either way, however, asides from Mari's unusual appetite, the only other thing that happened to distract them from the uncomfortable tension in the air was their father coming home from work. But even that was hardly anything of note. Dad was apparently tired from a long day, barely giving the two a brief greeting before heading right upstairs. He didn't even stop to say anything about where mom might have been – or asked Mari and Sunny about it, if he didn't know either – so that particular mystery was left to remain unsolved. They didn't see him again for the rest of the night.

The remainder of the evening after dinner was similar, in both its quietness and its awkwardness. Not really knowing what else to do, Mari and Sunny had both retreated upstairs to their room as well. But they quickly found that standing in there together didn't really do much of anything to help break down the invisible wall between them. Mari had made a couple of attempts to at least make a little conversation, but she could barely even seem to think of reasonable small talk without trailing off. She wouldn't have considered herself a shy person on a regular day, but in that moment she couldn't help but wonder if this was how Sunny felt when he was thrown into unfamiliar social situations. And Sunny himself, for his part, either had no clue how to approach the situation either, or just wasn't interested. Mari couldn't be entirely sure which. Instead, the two of them had ended up reading (or, at least in Mari's case, trying to read) in silence. Sunny had curled up on his bed and dug out an old Spaceboy comic from somewhere. Technically, he was also grounded and wasn't supposed to have that, but Mari immediately decided not to bring it up. It wasn't like it was hurting anything. She, meanwhile, sat at her writing desk trying to go over her math textbook to cover today's work. It didn't go well, none of the words and numbers seemed to stick no matter how she stared at them.

However, while Sunny didn't talk to Mari…. he did watch her. Several times throughout the night, she got the distinct feeling of eyes on her, and quick glances revealed Sunny peering over the top of his comic book, his eyes fixed on her with something intent. He definitely wasn't trying to make eye contact, though, breaking off the stare every time he noticed her looking back. He got rather jumpy when Mari got up to use the bathroom once, too, not even trying to hide the way his head swiveled to track her exit from the bedroom, and when she returned a minute later, he was on his feet and almost looked like he'd been pacing. His eyes had snapped to her the instant she walked in, a noticeable frown on his face, like he was looking for something. Mari didn't say anything about it – she didn't want to sound accusatory or anything – but she almost got the impression that Sunny was watching her like he thought she'd vanish.

It surprised her a little, but…. at the same time, it also didn't. Not now that she'd figured out that he'd been afraid for her earlier. After all, she had hovered around him in much the same way after he'd nearly drowned at the lake. In fact, Mari had been even more blatant about it, extending it to their friends to some degree as well – that was what led to her insisting they all stop visiting the hangout anymore. It was strange, incredibly strange being on the other end of it, but it wasn't an unfamiliar thought process to her.

Even that realization didn't give her any real clue of what to say to him in that moment, however. So instead, the two had just ended up quietly preparing for bed.

Coming down the stairs first thing the next morning (her sleep had been light, so she was easily up on time for school), Mari's day seemed like it was going to start out on a strange note. She paused on the stairway in a moment of confusion, an odd smell reaching her nose as she descended. And, now that she was paying a bit more attention, was that a faint sound she was hearing from the direction of the kitchen? It sounded almost like…. Something sizzling. Was somebody cooking something? It couldn't be Sunny, of course, she was awake before him. Which was pretty much to be expected at this point, really. She figured it was better to let him get his rest rather than waking him, he could come find her downstairs when he woke up if he still felt like hovering around her. Until they had to go to school, anyway. But that meant that whoever was in the kitchen could only be…. Frowning to herself slightly, Mari stepped the rest of the way down – with no more protest from her knee than usual, thankfully – and headed for the kitchen to see.

Sure enough, there was mom standing in front of the stove, a frying pan set atop the active burner in front of her. Mari couldn't quite see past her to glimpse the contents of the pan itself, but mom had set aside a plate piled with food that confirmed what Mari had thought she smelled: bacon and scrambled eggs. Dad, meanwhile, was sitting at the kitchen table, the morning newspaper blocking his face from view. That was perhaps the only part of the whole scene that didn't give Mari pause. Mom was actually cooking breakfast? On a weekday? That was…. strange. Neither of her parents really tended to cook breakfast much during the week, or at least nothing more complex than toasting a bagel. Dad would occasionally make pancakes on Saturdays, but even that had become increasingly less common over the years, as he'd gotten a few promotions at work that left him too busy. No, usually if Mari or Sunny wanted something cooked in the mornings, they'd have to get up in time to do it themselves. Which Mari didn't actually mind, since she liked cooking, but still. (Sunny, meanwhile, was forbidden from trying to prepare any sort of eggs unsupervised. The Pepper Incident would not be forgotten any time soon.)

"Oh, there you are, Mari." Mom's voice cut through Mari's train of thought, noticing her standing there in the doorway, though mom only glanced at her, not actually turning to face her properly.

"Morning." Dad grunted softly, not lowering his paper, even as he raised a piece of bacon to his mouth. He'd never seemed to like talking while eating, and especially not at breakfast, so the subdued greeting didn't surprise Mari in the least.

"Just in time, too. Come get your plate." her mother said briskly, even as she turned part of her attention back to scrambling the next set of eggs in the pan.

Mari, for her part, could only blink at the instruction for a moment. It wasn't that the words themselves were unclear, mom was obviously referring to the set-aside plate. That part was easy to get. But she was still brimming with confusion at what she was seeing in the first place. What was going on here? Dad didn't appear to be treating it as anything unusual, as far as Mari could tell – though, since he'd clearly been up before her, perhaps he and mom had simply talked about it before she got down here. But she couldn't be the only one aware of just how rare of an occurrence this was, right? If some magic oracle had given her a prophecy that mom would be cooking breakfast today, she wouldn't have believed them. (Assuming a world where magical oracles actually existed, at any rate. That sort of fantasizing was really more Sunny's style.) Either way, Mari ended up standing there in silence for a few seconds, not quite sure how to react.

Mom seemed to notice her lack of a reply, glancing at Mari again, a frown forming on her face. "Now, don't be stubborn, sweetie. I know things got a little-" mom paused momentarily as if considering her words. "-heated yesterday, but there's really no need for that. The plate isn't going to bite you."

Mari froze. 'Heated'? Was that it? Was that all that mom had to say about…. about what happened between them yesterday? Something prickled unpleasantly beneath Mari's skin at the thought, but she didn't know what to call the feeling. At the same time, her cheek seemed to burn as her mind played back those moments again. Why was mom acting like this? Before she could even think about saying anything in response, however, dad finally broke his gaze from the paper and spoke up, looking over at mom.

"Huh? Yesterday? What happened yesterday?" he asked. Mom shook her head quickly.

"Oh, don't worry about it, dear. Mari just forgot she was grounded, so she was in a little trouble and she wasn't very happy about it. That's all." As she said that, mom locked eyes with dad for a second, but as usual, Mari had no clue what was being communicated in whatever silent conversation they might have been having. The way adults did that was always so weird. Breaking the stare, mom shot Mari yet another look. "But I thought she might feel better once she got some breakfast."

The prickling sensation grew, and for just an instant, Mari's mind conjured images of centipedes scurrying across her skin. Wrong. This whole thing was feeling wrong. What was mom saying, that the food might make her feel better? Superficially, it sounded similar to Sunny offering her dinner last night, but…. it wasn't. It felt different, completely different. Sunny had done that out of concern. Mom was just brushing over what happened, it almost sounded like lying about it, even. Technically speaking, Mari had forgotten she was grounded, had gotten in more trouble, and hadn't been happy. Those weren't factually incorrect, per se. But they didn't actually encompass what had happened at all, did they? And surely mom couldn't be oblivious to how misleading it sounded?

And saying that she'd made the food so Mari would 'feel better'….

Was that what this was?

Was this…. was this a bribe? Was the whole breakfast thing just a way to placate Mari, to signal to her that she shouldn't make a big deal out of…. out of the fact that her mother had hit her? It was an ugly thought, and on any other day, she would've immediately shoved it down for being completely uncalled for, but….

("….It's not like it's the first time mom has pandered to you to keep you from pitching a fit, is it?")

"….Hmm." Dad grunted in acknowledgment, cutting into Mari's train of thought. He started to turn back to reading his paper, only to suddenly pause, staring over the newspaper's edge as his eyes unexpectedly locked onto Mari, though she had no clue what to make of the look beyond just being focused on her. "Hold on. Mari, what happened to you face?" Dad's voice pitched upwards slightly in…. Mari thought it was something like surprise, but she couldn't be sure. Unconsciously, she raised her hand to the bruise on her cheek. Had he really only just noticed that? She'd known he seemed tired when he got home last night, but still, he'd walked right by her….

"I-" Mari started to say, but stopped herself. What was she going to say here? She needed to actually think before she blurted something out. This was the moment of truth, wasn't it? Was she going to say what had actually happened yesterday? Would it matter if she did? Or-

"Ah, right. That." Mom's voice clicked across the kitchen. She'd beaten Mari to the punch before she could decide. Mom shook her head slightly, a gesture that on any other day might have been described as patiently exasperated, but here just looked…. Off. "She tripped and hit her face on the banister yesterday." Mom sighed. "She should have put some ice on it, but…. I suppose she forgot." As she spoke, her gaze slowly shifted from dad over towards Mari herself, until she was staring directly at her.

The prickling feeling was back again, intensified twice over. Mari had to physically stop herself from scratching at her arms, knowing it would be futile to try to make the horrid crawling go away. It was obviously just in her head, but that didn't make it feel any less disgusting. And she still didn't have a name for it.

Mom wasn't just 'almost' lying now. She was lying. That was just an outright falsehood, and there was no way Mari could be misinterpreting that. And the worst part was, from an outside perspective, it was a perfectly believable lie. She really had rather embarrassingly tripped and bruised up her face on the banister once, a couple years ago, so it wasn't at all unreasonable to suggest that it could happen again. That just…. wasn't what had actually happened. Mom's eyes on her seemed to intensify slightly. As if watching to see if she would contradict it. But it might have just been her imagination.

Dad huffed. "Well. Be more careful, okay? I almost thought you'd gotten in a fight." he said, and with that, he promptly raised the newspaper once more, going back to his own business. Apparently proving Mari correct that it was, indeed, a completely reasonable-sounding explanation.

But why?

Why was mom doing this?

It was bad enough that it happened. But now, to stand here and listen to mom blatantly pretend that it hadn't, that nothing was seriously wrong at all…. Mari's hands clenched, sending a burning ache across the cut on her hand, though it felt slightly less overwhelming than yesterday. The words made her feel sick. She didn't even know why. But it just felt completely and horribly wrong. Not overwhelming her mind with a flood of panic like had been happening the last few days, but wrong in a different way. The closest feeling she could compare it to was disgust, but she wasn't sure that was right. For a moment, all Mari wanted to do was just run back upstairs and crawl back into her bed. She wished she could shove her head under her pillow and bury herself in blankets and pretend she'd never come downstairs at all.

.

.

….Actually. Perhaps she could.

She had no idea where the treacherous idea had come from. And on any other day, she would certainly have shoved it down as unwelcome, inappropriate, and intrusive. It definitely wasn't something that she should do, or that she normally would ever do. Yet….

"….Anyway, I actually came downstairs to tell you, I'm not sure I can go to school today. I must've caught whatever Sunny had." she said before she could stop herself. It was a lie, one made up completely on the spot. Her stomach churned a bit with guilt at…. no. That wasn't quite it, was it? She didn't really feel guilty for saying it. She just felt guilty for the fact that she didn't feel guilty for lying, when she knew logically she should have. But…. maybe it was because she was still frazzled and tired from the events of yesterday and wasn't thinking fully logically anyway. Maybe it was because part of her didn't feel like she could handle another fruitless day trying to force her mind to comprehend schoolwork when it clearly wasn't working. And maybe, just maybe, there was a tiny poisonous voice, reminding her that mom was the one who'd decided to start lying first. Listening to that impulse wasn't a good idea, but – she ran her fingers over the band-aid on her hand. It couldn't be the stupidest idea she'd had either.

Mom froze for a second before frowning sharply at Mari. "What? You're sick?" she asked, as if not quite believing what she'd just heard. Mari wasn't quite sure why she'd be skeptical – ironically, given that she was now lying about it, but she'd never tried playing sick before. She knew it was a thing kids ostensibly did to get out of school, from movies and tv shows. (And she was about ninety-five percent sure Kel had roped Sunny into faking a shared cold at least once, though she'd tactfully opted not to press them on it.) But she'd never thought to try it herself before – why would she? Mom stared at her for a moment, her expression difficult to read, though from the context it was probably meant to be a searching look. And then-

"Yeah. She is."

Mari just about jumped at Sunny's voice. When had he gotten behind her? How had she not noticed him coming downstairs, let alone approaching her? Even with the excuse that she was too focused on mom to be listening for it, he'd gotten way too good at moving around silently lately. She turned her head to look at him, but he didn't match her gaze, looking straight towards mom instead.

"I saw her throw up and everything. Looked pretty gross." he continued, his nose wrinkling slightly in disgust for effect. All Mari could do was stare at him in surprise. While it was technically a true statement, they both knew perfectly well that had nothing to do with any stomach illness. But mom and dad couldn't know that, could they? Sunny was backing her up, covering for her. She would never have asked him to do that, never even considered it – it would be completely unfair to put that kind of thing on him – but…. that didn't mean she didn't appreciate it for what it was. He had to know he'd be in trouble too if they got caught lying, right? Yet he did it anyway. It wasn't planned or thought through or even really a good idea to begin with, but he still immediately jumped in to assist her with it anyway.

("….Why? Why would he do that?")

Mari had no answer. But she recognized the attempt to help her, in a way that didn't feel like pity, so she wasn't going to sabotage it by objecting either.

Mom didn't seem to be able to argue with Sunny's corroboration, some of the skepticism leaving her features, though she was still frowning somewhat. "….I see, thank you Sunny. But are you sure you can't go to school today?" She addressed the question to Mari, of course. "You'll ruin your perfect attendance this semester." she pointed out matter-of-factly. Before Mari could start to think of a reply, however, another answer came from an unexpected source. Dad huffed slightly, shooting a glance at mom over his paper.

"We can't send her in when she's sick, Rin." he scoffed, sounding almost a little incredulous. Though that might have been Mari's imagination. "They'd just ship her back home anyway. Unless you want an angry call from the faculty?" Dad's tone sounded blunter than a sledgehammer to Mari's ears, but he wasn't wrong. If she really were sick, that was probably exactly what would happen. And…. shouldn't mom have really known that as well? With a small sigh, mom apparently realized that dad was right.

"Well, okay. I suppose it's alright since you don't have your college prep today." Mom conceded with a small shake of her head. She put her hands on her hips. "But I'd better not hear about you skipping homework because of this, sweetie." she added in warning. Mari nodded her head dutifully, and for once mom actually seemed to accept the nonverbal response. Though perhaps that was because she was distracted by glancing back over at the plate of food. "….You could've told me before I served your plate, though." she said. It was another lie, Mari realized – the plate had already been set aside when she walked in, there was no way she could've done that – but she bit her tongue to stop herself from saying that. "Hmm. I guess this is yours instead, Sunny. Come eat, sweetheart." Mom instructed, turning her attention to Sunny.

Mari looked at him as well. "….Will you be alright today?" she asked him quietly as he passed by her. He paused and bit his lip slightly, his head jerking in a nod.

"M'fine." he grunted, not quite meeting her gaze. "You can go back up to bed." Mari frowned a little, but hesitantly decided not to challenge him on it. The vague response wasn't exactly encouraging, but things were still so strange between her and Sunny that she had no clue whether she'd annoy him if she tried to fuss. And she found that she really, really didn't want to argue with him with mom and dad in the room. Not that she wanted to argue with him at all, but especially now. There was just…. no way that would be a good thing for either of them. She was sure of that much. Just the thought of mom having to intercede in something like that made the skin-crawling feeling itch across her back.

So, instead, Mari gave Sunny one last look – though she wasn't sure if he noticed – and turned to leave the kitchen. As she headed for the stairs, it really started to hit her exactly what had just happened. Mari had just lied to her parents' faces, tried to skip school, and somehow ended up with Sunny supporting her in it, all on some random whim. Because…. Because mom had lied about yesterday, and it felt bad, and she…. what, wanted to be rebellious? Was that what this was? Mari didn't feel like a rebel. She just felt kind of stunned that she'd actually gone and done that – and perhaps even more stunned that somehow, for some reason, it worked.

.

….Well. It was too late to go back on it now. Sure, technically she could march back into the kitchen and reveal the deception. But that would mean dragging Sunny into trouble with her, and- No. No, that just wasn't a real choice at all, was it?

("And, admit it. You're glad your little lie worked. You'd just find a way to mess up at school anyway.")

Of course, it wouldn't be too long before the problems of the poorly-thought-out nature of her deception would become apparent. Oh, she didn't get herself into trouble or anything, the rest of the morning was completely uneventful. Mom and dad had soon left for work, Sunny had taken the bus to school, and Mari had stayed upstairs the whole time. Exactly as planned, if one could even call it a plan. But, while curling up on her bed had sounded like what she wanted in the moment – and it was indeed nice for awhile – it wasn't exactly sufficient to fill the whole day she now had ahead of her. Mari was aware of the stereotype about teenagers sleeping all the time, but she'd never really thought it applied to her all that much. She would sleep in a bit on weekends, but even then, she was usually up and about before Sunny. Napping her way through an entire weekday? That would just be weird. So she ended up flopping onto her bed and grabbing a few more hours of (thankfully dreamless) sleep, but certainly not the whole day.

So here Mari was, several hours later, standing in her bedroom with absolutely no clue what to do. She'd changed her clothes and moved the contents of her and Sunny's laundry hamper to the washing machine. The dirty clothes were starting to pile up, and she figured it was about time her favorite nightgown in particular got washed. (And she supposed she should try to get the small bloodstains out of the pink sweater, but somehow she cared less about that. It wasn't like she ever wanted to wear it again anyway.) Now she was wearing a very simplistic outfit, just a plain black long-sleeved shirt and a white skirt. Normally Mari liked to get at least a little bit of color in her clothing – Sunny could make the monochrome look work a lot better than she could, if you asked her – but they were comfortable enough, were near the top of her drawers, and it wasn't like she was leaving the house today anyway.

Taking care of the laundry, however, only made for a brief diversion, and now she was in need of another. This was a feeling that was all too familiar at this point. Mari was honestly starting to wonder if she wasn't just…. bad at killing time. If that was even possible. For some reason, she just never seemed to be able to comfortably sit around doing nothing, like Sunny could. It was one thing to rest when she was tired. But when she was awake, it was like there was this energy crackling beneath her skin whenever she spent too long doing nothing, but…. no, that wasn't quite it, was it? It wasn't just when she wasn't doing anything – Mari enjoyed spending lazy days hanging out with Sunny and their friends. In fact, half the time that's all they ended up using the treehouse for. Even if there admittedly hadn't been so many of such days recently, since her schedule had gotten so much busier in high school…. But that wasn't the point.

When she was by herself, though, that's when she seemed to start having problems. She wasn't even sure why, but it was like Mari just couldn't quite put it out of her mind. She was by herself. Nobody else around to do things with – or even not do things with. Even if she knew logically that state of affairs wasn't going to last forever, it was still just…. there. In the back of her mind. It was just her and her thoughts. As if she didn't get enough of that. It was supposed to be relaxing, but it wasn't. It was just her. Isolating. Suffocating.

("As if you have anyone else to blame for being in this situation anyway.")

Don't think about it.

She just needed to find something to do. That was all. A simple enough solution – or at least, it should be. For not the first time over the last few days, however, Mari found herself surprisingly stumped. Her first thoughts, as usual, went to the piano. But…. no. She couldn't help but imagine the practice session from last night. Though even calling it real practice was probably too generous. It hurt to admit it, even to herself, but it really had just been completely fruitless, hadn't it? Sunny's accusation that all she'd accomplished was making herself hurt rang uncomfortably accurate. So what were the chances that it'd work out any better if she tried to do the same thing today? She could try to tell herself that she was better rested and prepared this time, but the thought clearly rang hollow. She'd been fresh off a nap last night too, after all, and she'd convinced herself it would help then. And it didn't. Why should she expect any different now? Unless she could actually get to the bottom of whatever was causing this weird block, would more practicing really help hone her skills, or would it just make her hand hurt? It felt wrong to talk herself into skipping yet again, but she really didn't know what else to think.

Finding some other task to occupy her mind wasn't as easy as it sounded either. Schoolwork was an option, technically, she did still need to review the chapter in her math textbook. But that, too, had been fruitless last night, and besides, it'd be a bit silly to be sitting down to do school stuff when she didn't even have whatever homework would be given out today. (Or at least that excuse sounded reasonable to her.) As for leisure activities, she felt too distracted to focus on reading a book – and she needed to get down to the library to find some new novels anyway. And she'd had quite enough daytime television for one week. Or one month. That pretty much left housework, but even that proved tricky. There wasn't much in the way of chores to urgently needed doing around the house, just as there hadn't been on Sunday. Nothing had really happened since then that would create any sort of mess that needed cleaning. Just dishes, primarily, and that had the same issue as the laundry, in that it would only take a few minutes at most. While Mari had an entire afternoon ahead of her to fill.

Still, chores ultimately seemed like her best option – if only because all the other ones available sounded so bad right now – so cleaning it was. Mari ended up getting meticulous with her tasks, roaming about the house looking for hyper-specific things that she could manage. The types of things that might not necessarily need doing for weeks or months yet, but that wouldn't hurt anything if she went ahead and did it now. Sweeping out under the fridge, cleaning the inside of the oven, wiping down the windows, that sort of thing. That had managed to burn through another couple hours, before she remembered one other place she'd been unable to look over before: her and Sunny's room, the exact place she had started her search for a time-killer to begin with.

After all, tidying it up hadn't been an option before, on account of Sunny being in there sick on Sunday, and locking her out on Monday. But now, he was at school, so she could clean anything that needed it without disturbing him. So that was exactly what she was doing now. And sure enough, there were a few things in their bedroom that she could go ahead and take care of. She dusted off the bookshelf, dug out a few stray socks from under Sunny's bed (she wasn't sure if he'd shoved them there, or if Mewo had stolen them), vacuumed the floor…. Mari even went ahead and decided to change out the sheets on her and Sunny's beds. They were both starting to accumulate a fine layer of cat hair courtesy of Mewo. It never ceased to astound Mari how a cat small enough for her to lift with one hand could shed so much. Replacing her own bedding was simple enough, while Sunny's was ever-so-slightly more complicated; given his habit of spinning a cocoon from his covers that he'd been employing quite a bit recently, Mari had to untangle several sheets and blankets from each other.

As she did so, however, she was taken by surprise by the sudden soft "thud" of an object falling to the floor. Had there been something buried among the sheets – Sunny sometimes left books and other such things sitting at the end of his bed – or had she perhaps gotten careless and knocked something off the nightstand without realizing? Either way, Mari set the mass of bedding in her hands back down on the mattress, looking to the floor to see what had dropped. The black cover of Sunny's sketchbook stared back at her. She bent down to pick it up, giving it a quick once-over to make sure the short fall hadn't bent any of the pages or anything. While it was a rather cheap sketchbook, Sunny'd had it for awhile and would probably be pretty annoyed if it were damaged somehow. Fortunately, though, the worry quickly proved unnecessary. It looked fine. Mari was about to set it aside on his nightstand, when…. she paused. A sudden impulse popped into her head, and she felt a seed of curiosity take root. She wondered if Sunny had done any new sketches lately. He'd mentioned recently that he was trying to get better at drawing more realistic-looking people. Or at least, she thought it was recent? She couldn't quite remember when. Either way, though, it could be interesting to check, see if there were any attempts at drawing their friends.

("So at least you'll have drawings to remember them once they realize how difficult you are?")

Don't think about it.

Shaking herself slightly, Mari flipped the book open. She didn't feel bad about doing so – Sunny had given her pretty much standing permission to look at his drawings if she wanted, under the condition that she not try to be cheeky and add her own amateurish doodles to the pages. (She'd only done that once, in the corner of a page as a joke, so it felt a little unfair to single her out for that, but it was his book so she respected it.) She'd already seen most of these, of course. But still, as she turned the pages, it was a little interesting looking back on them. Sunny may have wanted to try a realistic style, but there was something sort of appealing about his older abstract sketching too. The ones Kel called the "fun weird style". Like when they'd first gotten Mewo, and Sunny had somehow taken it as a sign that Mari was going to start collecting cats like an old lady. He expressed this by doodling a giant mountain of cartoony cat heads, which even Mari had to admit was pretty funny.

Still, she didn't linger on the older images for long, soon flipping closer towards the back of the book. Sure enough, exactly as he'd said, there were several pages filled with attempts to sketch more mundane figures. Some were, as Mari had thought, recognizably their friends. Basil smiling with a flower crown around his head, Hero in those slightly oversized stripey pajamas of his (the ones he wore at every sleepover, for reasons nobody could quite figure out), that sort of thing. Others resembled random people from around Faraway – Mari recognized the shopkeeper from Hobbeez, and the girl from down the street who used lots of hair dye, among others. There was also a pretty good rendition of Spaceboy on one page, which Mari recognized as resembling his design from the latest Japanese manga tie-in. That was a little interesting, she thought she remembered herself liking that run a lot more than Sunny had. There didn't look to be much more than small, barely-begun sketches on the next few pages, and Mari was about to put the book down when she turned one more-

And froze in surprise.

Her own face greeted her. It wasn't entirely finished, the features a little rough and the outlines unpolished, but it was clearly her nonetheless. But it wasn't just a regular, quick little drawing of her in some everyday situation like the ones of their friend group. Something about this one was…. different. Not only did it take up most of the page, but the style of it was distinct. More detailed, Mari thought, though she wasn't at all versed in art terms enough to describe it more precisely. Even though she'd gone in with previously-given permission, she suddenly felt like she was intruding somehow.

The Mari in the picture was…. bedraggled, for lack of a better word. The most noticeable thing was her hair, completely different from the neatly brushed curtain she preferred, strewn wildly over her shoulders and hanging down across her face in large strands. From the angle her head was tilted at, it seemed like she was looking down at something. Even with the monochrome pencil drawing, the whole thing gave a distinct impression of…. water, strangely enough. The way her hair clumped up, the sagging of her clothes around her shoulders, and of course, literal droplets of water clinging to her face. The arm it was attached to wasn't fully drawn, but it looked like one hand was meant to be coming up and rubbing at her eye. The other eye was clenched shut, and from the shape of the outline, seemed slightly swollen?

Why would Sunny draw her like this? It wasn't a very dignified look, to say the least. Yet, perhaps the strangest part was her mouth. It was opened in what was clearly a smile, outlines wobbly around the edges, but not in a way that looked incomplete like the rest of it. Getting a read on a drawn face could be a little easier than a real one, sometimes, because at least the drawing wouldn't shift before she could make a guess. And the feeling Mari was getting from that smile was almost…. relief. But surely that couldn't be right, what on earth would that even mean-

Mari stumbled back a step. It felt like a punch to the gut.

Herself, soaking wet. Looking down at something.

Those weren't water droplets on her face, they were falling from her eyes. Tears.

Smiling in unbelievable relief.

There was only one moment this could be. When she'd pulled Sunny out of the lake, and seen that he was still breathing.

It must've been a drawing from memory, so was this…. what she'd looked like, from where he was sitting? But why?

Why draw this, why recently? The care in the sketch, even with the rough elements, was obvious. Mari wasn't a good artist by any means, in fact it'd be a huge stretch to call her an okay one, and even she could feel the emotion poured into the lines. She didn't understand.

Mari clenched her eyes shut, feeling a little childish even as she did it. She just suddenly…. didn't want to see that drawing anymore. Or, no, that wasn't it. She felt that she shouldn't see it anymore. That feeling of intrusion from a few moments ago had only strengthened now that she knew what the image was supposed to depict. Barbed coils of guilt began to squirm in her chest as she realized that she really shouldn't have looked at it to begin with. Logically, there was no way she could've known it was there, of course. And Sunny had told her it was okay to look at the book, she hadn't been making that part up. Yet, she just couldn't get rid of that creeping feeling that she wasn't quite supposed to have seen this. The drawing may have been of her, but it wasn't meant for her. Whatever reason Sunny had for drawing this, whatever feelings he was trying to express through that memory…. Mari didn't have any idea what those could be. But she felt certain, almost instinctively, that he'd felt the need to translate it to the page for his own sake.

.

.

*THUMP*

At the abrupt sound echoing up through the floor, Mari's hands unclenched suddenly, dropping the sketchbook almost like it had burned her. She became aware that she was breathing heavily, her legs shaking a bit, but she had no clue when that had started. She wasn't entirely sure how long she'd been standing there holding the book on that page to begin with. Not that long, clearly, but was it in the range of seconds, or minutes? It didn't really matter this time, she supposed. But that noise from downstairs…. it sounded like the front door. Which meant someone was home, and at this time of day it probably wouldn't be mom or dad, but – she glanced over at the clock just to confirm her suspicion. Somehow the cleaning frenzy before had passed enough time to reach the afternoon.

Sunny was home from school. But if that was the case, then…. Mari realized a moment too late that the sketchbook was still laying open on the floor, as the bedroom door swung open with a familiar creak. Sure enough, Sunny padded in, his school backpack swinging in one hand. He paused when he saw Mari standing there, frozen. His eyes trailed first to her, then to the mass of bedding on his mattress, then to her own newly-changed sheets, clearly piecing together what she'd been doing. Not that it was hard to figure out. And then his gaze fell on the fallen sketchbook, and Mari could see him visibly pause when he realized what page it was open to, though she couldn't read anything from his expression. Suddenly realizing that she was just standing there staring at him rudely, she quickly bent down and picked up the sketchbook, flipping it shut. Her face burned in…. embarrassment? Shame? Mari couldn't be sure, but it wasn't particularly pleasant, whatever it was. Slowly, she started to step towards Sunny to offer the sketchbook to him, but he seemed to snap himself out of whatever he was thinking and waved her aside, gesturing towards his nightstand instead. Mari set the book there for now and looked back at Sunny.

"I figured it was time to change our sheets – too much cat hair, you know? And I saw the sketchbook…. I just wanted to see how your recent ones were coming along." Mari spoke up right away. Or perhaps it was more appropriate to say blurted out, her words spilling forth quickly to try and explain herself. Honesty seemed like the best policy here – she genuinely hadn't been trying to stick her nose into anything private, she wouldn't even want to do that in the first place. It wouldn't be at all fair to him. Sunny blinked a couple times, frowning slightly as he apparently tried to parse her rapid words. Then he huffed out a small sigh.

"….S'fine. I said you could look…. Might've showed you sometime anyway." he replied slowly. But something in his tone sounded a bit noncommittal to Mari's ears, in a way that made the guilt in her chest flare up again.

"I'm sorry. I really wasn't trying to pry, but…. I think I did anyway." she said. Sunny looked up at her with what almost seemed like a hint of surprise. Which almost hurt more, had he actually thought on some level that she wouldn't apologize for that? Sunny was her little brother, and he deserved to have his privacy respected if he wanted it, of course he did. That wasn't even a question. Did he not know she thought that? She knew she could be pushy, but surely she wasn't that bad about being unaware, to give that impression…. right?

("….You probably already know the answer to that.")

There was a long pause before Sunny spoke again. "It really is fine, I think…. It wasn't a secret or anything." he said at last. He sounded more like he actually believed that this time, which was a relief. "I just drew that yesterday. I had a dream about it…." he started to explain, even though Mari wasn't planning to ask him to. He paused and glanced away. "A nightmare. The one where you weren't there to grab me."

Mari flinched at the quiet statement. That…. that explained a lot. Somehow the nature of the explanation didn't serve to make her much more comfortable, though. It had been a recurring nightmare for Sunny in the immediate aftermath of the incident at the lake. She knew that because she'd needed to comfort him about it more than once. (And she'd had similar dreams herself, if she was being honest, but she hadn't wanted to burden him by mentioning that). With that context, it made perfect sense why he'd draw the scene that had actually happened, why he'd want to remember it.

"….Oh." Mari replied, internally cursing herself for the dumb response. Surely Sunny deserved better than that. She shook her head slightly. "You shouldn't have had to deal with that. Is there anything I could do, to help?" she offered, trying to look him in the eyes to make sure he knew she meant it sincerely. Sunny just looked back at her for a second, his gaze seeming to bore into her, before he glanced away just as quickly.

"Already did enough. That's why I drew it." Sunny muttered, though it was still loud enough for her to hear. Mari opened her mouth to point out that wasn't quite what she meant – she was talking about the nightmare, not the actual near-drowning itself. Obviously she had done something about that, because if she hadn't, he would've- She didn't want to think about it. Sunny seemed to realize what she was about to say, though, because he swiftly looked back at her. "It's fine…. I just don't want to talk about it right now, okay?" he said before she could speak.

Mari paused for a moment at the request, and then nodded slowly. "Alright, little brother. But tell me if it happens again, okay?" she conceded. If he didn't want to talk about it, then he didn't want to talk about it. She wasn't lying about wanting to respect his privacy. It was her fault for bringing it up anyway, since she was the one who'd gone looking through the sketchbook anyway. If he wasn't comfortable and just wanted to move on, she certainly wasn't going to press the issue right now.

("And you just want to take the out he's giving since you don't know how to make it less awkward.")

.

An uncomfortable silence fell over the room for several long moments. The sort of silence that Mari itched to break, yet at the same time didn't know if she should. Sunny shuffled slightly, and Mari wondered if he was feeling similarly. He probably was. Even though he seemed to want to just brush past the whole sketchbook incident, some of the damage was clearly already done. It had just brought the invisible wall that seemed to stretch between them to the forefront again. It wasn't any less stifling of a feeling than it was last night. In fact, in some ways it might even have been more noticeable now, if that were possible. But Mari still wasn't quite sure what to do about it, the answers weren't any clearer now than they had been before. She was the big sister here, she was supposed to have said answers, but she just…. didn't. With a small sigh, she looked away from Sunny and her eyes drifted over his unmade bed. Right, she'd sort of stopped in the middle of her task there, hadn't she? It was a weak attempt to distract herself, and she was aware of it, but she might as well go ahead and get that done, right?

While Sunny stepped over to set his backpack down next to the bed, Mari set about untangling the blankets once more. It turned out to be a lot simpler than she'd expected before, and she had soon deposited the pile into the laundry along with the ones from her own bed. Then she set to work pulling the new sheets over Sunny's mattress, but even that proved very easily-resolved. Especially since Sunny, without even being asked, had grabbed the other end of the fitted sheet and swiftly helped secure it in place. Mari had taught him how to make his bed quite efficiently, after all, figuring it'd be helpful since she wasn't always going to do it. Not that she had any problems with covering his chores for him, she just wouldn't necessarily be available every time. Thus, her intended distraction only ended up filling a couple minutes.

.

.

This was…. This was getting ridiculous, wasn't it? She should at least try to talk to him.

"So…." Mari began. Sunny paused where he stood, glancing at her curiously. "How was school? Everything go alright?" she asked. It was barely better than meaningless small talk, but she was genuinely asking. Since Sunny was in middle school while she was in high, they didn't get to see each other between classes even on normal days when she wasn't faking sick (and that was still so bizarre in her mind). The only way she got to keep up with how he was doing was by asking him about it afterwards.

"….It was fine." Sunny replied with a small shrug, after a momentary pause. That sort of vague response was…. not ideal, but Mari tried not to frown. She didn't want to pressure Sunny, after all, and besides, it wasn't that unusual either. Sometimes he just didn't have much to say. And that was perfectly okay. Sometimes a day was just "fine". Then, suddenly, Sunny blinked a few times, a look on his face as if he'd just realized something. "Oh, right." he said to himself, going over to where he'd set his backpack. Mari's brow furrowed in confusion as he unzipped it, reaching in and pulling out a small stack of papers. She grew even more confused when he turned around to present the papers to her. "Hero wanted me to give you these. Homework, from your classes." Sunny said by way of explanation, presumably having noticed her baffled expression.

Mari nodded slowly as she took the papers, turning away for a moment to go set them down at her reading desk for later. That made sense. In fact, now that she was thinking, she wasn't quite sure why she was surprised by it. Of course Hero would go around to her teachers to collect her homework for her when she was out. Of course he would. He was always thoughtful like that.

("And still being thoughtful even now that he knows how you really are. He deserves better.")

Don't think about it.

Then, Mari felt herself blink, twigging onto the implications of what Sunny had just said.

"Wait, you talked to Hero?" she asked as she turned back to him. She was trying not to show the crackling mass of anxiety that had formed in her gut with the realization, but some of it probably managed to creep into her tone anyway. If Sunny had run into Hero, there was no way Mari wouldn't have come up in that conversation with the way things had gone yesterday, right? She wasn't sure what would be worse: Sunny being able to tell her what Hero was thinking about her now, or not.

"Not just him." Sunny corrected, shaking his head slightly. "Everyone. Cornered me after school." he said. Mari suddenly felt a rush of embarrassment for not guessing that right away. While 'cornering' felt like a slightly unfair way to describe it, all their friends gathering to find Sunny just like they'd done with Mari yesterday made perfect sense. It was entirely reasonable that they'd want to do that, all things considered. She wasn't sure why she was surprised once more. Sunny looked up at her oddly. "They all wanted to come over, too. I figured you'd want some space, so I told them you were sick, but…." he trailed off, as if hesitating for a moment.

"I see. Thanks, Sunny." Mari said. The words rang a little hollow in her ears. Not because she didn't appreciate his efforts – he was right, she did feel like she needed space today. But guilt was starting to swell in her gut again.

Sunny exhaled slowly and glanced away. "Everyone's pretty worried. Hero kept asking if we were okay. Didn't know how to answer." he said, voice falling into an uncomfortable mumble. And there it was. Another wave of shame washed over Mari. It was one thing for Sunny to lie to their parents this morning, and even that had blindsided her a bit. But lying to their friends on her behalf? It wasn't remotely fair for him to have to do that. Even if she hadn't directly asked, it was still for her benefit, so that was hardly better. And it wasn't remotely fair for their friends being lied to, either. All that was doing was dragging things out more, making them more stressed out when they didn't deserve it.

("Whatever they feel about you now, they have a right to say it. You can't just shut yourself away and pretend everything's fine.")

"We should…. We need to talk to them tomorrow." Mari decided, not giving herself any time to second-guess the resolution. Even if it meant…. She didn't want to think about what it could mean right now. About what could happen. But she still needed to do it.

"….Mmhmm." Sunny agreed quietly, bobbing his head in a small nod. He paused for a moment and then glanced at Mari again, though his eyes quickly flitted away once more before she could even consider trying to meet his gaze. "Basil told me you…. talked about the recital too." he said uncertainly. Mari felt herself stiffen. That wasn't exactly what she'd been expecting – she'd been bracing herself for a mention of her being- Wait, no, that didn't make sense, Sunny already knew about how she was. He'd known forever, it was sort of fruitless trying to hide it from someone who lived in the same room. Of course he'd be more concerned with the recital problem, it was more immediately relevant to him.

Slowly, Mari nodded her head. "He said that you never really enjoyed practicing." she admitted. She heard Sunny pull in a small, sharp breath. Mari's hands came up to rub at her arms for a moment, suddenly feeling a shiver. "Was that…. was that true, and I just didn't notice?" she couldn't help but ask.

"….Yeah." Sunny confirmed bluntly. Mari could tell the terseness wasn't meant to be rude, she'd known him long enough to recognize the difference. He must have just been as uncomfortable as she was. The statement…. didn't hit Mari as hard as she thought it might. She supposed, in hindsight, that was because the shock had already come when Basil had first suggested the thought. She'd already known, on some level, that it had to be at least partially true – nothing else had seemed to explain Sunny's behavior at all. Him confirming it in person was just another nail in the coffin at this point, far less startling than seeing the coffin for the first time.

Silence fell between them yet again. Somehow, though Mari had scarcely thought it was possible, it had grown even heavier than it was before. It wasn't just an invisible wall, it was like…. like a huge weight. Like gravity intensified a thousand times over, pinning them both in place. Unable to move. Unable to speak. Or, maybe not even both of them. Maybe it was just Mari imagining this. She had no clue what could be going on in Sunny's head right then, after all.

She'd had no real clue what was going on in his head for the last few days.

("If you ever really did.")

.

.

.

….No.

No, it shouldn't be this way.

What was she doing?

He'd said it best himself yesterday, this was stupid.

She shouldn't be afraid to talk to her little brother.

Sunny, who had come to help her with her hand when she couldn't even think straight. When he was scared out of his mind for her safety too. Even though he'd had every right to still be angry at her then.

Sunny, who had gone out of his way to get her to come eat dinner with him, so that she wouldn't be left alone in the piano room. Even though all her constant practicing was obviously driving him crazy.

Sunny, who helped her lie to their parents' faces to make sure she could get a day off from school. Even though she'd never done anything like that before, and would never have asked him to.

Sunny, who drew a picture of his big sister saving him to try to cope with a horrible nightmare. And didn't even get mad at her for accidentally invading his privacy to see it. Even though he had only felt the need to draw it instead of talking to the real her because of their fight in the first place.

He'd…. he'd gone well above and beyond just meeting her in the middle, hadn't he? And she hadn't really appreciated the herculean effort it must have been taking for her quiet, withdrawn little brother to do that.

It was time Mari did something. Well past time. She was his big sister, and she was supposed to have the answers. So if she didn't have them, then she needed to get them.

She closed her eyes for just a moment, inhaling deeply through her nose to try to steady herself. And then she looked at Sunny with a hint of determination.

"….Sunny, you yelled at me before that I never understand." she began carefully. Sunny's eyes snapped to her, almost surprised by her speaking up. "You were going to say it was because I'm-" she paused to swallow slightly, steeling herself. "-because I'm autistic. Weren't you?" Sunny stiffened at the question, but Mari was trying to keep her tone neutral. She didn't want to grill him, that wasn't the point here at all. In fact…. "And you're right. I don't understand. I really don't." she admitted. It was a little painful, but she had to say this. It felt important, crucial even. She heard a small noise of surprise escape Sunny's mouth before he could stifle it. She exhaled.

Time for the moment of truth.

"I don't understand, but…. I want to. And I promise I'll listen. Do you think you can help me?"

.

For a long moment, Sunny was completely still. It barely looked like he was even daring to breathe. His posture was so tense that he looked more like he was about to break into a sprint than have a conversation. (Mari almost wouldn't have been surprised if he literally did make a run for it.) And then, perhaps realizing that Mari's request was sincere, that there was no hidden edge behind her words – though that was only what she thought might be going through his head, she had no way of knowing for sure – his shoulders slumped and he breathed out a long sigh.

"….I've been thinking about it a bunch." he admitted, his head turned away slightly to deliberately not meet Mari's gaze. She listened intently nonetheless. "The only thing I came up with was that…. I miss you."

"You miss me?" Mari repeated, feeling a slight furrowing of her brow. Of all the possible things for Sunny to say, that wasn't one she had considered at all. "But I haven't gone anywhere?" she pointed out. It came out as more of a question.

"You did." Sunny said, barely louder than a whisper. Mari still heard it clearly. One of his hands curled into a fist at his side. "You did." he repeated, just slightly louder. His eyes flicked to Mari's face for just an instant, clearly catching whatever sort of confused expression must have been forming there, because he continued without any prompting. "When you started playing piano a bunch, after you broke your leg…. It wasn't bad at first, but…."

"You used to sit in there with me when I was practicing sometimes…. Is that what you mean?" Mari recalled. Part of her was starting to form a suspicion of where this was going. She almost hoped that part was wrong.

Sunny's head jerked in a small nod. "Yeah. It was fun, for awhile, we'd talk…. you'd even try to get me to play with you sometimes. Even though I was no good." he said, a tone creeping into his voice that Mari almost wanted to call wistful, as dramatic as that sounded. It made her chest hurt a little. Sunny exhaled through his nose. "But then you started getting more serious. You'd go for longer and longer, and…. I was just distracting you. I left, and…. you started closing the door."

Mari remained silent for a moment. A frown started to tug at her face. She did remember that, more or less. She'd absolutely never told Sunny he was a distraction or anything like that, though. She wouldn't ever want to do that, it'd be a horrible thing to say! But mom and dad, once they were convinced that she had a proper talent for piano after all, had wanted her to be more diligent in her practicing, so once Sunny stopped coming in…. it was true. She had shut him out. It hadn't been meant as anything against him, she'd just wanted to keep herself focused, but…. she hadn't thought about what it looked like. Until now.

"You'd practice for hours…. every day. Even weekends." Sunny continued on. Now his tone was undeniably shaded with bitterness, so clear Mari didn't even need to second-guess her interpretation. "And then it got worse with the college classes. You'd get home from school late, and then you'd practice…. you'd stay up all night with homework too…. So, so we never got to do anything anymore." His fist at his side clenched even tighter, knuckles starting to turn white, as the words spilled out. All Mari could do was listen – she'd asked for this, after all. "You even started skipping hanging out with our friends more…. Everyone was sad when you wouldn't show up. Me too…. So you were gone. When you practiced, it was like you were a thousand miles away, and… leaving me here."

Mari's suspicion was true, then, and she dearly wished that it wasn't. The pain in Sunny's voice was obvious, and Mari felt almost rooted to the spot listening to it. She wanted to speak up, to tell him something, anything, that would make him feel better. To help get rid of that awful discomfort in his voice. But what could she even say? It wasn't like his words were wrong. He was telling the truth, the truth she'd promised to listen to. A promise she fully intended on keeping. She had nobody but herself to blame if that truth was ugly. Instead, she tried to give him what she hoped came across as an encouraging nod, to show that it was alright for him to keep going.

"So I thought, if I joined you. With- with the violin, then we could do something together again. You'd…. take me with you wherever you were going." Sunny's voice was starting to grow shakier, his sentences even more halting. He clenched his eyes shut, and Mari saw him swallow hard. Trying to steel himself to continue. "When everyone got it for me, and we played the first time…. It was great. The best. But then it got worse. I'm not…. good. Like you. I'd make mistakes so much more. And I had to take breaks more often, and I just…. It wasn't about the music, I wanted to do stuff with you, but to do that I had to keep up…. So I tried to practice more and get better, even when I should've asked to stop."

"The cuts on your hand…." Mari realized, her voice coming out a breathless whisper. She'd…. she'd been meaning to follow up on that, to find out why it had happened. Of course she had. But then everything with the recital had happened, and she'd been so caught up in it. Caught up in herself. She'd forgotten to ask him about it. She wanted nothing more than to kick herself in that moment.

"Mmh." Sunny grunted in affirmation. "That's where those came from. Knew it was stupid, but…. I didn't- Didn't want to ask to stop. You said the recital was so important and you wanted it to go just perfect and…. I just... couldn't drag you down. Wouldn't be fair." he muttered.

"I didn't notice." Mari said. It sounded hollow. "I really didn't notice….!" Her voice hitched a little. She wasn't sure why she felt the need to tell him that. She just felt so…. stupid right now. It was blatantly obvious when he spelled it out like that.

Sunny averted his eyes, crossing his arms around himself as if shivering. "I know." he whispered. "That was…. that was the worst part." Mari felt another jolt of confusion pass through her, and Sunny must have noticed this one as well. "If you were just being a jerk about it, then I could be mad at you! But you weren't! You were still so nice and patient, you never said anything mean, you always kept trying to encourage me…. You were still Mari. But that made it worse. When you had to give me the same piece of advice a hundred times because I still couldn't get it right, it felt…. bad. Like I was letting you down."

Mari's eyes had gone wide at some point. She wasn't quite sure when. "Sunny…. You could never, ever really let me down. You know that, right?" she said, almost desperately. Sunny bit his lip and still wouldn't look at her. The stabbing feeling in Mari's chest only intensified. She meant what she said, but…. how could she hope to prove that? She'd clearly done a terrible job showing it. They wouldn't even be having this conversation if she hadn't.

"….I didn't want to do the recital. And I didn't want to practice." Sunny paused and sucked in another deep breath to steady himself. "And-and I didn't want you to practice anymore either. I'm not stupid…. I saw when you had sore arms, and big dark circles beneath your eyes. You were so tired but you always wanted to keep going. So I had to keep going too, for you, and….!" He looked down at the floor, gritting his teeth in frustration. "We used to be like best friends! We used to do everything together! And now I barely know how to talk to you at all!"

So that was it. It was out now.

.

.

.

"I'm sorry."

Sunny's head snapped up. Mari's voice had been quiet, yet the words echoed throughout their room.

"I'm so sorry." she said, clenching her eyes shut for a moment. "This whole time…. It was all my fault." She opened her eyes again. Sunny grimaced and rubbed his arms.

"That's-" he started to say. But Mari held up a hand to stop him. It didn't feel great to be interrupting him, but she had to say this. She had to. She'd listened to him explain, and now she understood.

It was her turn.

"It was. It was my fault." she said simply, shaking her head slightly, strands of black hair swaying side-to-side. "Because-" she paused to take a breath. It was shakier than she expected. But she forged ahead anyway. "Because the truth is, I really wanted to spend time with you too."

That really got Sunny's attention, enough to finally break through his attempts to avert his gaze. His eyes fixed on her, wide with…. disbelief? Mari wasn't sure, but that seemed close enough.

"I did!" she insisted. The realization had hit her like a bolt from the blue. "When you said you wanted to play violin with me, I was so, so happy. That's why I was so excited about everyone working to get you one. That's why…. That's why I was smiling so wide in that picture Basil took, remember? I wanted to show how great it was."

Mari paused, looking away momentarily. Sunny was still staring at her, his mouth opened slightly, like he hadn't expected to hear any of this. But then…. with what he'd just explained, could she really blame him?

"But then, I started to think about it more, and…. I thought I had to try even harder to get things right, after that. Because you wanted to join me, so I couldn't afford mistakes because…. Because then I'd be ruining things for both of us." Mari felt her shoulders hunching a little at the confession. Because that's what it was, a confession. She finally had the full picture of just how badly things had gone wrong. "I had to show that I could do it, and help guide you to do it too. Because that's what a good big sister should do! And…. And I don't even know, anymore. Things just got twisted somewhere. And all I could think was that it had to be perfect."

"You wanted to show everybody we could." Sunny seemed to find his voice at last, though he was still staring intently at her. The words weren't a question. Mari felt compelled to nod anyway. "Because you thought, if you couldn't get it right…." Sunny trailed off. He was clearly remembering her words from the piano room last night.

Mari's breathing grew shaky again. "Yeah." she admitted. "I'm- I know I can be difficult sometimes. Being…. being autistic makes things harder. I know it does." The words were heavy in her mouth. This wasn't something that she really wanted to talk about, pretty much ever. But Sunny deserved to hear it. "Sometimes, I feel like I have to work ten times as much as everyone else, just to keep up. But I wanted to do it. I wanted to show mom and dad I could be a good daughter. I wanted to show Hero, and Kel, and Basil, and Aubrey, that I could be a good friend. And…. I wanted to show you that I could be the best big sister, ever since you were born."

Mari hung her head, no longer able to meet Sunny's eyes. Her legs were shaking. So were her hands.

"I wanted to do everything right. Because if I can't, then it won't be worth it. I'll be left alone. And I-" Mari suddenly had to choke back a sob that bubbled up from deep in her chest. The corners of her eyes were burning. She didn't want to cry.

"I really hate being alone."

.

.

Silence.

And then, slowly, Sunny's footsteps padded across the floor. He stopped in front of Mari, but she couldn't bring herself to look up at him. In fact, she shut her eyes as if to block him out. She didn't want to see pity or judgment in his eyes. That was something she really, truly wouldn't be able to stand. Not ever, but especially not in that moment.

A pair of arms wrapped around her, skinny but…. warm.

"….Not alone, Mari. I'm not going anywhere. Promise."

The dam broke, and before Mari knew it, boiling hot tears were streaming down her cheeks. She gasped for breath, her lungs suddenly screaming for air like she was a thousand feet underwater, and Sunny's hands patted her gently on the back. Her knees had grown so shaky that she felt like she couldn't stand – and Sunny apparently noticed the same thing, his hug gently pulling her downwards so they were both sitting on the floor.

"I'm sorry!" she gasped. She didn't even know why she felt the need to say it again.

"….It's okay." Sunny mumbled, but that only made Mari shake her head fiercely. It wasn't okay. "It is. I don't…. don't want to be mad at you anymore. Liked it better when…. we did stuff together." Sunny muttered.

Mari swallowed thickly. "I…. I liked that better too." she managed to choke out, even as more tears spilled from her eyes.

"So I forgive you. 'M allowed to do that." Sunny was muttering almost indistinctly, possibly as a consequence of hugging Mari like he was. Yet, there was conviction in his voice all the same.

Mari threw her arms around him in return as another round of sobbing racked her body. Clinging to him like he'd disappear if she didn't.

"Oof." Sunny grunted. "You still hug like a giant sloth…." he grumbled. He noticeably made no effort to pull away from her grip, or release his own, despite the words. The familiar complaint startled a watery laugh out of Mari.

She pressed her face into his shoulder, a little embarrassed that she must be soaking his shirt with her tears, but…. just so relieved that he was here that she couldn't bring herself to stop.

"I think…." she mumbled wetly. "I think I really missed you too."

Sunny's arms squeezed back in reply. Mari thought she might have felt a few teardrops hitting her own shirt too, but she decided not to say anything.

If you asked them later, the two siblings wouldn't be able to tell you how long they sat there on the floor.

Chapter Text

Mari stood in the school hallway, her locker open before her. She let out a slightly huffing breath as she slid the bulky science textbook in her arms onto one of the small shelves within. She gave a small flap of her hands in relief at no longer having to carry its weight around. Why were the school books so heavy this year? She was sure she didn't remember it being anywhere near this bad in middle school – nowadays bringing all her books home to study with felt like she might as well have been stacking her backpack full of bricks. Actually, now that she was thinking about it... Sunny really wasn't going to have a fun experience with it once he got to high school, was he? At least Mari had the benefit of fairly strong arms, a fact Kel had found out the hard way when he'd gone through a phase of trying to goad people into armwrestling bets. Mari's turn had lasted about three seconds. (Kel never had actually paid her the winnings for the bet, in hindsight. But that was fine.) Sunny, meanwhile, had always been scrawny by nature – Mari was sure it was partly a genetic thing, as their dad was pretty wiry for an adult man. If his textbooks ended up being half the size of the ones she had to haul around this year, he wasn't going to have a good time.

Speaking of Sunny... The two of them had decided that Mari skipping another day of school would probably be pushing her luck a bit. Sunny was still willing to vouch for her if she wanted, but he was clearly a little doubtful it would work again, and understandably so. Besides, she hadn't felt like she really needed it as much this morning. So that was why she was here now. The rest of the day yesterday, meanwhile, had been quiet. Not like the horrible wall of silence that had been standing between them for the past few days, not at all. Thank goodness. But by the time Mari had finally cried herself out on the bedroom floor, well... she and Sunny had both just been so worn out by all that had happened that they just didn't really have the energy to say or do much else for the rest of the day. They'd been content to just settle down and relax for a quiet afternoon and an equally-quiet evening, filled with nothing more than comfortable small talk and rereading one of Mari's favorite comics that they technically weren't supposed to have. Everything wasn't magically going to be perfect, of course. Mari knew that. But neither she nor Sunny had been in the mood for any more heavy conversation, so they left other worries for the future.

It was just such a relief to be back on the same side again that it hadn't felt like anything else mattered right then. That was enough.

Mari shook herself slightly. She was getting distracted. There was still some time before she needed to get to her next class (the science teacher tended to let out a little early), but regardless. Standing there staring at her open locker wasn't exactly productive. Most of the other students around her had already closed their own respective lockers, ambling off towards their next classes with varying levels of urgency, while others stayed behind to chat with friends for a minute or two. Slowly she went to swing the door shut, only to flinch slightly at the unpleasant squeaking of its rusty hinges. Nobody around seemed to notice, but to Mari, it was rather like how she'd imagine it would feel to run a cheese grater across her ears for a moment. Faraway High was a rather old school – one of the oldest buildings in town, rivalling the library – and its infrastructure wasn't really kept up to date. Most of the meager budget went to the sports programs. That meant stained ceiling tiles, water fountains that barely worked, and noisy, dented lockers. But such was life in a small town. Mari didn't usually mind it too much. Breathing out a small breath, she was about to head off in the direction of the classroom (getting there a few minutes early just meant she had a better chance of grabbing a seat by the window, after all) when-

"Hey Mari?"

The voice behind her wasn't loud, but she started slightly nonetheless. It wasn't the sound itself that had surprised her this time, per se. She'd heard the approaching footsteps on the tile floor, just not really paid them any mind. Being suddenly addressed was the real source of it. There had been plenty of other students passing by behind her, so she'd had no reason to be listening for somebody seeking her specifically. Turning around, she wasn't overly shocked to see Hero standing there – besides just recognizing the voice, who else would've been approaching her like this anyway? Daphne and Bowen usually only talked to her at lunch. Her former softball teammates had long since drifted apart from her after the accident. And the rest of her friends were middle-schoolers.

"Hero! Hi." she greeted him, trying to give a small smile even as she readjusted the strap of her backpack from where it'd gotten jostled by her startling. Hero looked a little nervous to her eyes: while his moods usually weren't quite as obvious and easy to interpret as Kel's, his eyebrows tended to be rather expressive, so Mari had learned to look to them to give it away. When they weren't hidden behind the brown spiky mess that was his hair, anyway. And right now they were furrowed in a way that spoke to concern.

Hero flinched slightly when he caught sight of her face, his eyes widening. "Whoa, hold on, are you alright?" he asked, loudly enough that a few other students passing by glanced at him, and it didn't take Mari long to figure out why. He wasn't the first person to react that way to her bruise today. Even a couple of the teachers had asked her about it. While the swelling had gone down – and thank goodness for that – it was still a rather unpleasant purple that was hard to cover up. She'd touched it up with makeup a little this morning, but there was no way she'd be able to conceal it entirely. Especially not with how pale her skin was naturally by contrast. If she caked on enough makeup to render the bruise invisible, she'd end up looking like a wax figurine of herself, which would only be more alarming, not less. Still, the fact that Hero cared enough to sound genuinely concerned was appreciated for what it was worth. (Not that she would expect any different from him.)

"It's okay, it's okay!" Mari replied, giving a quick nod of her head for emphasis. "It's not nearly as nasty as it looks." she assured him. That was actually the truth, more or less: while it had been painful for the first day, by the time she'd woken up this morning, it had mostly subsided – as long as she didn't directly press down on it, but why would she do that anyway?

"What happened, Mari?" Hero asked, taking a small step towards her, not looking particularly comforted by her reassurance.

"I-" Mari paused, exhaling a small breath as she glanced down for a moment. "I'd rather not talk about it, please? It was stupid." she deflected. There was that familiar twinge of guilt for blowing off his concern like that – she knew Hero was earnestly trying to look out for her. It was something she usually appreciated about him. But it just... wasn't a good moment for that. When she thought about telling him, she just... No. She couldn't do it. That wouldn't work out. What happened between her and mom was, well, between her and mom. Making a scene about it to somebody else would just make things more uncomfortable... wouldn't it?

Part of her felt like she was making a mistake somehow. But she tried to shove it down. She wasn't lying when she said she just didn't want to talk about it either. (Or even really think about it, for that matter.)

A deep frown formed on Hero's face and he stared at Mari for a second, those worried brows furrowing even further. His gaze pierced her just long enough to make the silence start to grow uncomfortable. She wasn't exactly sure what he was thinking right then, which was something of a surprise by itself, as Hero usually wasn't one to go for the intensely silent approach, even when he was upset. But just as Mari was starting to feel that she really had said the wrong thing after all, Hero glanced away and the moment was broken. In reality, the staredown had only lasted an instant, for as much as it had seemed to be dragging out into a stalemate in Mari's mind.

"...Okay, then I won't push. But I just wanted to make sure you're okay, you know?" Hero conceded with a small sigh. Mari looked away as well, her fingers reaching up to curl around her collar in discomfort. This wasn't how she wanted this conversation to be going. She was trying to stay more optimistic today, the weight on her shoulders having lifted so much since yesterday afternoon. But she was sure that Hero must have been thinking of the last time he'd seen her, at the park. "...Anyway, that's actually why I wanted to talk to you here. Checking that you're okay, I mean. Sunny mentioned you were sick yesterday, but after..." Hero trailed off awkwardly, rubbing the back of his head with one hand. And there was the confirmation: Mari's state after the incident in the park was on his mind. Not that it was remotely surprising anyway, she'd pretty much figured that was coming from the moment he approached her. It was pretty much inevitable.

"Sorry if I worried you, everything going on was all just... a lot." Mari apologized. They both knew it was a massive understatement. She wondered if Hero was surprised, however, when she actually followed up those words with a smile. "...But, I think I'm doing okay now." she said. And that was the earnest truth, a little bit of the relief she felt from yesterday bleeding into her tone. Mari genuinely was having a far better day today than the previous few. She knew she wasn't really out of the woods yet, not with what her friends knew now that still hadn't been addressed.

But now she could at least say that Sunny had her back, that he'd forgiven her even when she realized how badly she'd been messing things up. She was determined that she was going to do better. For him. So for today, she was trying to keep her spirits up, not letting herself get dragged down for too long. Letting herself get completely caught up spiraling in her own thoughts to the point where she couldn't understand the world around her... well, that was what had caused so many of her mistakes to begin with, wasn't it?

"Are you sure?" Hero asked, still looking at her with a hint of a frown on his face. Mari couldn't really blame him for his uncertainty, looking at from his perspective. Still, though, she wasn't lying, so she gave him a firm nod of her head, small smile still on her face, trying to make her sincerity come across in the gesture.

"Yeah. I really think I am." she said simply, watching Hero carefully for how he'd react. Thankfully, he seemed willing to believe her, if the way those ever-expressive eyebrows started to settle was any indication. His posture looked like it was becoming less discomforted too, shoulders unconsciously relaxing a bit – though Mari hadn't even noticed the way he was holding them tense until now. Brows aside, Hero was actually pretty good at keeping his body language restrained at times. Or at least, good enough to obfuscate the fine details from Mari, though that wasn't a very high bar. "Sunny and I... talked. And we're doing better now. Or we will be." she added. Another vague understatement, of course, but it wasn't inaccurate to what she was feeling.

"Good. That's good!" Hero said, something lifting his tone that Mari felt confident calling relief. "I'm glad to hear that." He finally stopped frowning, letting her see a hint of that sincere smile he was so famous for. He shook his head slightly. "Honestly, I'm still having a little trouble imagining you two fighting at all. But as long as things are starting to work out, right?" he wondered. It was probably a rhetorical question, but Mari gave him a nod anyway. "I did notice you looked a little better today-" Hero stopped himself, eyes widening a little. "-I mean, asides from..." he gestured quickly to his cheek, clearly indicating the spot where the bruise was, perhaps trying to cover the minor faux pas he'd been about to stumble into.

But the damage was already done.

"Oh?" Mari replied, raising her eyebrows slightly, as if curious. "Asides from my face?" she wondered. She felt the corners of her smile sharpening into something a little more mischievous. "So all I have to do to look good to you is to brush my hair?" Mari made a show of tapping her chin with her index finger thoughtfully. "That's good to know. I'll keep that in mind, mister." she teased him.

Hero groaned. "Mari, come on! You know what I meant!" he protested, pinching his eyes shut for a second. His face looked like it was reddening a little, though it was hard to tell under the school hallway's unflattering gray lights. (Another thing that probably hadn't been replaced in a decade or two.) Mari laughed, the sound light and airy, as it always was when she had an opportunity to rib Hero a little. She didn't do it to be mean, after all, so there was nothing sarcastic in her laughter. She just wanted to enjoy this small moment while it lasted.

("Because soon, who knows if you'll get many more of them?")

Mari's smile sobered a little with that thought, reminding her of something else that she had in mind. She supposed she might as well go ahead and get on with it. She gave Hero another couple seconds to relax from her teasing before she spoke again.

"...Anyway, Hero, can I ask you a favor?"

"Of course." Hero didn't hesitate for a moment to reply, giving a sharp nod, even as his expression revealed his surprise at the sudden request. There was that earnestness again – he didn't even know what she was planning to say yet, and here he was instantly prepared to go along with it. Mari really, truly did appreciate that. She hoped he knew it.

"I know we still have... a bunch of stuff we need to talk about." Mari said. Though, really, she was mostly thinking of one big thing that was hanging over her head. That had always been hanging over her head, as much as she didn't like to acknowledge it, and now Hero and the rest of their friends knew about. She took a moment to blink slowly, trying to keep her train of thought from derailing thinking about that. "But we don't really have time for that right now." she pointed out. It wasn't just a deflection either, they'd both need to get to their next classes in... Oh. Crap. They'd been standing here talking too long. Mari wasn't sure exactly what time it was, but glancing around, she only just noticed that all the other students that had been milling about had already gone on their ways, leaving just her and Hero in this stretch of hall. They probably only had a couple minutes before the next bell. She needed to finish her thought quickly, then. "Do you think you can come over to me and Sunny's house today? Not right after school, I have something else to do first. But later in the afternoon, around four-thirty or so?" she requested.

Her and Sunny had come up with a plan before school this morning. Or, well, perhaps it'd be more accurate to say that Mari had mostly come up with the plan. But she'd made a deliberate point of asking Sunny's opinion and getting his approval before deciding to go forward with anything. She wasn't going to let herself make the mistake of just assuming what he wanted again, not so soon after she finally understood what had gone wrong. They both agreed that they needed to sit down and talk with their friends after spending the last few days needlessly worrying them (for as much as Mari felt that was largely her fault more than Sunny's). So Sunny was supposed to spread the same invitation to meet up to Aubrey, Basil, and Kel when he got the opportunity – if he hadn't already done so, as Mari recalled that he shared a few class periods with at least Kel and Basil this year. Assuming all went well on that front, then this afternoon they'd be bringing the whole group together for the first time since the recital.

Hero considered for a second in silence and then nodded once more. "Yeah, that'll be fine. I'll be there." he agreed. Mari hadn't really been expecting him to have any problems with it, she didn't think he usually had much going on during Wednesday afternoons, but it was good to be sure. Who knew when Mrs. Rodriguez would need him to run some unexpected errand or another?

"Thanks, Hero." Mari said, shooting him another smile gratefully. Hero returned it with a smaller smile of his own. "Anyway, we should probably get going... now." she added, tilting her head towards the hallway for emphasis. She could practically see the gears turn in Hero's head, his eyes going wide as he realized what she was referring to. It almost would've made her laugh again, if she didn't understand the feeling perfectly.

"I'll see you later, Mari!" Hero's farewell rattled out quickly, already turning away to start hurrying down the hall. Mari gave him a small wave, but didn't linger on the sight, as she too needed to double-time it to get to class. So, mimicking his haste, she headed off in the other direction – their respective classes this period were on opposite sides of the building – her plans for the day pretty much set. No matter what came of them.

"Sunny, do you know where the chocolate chips are? I know we're not out."

"Top shelf." Sunny's grunted reply echoed from across the kitchen behind Mari.

She frowned slightly in thought, looking up at the top shelf of the open pantry before her. Not that she doubted his word, but she couldn't help but wonder... How would the chocolate chips have gotten up there? Sunny could barely even reach that shelf without needing to grab a stool – he clearly hadn't been blessed with much in the way of height genes (unlike Mari, who was often told she was uncommonly tall for a girl from a Japanese family). He still held out hope that growth spurts would change that, but Mari privately suspected he'd remain on the short side well into teenage years. It wouldn't have been likely for mom or dad to put them up on that shelf either, the two of them never really baked much of anything period, let alone anything involving chocolate. But with those options seemingly ruled out... did Mari herself put them up there and just forget about it? ...Actually, now that she thought of it, that was probably exactly what had happened. It would hardly have been the first time she'd shoved something in an odd place, thinking it made sense at the time, only for her memory to completely blank it out later.

Sure enough, pushing aside an old box of quick pancake mix, Mari indeed found the bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips. She still couldn't even begin to recall what could have led her to stashing them away up there, but the evidence didn't lie. Shaking her head to herself slightly, she grabbed the bag and headed over to set it on the countertop for now. Sunny was already standing there, having apparently just finished his own task as well: retrieving a couple large mixing bowls from the cabinets.

Mari hadn't been lying when she told Hero she had something to do after school today. She just hadn't mentioned that the thing in question was baking homemade cookies with Sunny for their meetup later. It was part of the plan. Now, technically speaking, she didn't strictly need Sunny's help – he would speed up the process by being an extra pair of hands, but Mari had done this plenty of times by herself and could easily manage it without assistance. But she'd asked him if he wanted to join her anyway because, well. Wasn't it obvious? She'd done quite enough shutting him out and not recognizing when he wanted to spend time with her already. No more. Whether it was 'necessary' or not was completely secondary when the real goal was to make up for lost time. One session of baking together wasn't going to repair the damage done by over a year of unintentional distancing, of course... but she had to start somewhere. And besides, as far as peace offerings went, she could do a lot worse than chocolate chip cookies. (Sunny clearly hadn't disagreed with that logic either – she could almost see a sparkle in his eye when she suggested it, as much as he'd tried to play it off with a stoic nod.)

"Alright, do you want to handle the dry ingredients, or the wet?" she asked, turning her gaze to Sunny and gesturing vaguely towards the mixing bowls. Sunny paused for a second, looking like he was considering it seriously. Perhaps more seriously than the question really warranted, even – it wasn't like it mattered too much either way – but Mari supposed she wasn't one to criticize when it came to thinking too hard. Besides, the focused look on his face was rather endearing.

"...Wet." he said simply, with the air of a soldier grimly accepting their duty.

Mari chuckled a little. "Giving me the easier job, then? Suit yourself, little broth-" she started to say, only to interrupt herself, her eyes going a little wide as she caught sight of a sudden movement behind Sunny's head. "Mewo! No! Don't jump on the counter!" Mari called out. Sunny's head turned to follow her as she hurried past him, striding over to the other end of the countertop and sweeping a certain black kitten into her arms. "Silly kitty. Nobody wants cat hair in their cookies." she scolded softly as she bent down to set Mewo back on the floor.

"Meeeeeeeeeew!" Mewo protested the intervention with a long, shrill cry. Mari's light laughter filled the kitchen in response.

"Oh my! So dramatic!" she cooed, reaching out to scratch Mewo behind the ears, only for the kitten to stubbornly dodge her hand and march away towards the direction of the living room in a manner that could only be described as sullen.

"That's cruel, sis. Torturing poor Mewo." Sunny commented dryly, and Mari shot him an unimpressed look over her shoulder before she stood back up. His expression in response was completely unapologetic, so Mari made a show of huffing out a sigh as she turned back to set her attention on the task at hand once more.

Sunny had assigned her the dry ingredients – which meant mixing together flour, baking soda, and salt. Mari took a second to double-check the respective amounts for each from the recipe notecard that she'd taken out before they started. Not that she really needed the reminder, having baked this exact cookie recipe many times over the past few years, but she figured it wouldn't hurt either. Still, she wasn't overly surprised when the card confirmed that the measurements in her memory were accurate, and with that settled she promptly hurried across the kitchen to fetch the bag of flour. It was about half-full, and still rather heavy, though not enough that she had any trouble lifting it. She set the bag on the counter, careful not to spill it, and salt and baking soda from the cabinets swiftly joined it. She'd already put aside a set of measuring cups before she'd gone to retrieve the chocolate chips.

Sunny, meanwhile, had filled the other mixing bowl with butter, vanilla extract, and sugar, with the carton of eggs from the fridge set aside for once he was done beating those together. That was why Mari considered her job to be the easier one, as the wet ingredients were both more numerous and required more steps to combine them all together. Incidentally, now that she was thinking about it, Mari personally wouldn't have called sugar a "wet" ingredient if she were the one naming things – it very literally was not wet. That had always confused her a little, enough that she couldn't help but frown over it every time she made cookies like this. Sunny had pointed out that she was way too picky about that sort of thing, and he was probably right, but it still bothered her on some level she couldn't quite explain. There was probably a perfectly sensible explanation, but not one she was familiar with. Still, though, the recipe insisted, and said recipe also happened to be somewhere around fifty years old, so who was she to argue with its nomenclature?

Everything seemed to be going smoothly – even if Mari did get momentarily distracted by a still-pouting Mewo reentering the kitchen, though the kitten left again when it became clear she still wouldn't be allowed onto the counter. Besides that, however, it was all going according to plan. Until, that is, Mari suddenly heard a faint 'crsh' sort of sound.

"No...!" Sunny gasped softly at the same moment. A seed of worry sprouted in Mari's heart, and her gaze immediately whipped over towards him. Looking over him, she was relieved to see that he didn't appear to be hurt. Not that she actually knew how he would've gotten hurt while just mixing ingredients into a bowl, but she couldn't help the fact that her first instinct was to make sure he was okay. Still, with no injuries in sight, she gave him another once-over to try to determine what the actual problem was.

"Sunny?" she asked curiously, and he looked up at her with his mouth curled in a grimace. Clutched in his hand was something jagged and white – a fragment of eggshell, with bits of goopy egg clinging to his fingers. It seemed that rather than splitting open evenly, the egg had simply shattered, the rest of the eggshell fracturing into small pieces that now floated within the mixing bowl. It was fairly clear what must've happened. "Oh, you were clenching your fingers too hard when you tried to crack the egg, weren't you?" Mari said, just to confirm, and Sunny's frown deepened a bit even as he nodded. Breathing out a small sigh, Mari stepped towards him, holding out her hands.

"Here, let me see that, I'll take care of the eggshell while you go wash your hands, okay?" she offered, gesturing towards the mixing bowl. Exhaling slowly through his nose, Sunny's shoulders hunched for a second before he passed the bowl over towards her, not meeting her eyes as he turned away to head over to the sink. Mari frowned a little at his behavior, but she supposed he must have been embarrassed by the mishap, which was fair enough, so she didn't comment on it. Hearing the sink turn on, Mari shifted her attention to the bowl in front of her. She didn't want to get slimy egg white on her hands if she could avoid it – just the thought made her want to gag. Cold and wet and gooey? That was the absolute last thing she wanted anywhere near her skin, thank you very much. Even a few droplets would be extremely unpleasant, for the few seconds it took to wipe them off. To that end, she grabbed a spoon and set to work carefully trying to scoop out the bits of eggshell that way instead. Nobody wanted to crunch into a big chunk of eggshell in their cookie, after all. Yeck.

The real challenge wasn't getting the shell bits into the spoon, it was doing it without removing too much of the egg in the process. Fortunately for her, however, she had prior experience with doing this exact same thing, so it didn't take nearly as long as it could have. By the time Sunny had switched off the sink and finished drying his hands with a nearby rag, Mari had already scooped out most of the shards, dumping them straight into the nearby trashcan. She was glad she'd thought to drag said trash over just in case something went wrong. It wasn't a paranoid measure when it paid off, now was it? She was broken out of her momentary satisfaction with herself, however, by Sunny's voice speaking up behind her.

"I'm sorry about this, Mari..." he said, just above a mutter, though it was loud enough for her to hear clearly in the quiet kitchen.

"Huh?" Mari replied in genuine confusion, brow furrowing as she set the bowl down and turned to look at him. Sunny didn't meet her gaze. "You don't need to apologize, it's okay. It was just a silly mistake." she said honestly, trying to reassure him. All it seemed to do was cause him to frown, though. "It's not like I've never broken an egg before, you know. It could happen to anyone. Even Hero's done it, and he's better at this than either of us, right?"

Every word, however, only seemed to make Sunny grow more tense. "That's not-" he started to mumble, but cut himself off. Mari felt her own face starting to form a deep frown to match Sunny's own, that ever-familiar barbed sensation prickling uncomfortably in her chest. She took that feeling as a warning: she needed to get to the bottom of whatever this was quickly, rather than brushing it aside to fester for later. If nothing else, the events of yesterday had made it perfectly clear that approach was absolutely the wrong one to take with Sunny.

"...This is about more than just the egg, isn't it?" she asked him carefully, taking a small step towards him so she could get a better look at his face, but not wanting him to feel crowded. Sunny bit his lower lip, still ardently keeping his eyes averted, a look that was all too recognizable to Mari at this point. That pretty much confirmed that she was right and there was something more going on here. But that was the obvious part – the real trick was figuring out what. After a few seconds of silence, she decided to try again.

"Sunny, I can't do anything if I don't know what's wrong." she prodded gently, making sure to soften her tone to make it clear that she wasn't trying to scold him. "I need you to help me understand things, remember?" The intentional call-back to their conversation yesterday seemed to get Sunny's attention, his eyes flicking to her for a moment. A few complicated expressions that Mari couldn't quite get a read on looked like they were warring within his gaze for a second, and then he exhaled a resigned sigh, eyes pinching shut briefly.

"It's just... nothing's changed." Sunny muttered sullenly. Confusion welled in Mari's gut, but before she needed to ask, he clarified himself. "We finally do something together again, and I just... mess up. Right away."

Oh.

That was the problem.

("You should've seen that coming if you were paying attention.")

"Sunny..." Mari started, but found herself hesitating.

Sunny looked up at her and shook his head. "I'm not helping, being here. Just making things worse." he said, tone flat like he was just bluntly stating a fact. That was honestly worse in some ways than sounding openly dejected, and for just a second the prickles of concern in Mari's chest flared up into a spike so fierce she was surprised she could still breathe. Was this how a vampire would feel with a stake driven into their heart? It was an absurd mental image, but she was almost past the point of questioning where those came from by now.

Either way, she needed to make this better. Now.

"That's not true!" Mari protested loudly, echoes of her voice skittering across the kitchen tiles, the sudden increase in volume visibly startling Sunny even though her tone wasn't at all angry. Still, she tried to rein it in so as not to upset him, making very sure to keep her next words at a more reasonable pitch before she spoke. "We're already half-done, and that's way faster than I could've managed alone. You are helping." she insisted. It didn't seem to be working. Mari crossed her arms firmly, fists gripping the fabric of her sleeves as she tried to put her thoughts into a coherent manner. Letting herself freak out here would be the opposite of productive, regardless of her instinct to protect Sunny metaphorically screaming at her. She took a deep breath to keep herself steady before she continued. "But that's not the point. You don't... have to feel terrible for every little mess-up. And I'm sorry that I ever made you feel otherwise."

Sunny's fists were clenched at his sides even as he looked up at her with an expression she didn't know how to interpret right now.

"Don't you remember what I said yesterday? Everything that happened with practice was my fault. All of it. You don't have to apologize for harmless things going wrong, that was all me. But I want to try to do better." Mari paused to swallow a lump forming in her throat. She steeled herself. "So it doesn't have to be perfect, alright?" Truth be told, deep down part of her still rebelled at those words. It went against everything that she'd been trying to do for so long, that had been ingrained in her that she needed to do for the last decade or more. But she shoved that part of her down as forcefully as she could manage. It was what Sunny needed to hear, and that would always be more important.

Sunny stared at her for a long moment, eyes wide. His mouth opened slightly once or twice, as if about to speak before immediately reconsidering. Finally, his mouth formed into a small frown, though not the same as his upset look from before. More like a frown of serious concentration rather than one of dismay. Or at least that was how it looked to Mari.

"...Do you really mean that?" he asked quietly, eyes boring into her expectantly.

"I do." Mari answered without a moment's hesitation, nodding her head sharply for emphasis. She wasn't lying. The sincerity in her voice clearly reached Sunny, as his tense shoulders visibly started to relax. "I can't promise I won't get caught up in myself again, so I need to rely on you to tell me if I ever get too bad, okay? But for now, trust me when I say that 'good enough'... will be good enough."

Sunny didn't say anything for a long moment. And then, to Mari's slight surprise, he stepped forward and stretched out his arms towards her. Recognizing the meaning of the gesture for what it was, she immediately swept him into a hug, his head pressed against her while his arms wrapped around her waist.

The two of them stood there like that, simply enjoying the light feeling that seemed to fill the air in silence for a few seconds.

"...Thanks, Mari. Needed that." Sunny mumbled into her shirt, and Mari's hand came up to ruffle his hair encouragingly. He huffed slightly in feigned annoyance at the gesture – as he always did – but also did nothing to stop it – also as always.

"You don't need to thank me for that. Really." Mari said honestly, shaking her head with a small smile. "Now come on. We have cookies to finish – we still need to add the chocolate chips." she paused as a thought occurred to her. "And who knows, maybe if we get them done fast enough, my dutiful assistant might be allowed to scrape some cookie dough out of the bowl."

Sunny pulled away from the hug, looking up at her flatly. "Are you trying to bribe me?" he asked, almost a little incredulous.

"Yes!" Mari said brightly, giving him her most innocent smile. "Is it working?"

Sunny scoffed and shook his head in disbelief. But as he turned away, Mari saw the corners of his mouth twitching up into a smile. No matter how today turned out, that sight by itself made this moment worth it.

Chapter Text

*KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK*

“I’ll get it!” Mari called over her shoulder. If Sunny made any move to reply from where he was standing in front of the counter, she wouldn’t see it, as she was already hurrying out of the kitchen and over to the front door to open it. From the sheer bone-rattling volume of the sound, she already had a strong suspicion of who it was. There was only one person who could so consistently make both her and Sunny jump just by knocking on the door. Sure enough, a momentary glance through the peephole revealed a glimpse of some rather familiar brown hair, and without any hesitation Mari swung the door open. Kel, standing on the other side, took a small step back and Mari noticed him hastily lowering his arm to his side. Had he been about to knock again, even though it had only been a few seconds? Mari looked up at Hero, standing behind him, and saw that he’d been shooting Kel what seemed to be a slightly disapproving look (as usual, the eyebrows gave it away), though he wiped it off his face once the door was open fully. That seemed to confirm that, then. Some things never changed.

“Hey guys!” Mari greeted them with a smile, hoping to make sure some of the brightness she was trying for came across in her tone. “Glad you could make it, Hero. And it’s good to see you today, Kel.” she nodded slightly to each of them.

“Yo Mari! Great to see you too!” Kel replied instantly, mouth split wide in a beaming grin as he looked up at her, putting his hands on his hips. Hero shook his head slightly, perhaps meant to be in exasperation at Kel’s enthusiasm, but he had a small smile of his own too.

“We’re not late, are we?” Hero asked, glancing around as if to check the time before realizing there wouldn’t be any clocks nearby. The overcast sky was no help in that regard either – everything had been cast in the same gloomy gray all day. Though at least the rain from the past few days seemed to have subsided for now, so that was definitely an improvement. Hero and Kel hadn’t even felt the need to bring an umbrella over or anything. “I got caught up talking to mamá about something.”

“No, you’re right on time.” Mari denied with a small shake of her head, smile still on her face. She wasn’t just saying it to be polite either, their timing really was impeccable. Of course, it wasn’t like they had to travel far given they were right next door, but she’d give credit where it was due nonetheless. “Come on in!” As she spoke, she beckoned them in, stepping aside from the doorway to let them through. “Sunny’s grabbing something from the kitchen, he should only be a second.” she added, casting a glance towards the general direction of the kitchen as she did.

“Whoa, hold on! Have you been baking?” Kel asked suddenly, causing Mari to whip her head back over to look at him again, blinking a few times in surprise. She saw that Hero was looking at him too, with an expression that she imagined was similar to her own, apparently just as taken aback by the unexpected question as she was.

Still, Mari quickly tried to shake off the surprise and gave him a nod. “Yep, we have! How could you tell?” she couldn’t help but wonder.

“Well, you said Sunny’s in the kitchen.... and you’ve got flour on you.” Kel said, pointing towards Mari’s waist while shooting her another grin that she was inclined to call self-satisfied.

“Huh?” Mari replied eloquently, glancing down at herself.... and indeed, there it was. A faint but still visible floury smudge shaped like a handprint right on her black skirt. How in the world had that gotten there? She definitely hadn’t spilled any flour while using it – she obviously would’ve noticed that. She wouldn’t have put it past Sunny to smear a little flour on her, either by accident or as a joke, but he wasn’t the one handling the dry ingredients, so that was out. And on second thought, the shape of the hand was a bit too large to be his anyway.... She supposed that there must have been some flour on the outside of the bag that had gotten on her palm, leading to it smudging when she put her hand on her hip at some point – that was the only possibility that seemed to make sense, though it was kind of embarrassing that she somehow hadn’t noticed. Still, Mari shook herself to refocus back on the present and looked back at Kel with a smile to brush past the slight awkwardness of her momentary confusion. “Well, I guess I do. Good eye!” she complimented him.

“Hehe....!” Kel chuckled proudly, rubbing the back of his head with one hand in a way that reminded Mari almost uncannily of Hero for a moment. She couldn’t help but idly wonder if herself and Sunny shared any little unconscious quirks that people would be able to notice like that.... It would be nice if they did, she thought.

Hero’s eyebrows raised slightly. “Is that what you meant when you said you were busy after school?” he wondered. He just sounded curious, not accusatory, so Mari was a little relieved that the small ruse didn’t seem to have offended him. Not that it was even that much of a ruse to begin with – baking certainly counted as being busy, as anyone who had ever made anything more complex than a boxed cake mix could probably attest, and Hero would undoubtedly agree with that sentiment himself.

“Yeah, that’s it. It was supposed to be a surprise, but you were going to find out in just a minute anyway....” Mari replied, trailing off at the end as movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention. As if on cue, Sunny emerged from the kitchen, having loaded all of the fresh cookies from the baking sheet onto a plate, the distinct scent of chocolate wafting along with him as he appeared. He gave a quick greeting by way of a nod to Hero and Kel – his hands too occupied to wave – before heading over to set the plate on the coffee table.

“Awwww yes!” Kel cheered with a pump of his fist, hurrying into the house to follow after Sunny, almost bouncing along with a surge of enthusiasm. Mari let out a light laugh at the sight, turning to watch him as he ran right by her. Kel could be rather predictable sometimes – but she didn’t mean that in a bad way. Quite the opposite, actually: it was endearing, if anything. There was something encouraging about his brand of consistency, it always seemed to make the room a little brighter in Mari’s eyes. Hero, meanwhile, just shook his head as he went to step inside too.

A sudden thought popped into Mari’s head and she felt a grin start to spread across her face. “So....” she began, a deliberate note of mischief poured into her tone as she glanced at Hero. “I guess we have an answer, huh?” she asked him. Hero stopped, head swiveling to look at her with sheer confusion obvious on his face. It was a rather abrupt question without context, after all. Mari’s smile widened at the same time that she narrowed her eyes slightly. “I’m the one who was cooking.... good-looking!” she declared, putting her hands on her hips as if entirely too proud of herself.

“Oh my god....! Mari!” Hero protested, turning his head away to obscure his face with one hand for a second. It did nothing to hide the way his ears turned bright red as he spoke. “That one was terrible!” he groaned. But the complaint was almost drowned out by Mari’s breathy laughter filling the air. Her joke may have indeed been awful, but Hero’s reaction was a good one this time. She’d obviously been hoping to fluster him a little, but his exasperation was so dramatic that it still took her by surprise, her laughter wheezing a little from her lungs. “Do you have to do that every time?” Hero sighed as he looked back at her, lowering his hand, but Mari could tell he wasn’t actually upset. A few years ago she might’ve been more unsure, but through practice, she’d mostly learned to pick out his real annoyed voice from his pretend one, and this was definitely the latter. (Of course, the difference was probably more obvious to everyone else, but at least she’d gotten it eventually, right?)

“Sorry, Hero.” Mari said, giving him what she hoped was a less mischievous smile. “I just couldn’t resist.” she said honestly.

“Eck.” Sunny’s voice cut in from across the room where he was standing, and Mari turned to see him with his tongue stuck out. “Too much flirting.” he said, his voice as flat as his expression as he looked at her and Hero. Kel nodded readily in agreement from where he sat on the floor next to the coffee table, mouth full of what looked to be half a cookie, the other half held in his hand. Unsurprisingly, he hadn’t wasted any time getting started. Normally Mari might have asked him to wait until everyone arrived, but they’d made plenty of cookies – and Sunny, as her assistant in the process, clearly hadn’t objected to him taking one either – so she figured no harm done. Speaking of Sunny, Mari looked back at him.

“You know it’s not like that.” she said, shaking her head slightly as she spoke. Next to her, she heard Hero exhale in what she assumed was a sound of agreement. They all knew that she teased Hero because it was a harmless way to poke a little fun at him, to show that she liked having him around. Even if she could admit to herself that she liked seeing his flustered reactions too. Glancing over, she thought she saw a frown on Hero’s face for a second, but it was gone before she could be sure she hadn’t imagined it.... Perhaps she had gotten a little carried away after all. She’d been hoping to make the moments count while she could, but that probably just meant she was overdoing it. That would make sense.

It was all just supposed to be for fun, after all. She’d known since at least middle school that Hero wouldn’t really see her that way. Which she was fine with, of course. He could be interested in whoever he wanted, it wasn’t anybody’s fault if it wasn’t her. Just being friends and going along with her jokes had been more than good enough.

(“It’s probably for the best for him anyway.”)

*tap tap tap*

Mari was broken out of her thoughts by another knock on the door, this one at a much more reasonable volume. Shaking herself slightly, Mari quickly went to open it once more, nodding at Hero as she passed him. Since the two of them had still been standing in the entryway, it only took a second for her hand to reach the doorknob once more. She didn’t bother looking through the peephole this time, already knowing who to expect on the other side, and she didn’t want to keep them waiting. Pulling the door open, she was utterly unsurprised to see Aubrey standing there, with Basil right beside her. While Mari couldn’t quite remember exactly which street Aubrey’s house was on (actually, had she ever said?), she had to walk up from the south side of town, same as Basil. So it wasn’t uncommon for the two of them to end up traveling together. In fact, given that Aubrey was the first one to become friends with Basil before everyone else, that may very well have been how they’d met. In hindsight, Mari had never thought to ask – Aubrey introducing him as ‘my new friend Basil, who’s really cool’ had been plenty sufficient as a vote of confidence.

“Basil! Aubrey! Please, come in!” Mari greeted them by mustering much the same level of enthusiasm as she’d given Hero and Kel a few minutes before. This time, however, she opted not to stand around talking on the doorstep, quickly ushering them inside. “Sorry if it seems like I’m rushing you along, but there’s cookies waiting and we want to get to them before Kel and Sunny eat them all.” she added, gesturing towards the living room. Sunny, hearing his name, looked up at Mari with an unimpressed expression for a second before going back to the cookie in his hands. Aubrey’s eyes visibly lit up, almost sparkling, and she nodded fiercely before rushing into the living room as well. Basil’s reaction was more subdued, looking up at Mari with a slightly shy smile as he stepped inside, though he followed Aubrey’s lead nonetheless – giving a small wave to Hero as he passed. Hero himself, meanwhile, paused for a second and then followed after the two himself, leaving Mari to shut the front door and fall in at the back of the impromptu procession.

As she turned back towards the sitting area, she was surprised to see Hero lean over where Basil and Aubrey had joined Kel around the coffee table. Hero placed one hand on each of their shoulders and spoke up. His voice was low, and Mari realized that she almost certainly wasn’t actually meant to hear it, the words meant just for Basil and Aubrey.... It wasn’t like she was trying to eavesdrop, she was just walking up behind them after all, they knew she was there. It was just that, as usual, nobody ever seemed to remember how precise her ears could be when she wasn’t distracted. She couldn’t exactly turn it off, either.

“Hey, you guys.... Do me a favor and don’t ask her about the bruise, okay?” Hero murmured. Mari stopped, feeling her eyebrows raise slightly. Sunny, who had moved over to sit on the couch now, glanced up and made eye contact with her for just a second. He, at least, noticed her listening, then. But for reasons Mari wasn’t quite sure of, he didn’t draw attention to it.... though perhaps that was just Sunny being quiet as usual and she shouldn’t overthink it.

“....What happened? Is she okay?” Basil spoke, recognizing Hero’s hushed tone and matching it, and though Mari couldn’t see his face from the angle he was sitting, she felt safe assuming he probably had a frown on his face.

“That’s what I wanna know too. Did some jerk pick a fight or something?” Aubrey added in agreement, and Mari could see her puffing her cheeks out indignantly.

“I don’t know.” Hero said, shaking his head slightly. “But she’s sensitive about it, so don’t bug her, alright? We’ll figure it out later.”

The corners of Mari’s mouth fell into a slight frown. Sensitive? Was that how she’d come across earlier? It wasn’t like he was wrong, per se – she legitimately hadn’t felt very comfortable talking about it then, and still wouldn’t now. That was pretty much the definition of a sensitive subject. Hero’s attempt to be considerate by getting the others to leave it alone was genuinely appreciated for what it was worth. It was just that she didn’t want him to feel so concerned that he felt like he had to do that in the first place. Worrying her friends more was the exact opposite of what Mari wanted.... in pretty much any situation, really, but today even more so than usual. For Hero to be bringing it up now just meant that she’d failed to reassure him that it was actually okay. She’d need to be more careful and not give them even more cause for concern on that front, then.

“Okay. It wasn’t like we were gonna say anything dumb about it anyway.” Aubrey replied, perhaps a touch defensively.

“We won’t bother her.” Basil agreed with a small nod, though not before giving Aubrey a look that Mari still couldn’t quite see, but which seemed to be meant to soothe Aubrey’s raised hackles, judging from the way she visibly settled back down.

“Heeeeero! Come on, quit being all serious and get a cookie. They’re really good.” Kel picked that moment to interject. Given that he was sitting just across the small coffee table from them, he could obviously hear everything they said – which made Mari realize how odd it was that he hadn’t spoken up before now. Or that Hero hadn’t included him in the hushed conversation to begin with. She supposed Hero must have already given him the same request before they’d come over – that would explain why the normally-impulsive Kel hadn’t commented on it when she’d opened the door, now that she was thinking about it. Hero exhaled slowly, but did indeed reach past Basil and Aubrey to grab a cookie from the plate. Mari decided to take that as her cue to remind them that she was still here.

“I’m glad you like them.” she said, just loudly enough to get attention, and.... oh, Basil actually jolted slightly at her voice. Oops. She should’ve remembered that he startled easily, that hadn’t been her intention. As he looked up at her, she shot the blonde boy a small smile. She hoped the apologetic intent came across. Then she took a few steps closer, towards Hero – who looked a little embarrassed at having been caught talking about her, looking away and scratching the back of his head. But Mari made no attempt to call him out on it. She recognized what he was trying to do, after all. Instead, she just made a sideways sweeping gesture with her hands. “Now scooch over and let me get at them.” she said, indicating the plate of cookies. “I haven’t actually tried them yet, I figured since Sunny was my dutiful assistant chef, he deserved the first taste.”

Aubrey’s head whipped over towards the couch. “Wait, Sunny helped make these too?” she asked, audibly surprised as she looked at him. While Mari reached past Aubrey to grab a cookie, she noticed Sunny’s shoulders hunching a little from where he sat, though she wasn’t immediately sure why. Perhaps he was embarrassed by the sudden attention?

“....Do you have to sound so surprised?” he mumbled, just loudly enough for the words to carry. So that was it, then. The realization struck Mari: it wasn’t the focus that embarrassed him, he was pouting. Now, Mari fully believed that Sunny wasn’t actually incompetent in the kitchen by any means – though he lacked the level of practice Mari herself had, let alone Hero’s prodigious skills, he could usually handle things well enough with some clear instructions to go off of. He might never be a master chef, but he could probably manage passably if he were really interested in the subject. But he’d had just enough unfortunate disasters and.... odd culinary ideas (the “microwaved insta-steak” was never going to work no matter how many times he tried it) that he tended to get a little touchy whenever his cooking skills were brought up. Perhaps Mari would have to remind the others not to poke fun at him about it....

“Wait, hold on, ugh....! That’s not what I mean!” Aubrey protested quickly, waving her hands defensively (and coming close to accidentally hitting poor Basil with her cookie, causing him to carefully scoot a few inches further away). Kel snorted, though Aubrey was spared from a comment from him due to the fact that his mouth was full of cookie. She shot him a quick glare over the coffee table anyway. Sunny, meanwhile, raised his eyebrows slowly, causing Aubrey to look away to not quite meet his gaze, her face looking a little red for some reason. “I just meant, it’s usually Mari making us snacks by herself, so I wasn’t expecting it, and these are pretty good, okay?” she said, huffing a little and crossing her arms.

“Well, he did work on these. And he was quite helpful too, we got them done a lot faster than I can do alone.” Mari said brightly, picking that moment to cut in to the conversation again. She didn’t want Sunny to feel too put-on-the-spot, after all. Not that Aubrey would try to make him uncomfortable on purpose, of course, but still, he looked a little unsure how to respond to Mari’s eyes. She finally took a bite of her own cookie, shooting Sunny a smile. “And you’re right! They did come out good.” she complimented. The statement earned a few nods from the others (Kel’s being the most eager, unsurprisingly).

....Even with that said, however, the truth was that Mari had noticed a slightly granular texture to the cookie as she chewed. It wasn’t really supposed to be like that: if everything turned out ideally, the dough was supposed to turn smooth and fluffy as it baked. To have that little bit of graininess to it must have meant that there was a bit too much sugar. Which would’ve fallen under Sunny’s purview, since he’d volunteered to take the (so-called) wet ingredients. If Mari had to guess, he’d probably forgotten to level off the tops of the measuring cups when he’d used them. This particular recipe very specifically called for exact measurements, not heaping cups. It was a mistake Mari had made once or twice herself in the past, so she had a sneaking suspicion that was what had happened here too.

But the very second she worked it out, she immediately shoved that train of thought down, firmly deciding not to bring it up. It was ultimately a harmless mistake; while the grains of sugar made the texture a little unexpected, they weren’t bothersome and it didn’t taste bad. Not at all. It was a chocolate chip cookie, it was supposed to be sweet, a little bit of extra sugar was not remotely a problem flavor-wise. Mari hadn’t been lying when she told Sunny that ‘good enough’ would indeed be good enough for her. And these cookies were good, that statement wasn’t a lie either. Not perfect, but still good. Mari may not have been able to stop the instinct to pick out those little details and flaws – the habit had been ingrained for years at this point, and if mom was to be believed, she’d always been unnecessarily picky by nature anyway. But she could at the very least stop herself from saying anything about it. If she had to strongarm her own mind into leaving it alone and being better for Sunny’s sake, then that’s what she would do. He deserved no less, especially with what she’d already put him through.

(“....What he actually deserved would’ve been for you to not mess everything up in the first place.”)

Don’t get caught up thinking about it. Of course she should’ve noticed before, but at least she knew now, right?

.

.

“....I’m glad you two made up.” Basil piped up softly as he finished his own cookie, folding his hands in his lap and looking between Mari and Sunny. “It wasn’t good to hear you were fighting.” he said, a small, worried frown forming on his face.

“....Yeah, I’m glad too.” Mari agreed after a small pause. Sunny nodded his head slowly in agreement.

“Sorry we worried you.” he said quietly. Basil gave his own, much smaller nod in return, still looking a little uncertain. But at least his frown looked like it might have eased up a bit when they spoke.

In hindsight, Mari wasn’t at all surprised that Basil was the first one to bring it up. He’d always been rather sensitive by nature. It had been obvious to Mari since the very first day Aubrey introduced them, and if it was obvious to her, then anyone who’d known him for any length of time would undoubtedly be aware of it. And he didn’t really like anything that had to do with people fighting – really fighting, that is, not just sniping like Aubrey and Kel (though even that could make Basil uncomfortable sometimes). No, it wasn’t remotely surprising for him to be showing concern like this. He’d probably been worried about it the whole time since the other day at the park, maybe more than he let on even.... Though, perhaps that wasn’t really saying much, since all their friends would’ve already inevitably been worried with how Mari was acting. It would be far more shocking if they weren’t.

Still, though, that was probably Mari’s cue. As much as there was a part of her that was tempted to just brush past the uncomfortable moment and try to drag the group into some more aimless small talk.... she always enjoyed just being around them and listening to whatever chatter came to mind.... she needed to stop beating around the bush. She and Sunny had set up this gathering for a specific reason, after all, and Basil’s remark had just touched upon it.

(“So quit wasting their time.”)

Mari finished the last bite of the cookie in her hand and then exhaled a small sigh. Hearing the sound, Sunny visibly straightened up slightly. Apparently he’d been thinking on much the same wavelength as her, if he could figure out where this was going just from that single breath. Mari looked at him and gave a tiny nod as she strode over to join him on the couch, plopping herself down unceremoniously on the other cushion next to him.

“....So.” Mari began, putting her best ‘getting down to business’ tone into the word. It worked like a charm, all eyes in the room (save Sunny’s, who was already in on what to expect) snapping to her immediately, attention focused on her to continue. It seemed she was right, and they’d all been waiting for this particular shoe to drop. Even Kel was silent in anticipation. Mari swallowed slightly before she continued. “I know you guys have probably been wondering what’s really been going on with me and Sunny the last few days, right?” she asked. It was largely a rhetorical question – obviously they had been, she already knew that. So she didn’t wait for any responses, and instead turned to Sunny at her side, pausing for a second as she looked over him. His face rested in the blank, neutral expression he often used, but he appeared a little tense to her eyes. Perhaps anxious.

“....Do you want to start, or would you like me to explain it?” she asked him softly, and she saw his brow furrow slightly in response. She wasn’t trying to put him on the spot or anything like that – making him uncomfortable was the last thing she wanted. But there was no getting around the fact that Sunny’s perspective was absolutely vital to understanding what had happened between them. More important than Mari’s own, even, if you asked her. She suspected deep down that she may very well have never been able to figure things out, no matter how long she had to stew on it, if he hadn’t explained it to her so she could understand. After all, she hadn’t even been able to admit to her own reasons for her behavior until she’d heard Sunny’s viewpoint. His side was the key piece of the puzzle, so it needed to be explained for any of this to make sense. Mari would of course be willing to talk about it for him if he’d be more comfortable with that, but it might be clearer if he went over his feelings firsthand.

Sunny must have agreed with that reasoning as well, because he gave a small nod. “I can do it.” he replied, closing his eyes for a second. Perhaps to steel himself. A small breath hissed past his lips and then he began. “You all remember when I said I wanted to play violin with Mari?” He paused, glancing around the room to see a round of nods from their friends. Mari noticed that Hero, Kel, and Aubrey all looked like they were listening intently with varying levels of curiosity, but Basil’s expression was almost.... knowing, like he already suspected where this was going. “I never really.... said why.”

.

From there, Sunny talked, explaining much the same things he’d told Mari in their bedroom the day before. How he’d felt lonely, missing Mari as she threw herself into being too busy to spend time with him. How he’d grown to resent it, feeling like she was leaving him behind. The words seemed to come easier to him this time, his explanation a lot calmer, tone far less halting. In fact, it was the most confidently he’d spoken in front of the whole group in.... Mari wasn’t sure how long. Weeks, at least. Maybe months. Maybe ever. Sunny spoke more to her in private than he did in front of the group, and even then he could often be quiet unless she prodded him into talking.... Perhaps he, like Mari herself, felt emboldened by the knowledge that they were on the same side again. That, if nothing else, she would back him up.

And back him up she did – while he explained his own perspective, she certainly wasn’t going to make him do all the work. Mari interjected here and there during the explanation to support or clarify certain things. Like the fact that he wasn’t being dramatic when he said she had started to shut him out: she very literally had started shutting the door of the piano room, holing herself up in there for hours on end in her single-minded focus on “doing it right”. From there he moved on to the violin, what he’d been secretly hoping for in taking it up again. And how it had backfired due to his struggles to keep up with Mari’s drive, and her own apparent obliviousness to it that turned her attempts to be encouraging sour. And from there, the long hours of practice leading up to the recital.

Sure enough, Mari couldn’t help but notice that Basil didn’t look very surprised by anything Sunny was saying, simply giving him a tiny smile that was probably meant to be supportive instead. He had been the one to point out to her that Sunny hadn’t really enjoyed practicing in the first place, so it wasn’t overly shocking that he expected something like this. She just wondered how much Sunny had directly confided in him, versus how much he had simply pieced together on his own. She wasn’t actually going to ask, of course – prying into that was very much not her business and she had absolutely no desire to go around interrogating her friends regardless. It just made her curious how much had been going on in the background that she’d been too caught up in herself to notice.

.

“Hold on, Mari actually offered to cancel the recital?” Kel interrupted, the look on his face openly confused. Sunny and Mari had just been going over the events of the afternoon before the recital, when she’d noticed the way he’d cut his fingers on the strings. The moment that, in hindsight, she really should have noticed things were all wrong before it all blew up in her face.

(“But then, you had a lot of chances for that. That one was just the last in a long line.”)

Hero shot Kel a chiding look, presumably for interrupting, but Mari and Sunny nodded almost in sync before he could say anything about it.

“Why didn’t you say yes? I mean, you didn’t wanna go anyway – and I totally get it, I wouldn’t be having fun like that either – so why not take the out?” Kel asked. His voice wasn’t remotely judgmental, sounding genuinely puzzled. Hero, meanwhile, visibly paused.

“That’s actually a good question.” Hero agreed, his frown shifting to one more thoughtful. “I feel like Mari really would’ve done it, you know?”

“I would.” Mari said immediately, confirming it without a moment’s hesitation. It wasn’t a lie. “Mom and dad and.... Everyone would’ve been upset, but I would’ve canceled it anyway. If you needed. I’m not.... entirely sure how I would’ve handled it after, but I would try.” she admitted, looking over at Sunny and hoping her sincerity came across in her tone. She already knew roughly why he hadn’t actually taken her up on the offer at the time – while that specific moment hadn’t come up yesterday, some of the other things he’d said made the reason pretty clear. It was apparent with the benefit of hindsight that he’d felt like he couldn’t really ask her to cancel. Something in her just felt like it was important to confirm that the offer had been genuine on her part nonetheless. That, even among her many other mistakes, she would never lie about wanting him to be safe and well.

Sunny shook his head once, sharply, drawing in on himself a little where he sat. “I couldn’t.” he denied. “It was too late then.... If I backed out after we worked so hard, and Mari wanted it to go perfect so bad.... It felt like I’d let her down and ruin everything.” he muttered, only just loud enough for everyone to hear. Mari nodded her head, giving him a sad smile. It was exactly the answer she’d expected, alright, but that didn’t stop her from feeling the stab in her chest anyway.

“Sunny....” Aubrey spoke up, a frown etched on her face as she looked at him. “You know Mari cares way more about you than that, right? You could’ve said something.” she pointed out. Sunny glanced away. Mari felt herself frown as well – Aubrey wasn’t wrong, of course, that was objectively a true statement.... but she seemed to be missing a little bit of what made the situation so complicated. Before either Mari or Sunny managed to formulate a reply, however, Basil surprisingly beat them to it.

“That doesn’t mean it was easy for Sunny to see that though. We didn’t really know what it was like for him....” he pointed out softly, giving a small shake of his head. Aubrey opened her mouth as if to reply, but then closed it again, her brows furrowing, presumably thinking over what Basil meant. Interestingly enough, Kel had actually adopted an almost identical thoughtful expression on the other side of the table (though he and Aubrey would probably both deny the similarity if it were pointed out). Hero, meanwhile, had gained a look of comprehension. He glanced at Mari and she gave a small nod – it seemed he understood what she was going to say already.

“Basil’s right.” Mari agreed, shooting Basil a soft smile as she said it. He’d been so shy when they first met him, not willing to offer his opinion or speak much unprompted. Mari remembered back in February, when Basil had been so anxious about rejection that he’d even convinced himself they would all forget his birthday. So the fact he’d come out of his shell enough to be willing to speak his mind now, well, that was always worth encouraging. Still, while his progress was great, Mari quickly forced herself to refocus on the matter at hand before she got too distracted. “It wasn’t Sunny’s fault, I let things get twisted up and didn’t pay attention to him the way I should. He didn’t feel like he could talk to me about it.... I was the one who kept saying it had to be perfect, after all.” she explained, shaking her head ruefully.

Those words, ‘had to be perfect’.... even a couple days ago, they would’ve felt completely natural to her, like second nature. Now they tasted bitter on her tongue. It was all so obvious now that she looked back on it. Just, obvious and stupid. She couldn’t believe it had taken so long for her to realize.

Sunny shuffled on the couch cushion beside her, and Mari looked over to see him extending an arm towards her. She recognized the silent request for what it was and nodded her assent. Sunny scooted a little closer to her side, wrapping his arm around behind her back and leaning his head against her shoulder. Mari raised her hand to ruffle his hair for a second, almost on instinct, to bring a moment of levity before they continued. It didn’t really surprise her that he’d want to lean on her now – it was a gesture he used to do more often, before the whole piano business started, when he was seeking comfort. Given the jabbing feelings of discomfort and regret that had been flaring up in Mari’s chest throughout the conversation, she could only imagine how it must’ve felt for her more sensitive little brother, so she didn’t mind the slight childishness of it.

Then she looked back out at their friends, finding all eyes on them. It was almost like they’d reached some sort of silent consensus to let the two take a moment. It wouldn’t surprise Mari if they had, in fact – they’d always been good friends like that, and remarkably patient with her and Sunny.

(“Just another reason you don’t deserve them.”)

Seeing her looking, Kel beamed at her with a quick grin, while Hero had a softer expression on his face. Basil and Aubrey both still looked to be frowning slightly, but it struck Mari as less worried or upset, and more thoughtful. She hoped she wasn’t reading that wrong, she didn’t want the two of them to be too put off by all this.... For now, Mari shook herself slightly, though not enough to jostle Sunny of course. There was still more of the story to tell, after all.

“....Anyway, I was too obsessed with the recital, worried that I’d disappoint everyone. And Sunny was worried that he’d disappoint me. So we pressed on ahead with it, and....” Mari shook her head once more, putting a wry note into her voice. “Well. You all saw how that turned out.” she said. The comment earned a few sympathetic nods and winces in return. There was no other word more appropriate for the recital than ‘disaster’, and they all knew it. But Mari didn’t intend to linger on that point for long – they’d all been there to see it, after all. It was just now they were aware that there was a lot more going on than just some innocuous stage fright. (Now that Mari was aware of that too, she couldn’t believe she’d actually gone along with that excuse either. Why had mom even said it?)

“....What do you mean, disappoint everyone?” Aubrey wondered, looking up at Mari oddly.

“Hey, yeah, that’s what I wanna know!” Kel nodded his head fiercely in agreement. “It was a bummer that it went wrong, sure, but we weren’t mad at you or anything.” he said, his hand coming up to scratch at the side of his head for a moment.

“We were just worried about you both....” Basil said quietly, looking down at floor for a second. Sunny shifted uncomfortably next to Mari. Probably a little guiltily, if she had to guess, since she felt a spike of the same.

“That’s right.” Hero agreed calmly, setting one hand on Basil’s shoulder in support. “We knew how hard you guys were working, so.... We were disappointed that it didn’t turn out how you hoped, not disappointed with you.” he explained, shaking his head slightly on the last words.

“I know, but I-” Mari started to say, but her words caught in her throat. It shouldn’t have surprised her that they’d say that, of course, she already knew well enough how worried they all were in the aftermath of the recital. That was precisely what had led to the whole situation in the park, after all. There was no need for her to ponder over that part whatsoever. But even so, she felt like she still needed to explain what she had really been feeling the whole time. Now that they knew why Sunny had fought with her about it, it was her turn. Her part in why she’d been doing things the way she had. But explaining that had been hard enough when it was just Sunny. Even though this had been the plan all along, she still found herself hesitating.

And then she felt a small squeeze on her shoulder. Sunny, apparently sensing her uncertainty, looked up at her from her side and gave her a determined look. Encouraging her without needing to say a word. It was just the kickstart that Mari needed to steel herself, exhaling a slow breath before she continued.

“....I know I can be really difficult to deal with, sometimes.” she admitted. Basil’s eyes widened noticeably, and Aubrey, Kel, and Hero all looked like they were opening their mouths to reply. Mari quickly held up her hand in a ‘stop!’ gesture to forestall their objections. She would normally be all for encouraging them to speak their minds, but she didn’t want to be sidetracked arguing right then. “Please don’t pretend that I’m not, okay?” she requested, the words coming out a touch more sharply than she intended. She wasn’t trying to be bitter about it, but.... she knew it was the truth. They wouldn’t even be having this conversation if it wasn’t, after all: it was her personal faults that had hurt Sunny in the first place.

“Mari....” Surprisingly, it was Hero who got the first word in edgewise. (Or maybe that wasn’t surprising at all, when it came to serious matters like this.) “Is this about what happened at the park? With you being....?” He trailed off on the last question, open concern written on his face as he looked at her. From the way he spoke, he was obviously remembering the way she’d reacted then, and that must’ve been why he hesitated to say it. Still trying to be sensitive, even now.

“....Autistic? Yeah.” Mari confirmed. Hero winced slightly, and she realized that touch of bitterness had snuck in again. She really needed to get a handle on that sooner rather than later, she didn’t want any of her friends to think she was angry with them. “You weren’t.... ever supposed to know about that. I wanted to convince you all I could be normal, so that.... so that we could stay friends.” She looked away, rubbing her arms at the admission. Even with the warmth from Sunny leaning against her, it was starting to feel cold in this room. The air prickled at her skin.

Speaking of Sunny, he looked up at her with an unhappy set of his brow. “Shouldn’t talk about it like that...” he mumbled, but Mari could only look back sadly. It wasn’t like she was being dishonest, after all, and he already knew that. Of course it wasn’t pleasant to think about, but the point of setting up this gathering was to get everything out in a straightforward way, their friends deserved no less.

.

“WHAT!?” Kel exclaimed, voice rising so loud and so suddenly that Mari flinched sharply, ducking her head from the sound. From the corner of her eye she saw Basil doing much the same. Hero shot Kel a reproachful look, while at the same moment Aubrey reached across the coffee table to thump him on the shoulder.

“Quiet down, dummy!” she hissed at him. Next to her, Basil rubbed his ears for a moment.

“Sorry....” Kel said, a little sheepishly, but he didn’t let it distract him for long before he looked back up at Mari. “It’s just, that’s crazy! We’re not gonna stop being friends just ‘cause you’ve got a thing.” he argued at a thankfully-more-reasonable volume.

“He’s right.” Basil piped up in agreement once he was done soothing the assault on his eardrums. “My grandma said it’s just something you’re born with, right? I don’t think we’d want to judge you for that....”

“Absolutely not.” Hero said, nodding firmly in agreement.

.

.

They were all.... trying so hard to be understanding and supportive. About any other subject, Mari would’ve been thrilled and overwhelmingly thankful to have such dedicated friends. It was exactly what a good friend should do, after all. But that was in other circumstances. Here and now, however, all she could do was glance away again, feeling the frown etched on her face. They just.... didn’t seem to quite get what she was talking about.

“Of course you shouldn’t judge someone just for being different, that’d be awful.” she agreed. It was an obvious truth, after all. “But that’s not what I mean. You should judge what people do, right? And I.... Even on a good day, I’m picky. Demanding. Bossy. I want everything to be certain ways, and if it isn’t, I don’t know how to handle it. You all must have noticed.” she said, looking around at the group. She was met with a few averted eyes and uncomfortable looks.

“That’s not-!” Aubrey started to protest, a deep frown on her face, but Mari just shook her head.

“How many times have we had to delay picnics because I couldn’t find the only blanket I like using?” she asked, just a little pointedly. “How often have I left you waiting just to talk to me because I refused to put down whatever I was doing before? How much easier would it be for us to get a pizza we all like at Gino’s if I didn’t complain about half the toppings? How many times have I whined about things that weren’t bothering anyone else?” Her voice was rising a little with each question, and she could think of more like them if need be. And the answers were always the same: a lot. Far too many. Even with her notoriously spotty memory, she could think of numerous occasions where she made things more difficult with her problems.

(“And those are the good days. On the bad ones, you make them deal with you freaking out, just like you did at the park.”)

“Mari, come on! That’s little stuff, it doesn’t bug us.” Kel huffed, crossing his arms in what was almost a pout.

“Little stuff adds up!” Mari replied, her voice pitching up sharply. Kel’s eyes widened – and, as a quick glance revealed, he wasn’t the only one – and Mari immediately felt a wave of cold across her skin, a thorn of guilt forming in the pit of her stomach. She wasn’t trying to snap at him, it wasn’t him that she was even frustrated with. Only herself. She exhaled a small breath, closing her eyes for a second as she tried to rein it back in. Lashing out at her friends wasn’t the right thing to do.... pretty much no matter what, really, but especially not right now. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to shout.” she sighed, opening her eyes again. Kel nodded his head slowly, still looking a bit surprised, but at least not overly upset.

Hero took a small step forward. “We want to help, you know? Please just tell us what’s going on.” he implored her.

“....She’s scared.” Sunny spoke up. Mari couldn’t quite get a read on his tone.... either he was trying to be helpful because he knew it was difficult for her, or he was getting a little annoyed by her dragging out the back-and-forth. Actually, it might very well be both. Sunny could be complex like that. “She thinks you’ll just.... get tired of her. Not want her around anymore.”

“....Yeah.” Mari breathed softly. “And that’s why. That’s why sometimes all I can think is that things need to be perfect. And I know it’s not fair to anyone, but I feel like I have to do something right to make up for.... how I am.” she said bleakly, gazing down at her knees. They were trembling a little. She didn’t know if she could get them to stop. “Because sooner or later everyone will realize I’m not worth the trouble, and....” her voice trailed off, feeling her fingernails clenching tightly against her palms. It made the cut on her hand burn, not as strongly as it had a couple days ago but still undeniably there.

.

Silence fell for a second. Perhaps her friends were stunned by the revelation.

(“Or perhaps they’re realizing you’re right.”)

.

And then....

“Why.... Why are you being such a jerk!?” Aubrey’s voice tore through the air, the younger girl leaping to her feet (and making Basil flinch where he was sitting beside her). Her fists clenched at her sides as she looked straight at Mari. “Do you really think we’d do that?” she asked, a little more softly, but with clear hurt in her tone. Looking up in surprise, Mari made eye contact for just a brief moment, and in that moment she saw that Aubrey’s eyes were suspiciously shiny, the edges glinting with just a hint of tears threatening to form.

“Aubrey-” Mari started to say, but Aubrey cut her off.

“Don’t you trust us at all?” she demanded hotly, even as she scrubbed her arm across her eyes roughly in a futile attempt to hide what Mari had already seen.

“That’s not what I mean!” Mari replied just as loudly, the words spilling out quickly as a frantic energy welled in her chest. This was going all wrong. She had just been trying to be honest so they could understand what was going on, not do anything to upset them more. But maybe that was just another mistake on her part. She’d obviously known Aubrey could be rather sensitive, almost too much for her own good – it was part of why Kel tended to get under her skin after all – so if Mari had actually been thinking, she should’ve seen this coming.

Aubrey looked away, still grimacing. Before Mari could continue trying (and, likely, failing) to assure her, Hero cut in unexpectedly.

“She’s got a point, Mari.” He sounded almost tired as he spoke. “I wish you wouldn’t imagine us that way. It kinda hurts.” he admitted, looking away uncomfortably as he said it, his brows furrowed.

“....It isn’t very nice.” Basil agreed quietly, a glance at him revealing that he looked even more discomforted than Hero, like he was uncertain if he should’ve even said anything or not. But he noticeably didn’t try to backpedal or take it back either.

Kel didn’t say anything – which was uncharacteristic enough to probably be notable by itself, really – but he did look back and forth between everyone else, a deep frown etched across his face. Mari couldn’t quite shake the thought that it really didn’t suit him.

She felt a small tug on her arm, and she turned her head to the side to see Sunny looking at her unhappily, his eyes narrowed slightly. He didn’t say anything either (though that was actually perfectly characteristic), but he did give a sharp nod to show that he agreed with what the others were saying. The message delivered, Sunny withdrew his hand and crossed his arms across his chest in what Mari recognized as an expectant gesture. And he was right, of course. It was up to her to fix this before any hurt had time to really settle. Leaving her friends to walk away with injured feelings was the absolute last thing she wanted, after all.

“I’m sorry.” she spoke up, making sure it was loud enough to be heard, as she looked back over at the others. “I do trust you all. I do! You’ve all been wonderful friends.... and I think about that every time we meet up!” she tried to emphasize. She wasn’t remotely lying, or even exaggerating, either. It was the absolute truth, and she hoped that came across in her tone. She’d known all along that she was incredibly blessed to have a whole group of friends who always seemed to want to spend time with her, who shared so many of the same interests and enjoyed the kinds of activities she liked too. It was exactly why her fairly tiny social circle at school didn’t particularly bother her, because she knew she had friends waiting all the same.

“I know.... I know logically you wouldn’t just leave somebody without a word, that’d be way too mean. But I can’t stop myself from feeling like.... like I don’t really deserve it. Because it’s me I don’t trust.” Mari wrapped her arms around herself as she spoke, shivering from another wave of cold that washed over her. She was telling the truth, so why was this so difficult?

Aubrey’s face visibly softened, her hurt indignation fading away, though she was still frowning. “Mari....” she said quietly, but didn’t seem to know how to continue. A momentary glance around revealed a range of similar expressions from the others, but Mari didn’t feel up to trying to parse the finer details of any of them at that moment.

She shook her head slightly, letting strands of black hair sway before her eyes. “You guys don’t know what it’s like.... It sounds like I’m worrying over little stuff, like Kel said. But there’s always too much and it doesn’t go away. It doesn’t stop. I can’t- I can’t even wear half the clothes in my dresser without my brain making me feel like I’m under attack! I wouldn’t blame anyone if they thought that was crazy.” Mari’s voice was picking up volume as she ranted, and she had to try to rein it back in before she started yelling again. That wouldn’t do anyone any favors, and it wasn’t what she wanted in the first place, but once she was actually thinking about the words, she couldn’t stop them from rushing out at full force. She tried to take a breath to steady herself. “I just.... Why in the world would anyone want to put up with that? That’s why I’m scared....” she admitted, a phantom pain thrumming in her chest with the words, like imagining a blow before it landed.

“That’s-” Hero swallowed, looking at Mari with his eyes widened. “How long has.... this been going on?” he asked carefully after a moment’s pause. Mari felt her frown deepen at the question, her brow furrowing slightly as a jolt of confusion ran through her. Why was he asking? Didn’t he already know that? Hero, however, seemed to realize what he just said and shook his head quickly. “I’m not talking about being born that way, what I mean is, how long have you been feeling like this about it?” he clarified himself, letting that heavy undertone of concern bleed back into his voice again as he spoke.

The question actually gave Mari pause for a moment, breaking through the heavy feelings bogging down her mind just enough to make her stop and think it through. She still wasn’t sure exactly why Hero was asking – the timeline didn’t really seem particularly relevant to what they were actually talking about – but if it would help him and the others to understand where she was coming from, she’d naturally answer nonetheless.

“It’s been.... years and years, I think. The whole time we’ve known each other or.... longer. Ever since I found out what being autistic actually.... meant. It’s been there, deep down.” she replied honestly. She couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment that all this had started, if such a moment even existed in the first place. She just remembered having that constant feeling like a storm was swirling in the back of her mind for ages and ages. Long enough that she couldn’t clearly picture a point in time without it. Then she shook her head, however. “But I used to be able to mostly ignore it, back then. It’s gotten.... so much harder, like what you’re seeing now, and that’s more recent.”

“....Ever since the softball accident.” Sunny added softly. Mari’s glance snapped over to him at the sudden interjection. He wasn’t wrong, but she was a little surprised that he had put that together before she said anything about it. Although.... no, she actually shouldn’t have been surprised at all, should she? He’d mentioned something yesterday about how that was roughly when she’d started obsessing over the piano, hadn’t he? It wasn’t much of a stretch to figure it out from there, and Sunny had always been smarter than a lot of people gave him credit for when it came to things like that.

She nodded her head slightly in affirmation. “Yeah. After I broke my knee, things got.... worse. Mom and dad were really upset about it.” she said, exhaling a small, tired sigh. She distinctly remembered how disappointed mom, in particular, had been. The accident had completely ruined any chances of Mari getting a good sports scholarship, after all – and she’d very likely been in line for one, since she’d often been considered the team’s star player. She shook herself slightly and continued. “And, I guess that was the first time I realized how easy it was for everything to go all wrong. I let myself get overwhelmed and distracted for.... for just a couple seconds, and that was enough that I couldn’t stop myself from getting hurt. And you guys know the rest. My knee is just.... awful now. I can’t even walk upstairs without it hurting. Forget running.”

Mari paused for a second, letting out a breath. It was still shakier than she wanted it to be.

“After that, well.... Do you guys remember the first time my knee totally buckled? At the park?” she asked, looking around at her friends. They all looked varying levels of surprised by the abrupt question (and she didn’t blame them, it wasn’t quite a change of subject, but it probably sounded pretty random), but nodded in confirmation nonetheless. All except Basil, who frowned, his brow furrowed in confusion. Mari looked at him. “Er, sorry Basil. This was before we met, and I’m not sure if Aubrey would’ve told you about it much.” she corrected herself quickly. Aubrey gave a single shake of her head in denial.

Clearing her throat, Mari continued, deciding to give a quick explanation for Basil’s benefit. “Anyway, we’d gone out for a picnic like usual, and Kel and Aubrey decided they wanted to play tag after we ate. I think they might’ve been squabbling and wanted to settle it with the game?” (Hero nodded in confirmation as Mari said that.) “But they roped me, Sunny, and Hero into it.... My leg had actually been feeling good that day, so I thought it’d be okay, but.... It wasn’t. Just a couple minutes in and it was really hurting. I tried to call for a break, but then I guess I stepped wrong and it just.... gave out. Just burning all over, no strength at all, and I fell right over into the grass.”

“Ahh....” Basil hummed in understanding, glancing up at the ceiling for a second, as if he was imagining the scene playing out in his head. He knew how bad her knee could get, after all, he just hadn’t been there for that specific incident. “That sounds really bad.... Especially if it’s the first time it happened, so you wouldn’t know....” he murmured, looking back at Mari with a soft look that she recognized as his sympathetic frown.

“Mmhmm.” Mari agreed simply. Really bad was probably an understatement, honestly. She didn’t like to think about that memory much, because even recalling it after the fact made it feel like her knee was twinging in protest. Aubrey had said it sounded like ‘just the worst’ at the time, and Mari agreed with that statement wholeheartedly.

But that wasn’t the point she was working up to right now.

“....But, afterwards, I tried to convince everyone I’d be fine while they continued the game. Because of course I did! I didn’t want to ruin anybody’s fun.” she said. She wasn’t entirely sure why she felt the need to justify herself a bit defensively like that. She certainly wasn’t going to apologize for wanting her friends to be able to enjoy themselves, after all. “But nobody did. They all insisted on staying there, sitting on the picnic blanket and worrying about me for the whole rest of the afternoon.”

“Of course we did!” Hero interjected emphatically, looking at Mari with his eyebrows raised high, as if baffled by the very thought that he wouldn’t.

“Why wouldn’t we?” Aubrey agreed in much the same tone, crossing her arms for emphasis.

“Yeah. Wanted to make sure you were okay.” And there was Sunny, stating it simply like it was just a fact.

“....I know.” Mari admitted quietly, giving another small shake of her head in a somewhat futile attempt to clear it and marshal her thoughts. “I know I should be happy that you guys were all looking out for me, and I do appreciate it!” That was the truth, too.

“....But, deep down, I couldn’t shake the thought that.... you’d all be having more fun if I hadn’t been there. That I’m just a burden dragging things down.”

.

.

“Well, who cares about burdens?”

That was Kel. Mari’s head whipped up, staring openly at him, too taken aback to school her expression into something more polite.

“I mean, I don’t!” he continued, seemingly not noticing her surprise (or the similar expressions on everyone else either). He nodded to himself. “Like.... You know, we have a whole box of Orange Joe over at our house. You remember, one of the big ones with the glass bottles and stuff, not the cans. I bought it myself!” he announced proudly. Hero glanced at him, eyes suspiciously flat, and a glance at Sunny revealed a similar expression. Mari got the sneaking suspicion that by ‘himself’, Kel meant using cash he’d bummed off them that may-or-may-not ever be paid back. But that was none of her business. She was still too baffled by the seeming tangent to comment on it anyway. “I walked to Othermart to get it and everything. But then I had to carry it all the way home, and it was super heavy!”

“Uh.... Kel? I don’t think....” Basil started to say, but he trailed off awkwardly, sounding so confused that he didn’t even know how to finish his sentence. (Mari didn’t blame him.)

Kel turned to him. “Hey, it’s important. I mean, that’s totally a burden! I was literally carrying a bunch of weight and it hurt and all, that’s what a burden is, right?”

“That’s-” Basil blinked in surprise, raising one finger, only to lower it again when he realized he didn’t actually have a rebuttal.

“But I don’t care about that, you know? I wanted it anyway, and I don’t sit around thinking about how hard it was or anything.”

“You did spend an hour laying on the couch talking about how much your arms hurt.” Hero corrected him, looking at Kel skeptically.

“Heeeero! That was just ‘cause I was tired!” Kel groaned, shaking his head in protest. Then he looked back over at Mari. “But it was still worth it, now I get to have a bunch of Orange Joe, and that’s super cool. It being a burden or whatever doesn’t matter.” He crossed his arms in what was probably an attempt to look serious.

“And that’s what it’s like for you too, you know? We get to spend time with our friend Mari and that makes it totally worth it, who cares about that other stuff?”

Mari felt herself freeze. It didn’t- He couldn’t just-

Could he?

“Oh my god, I can’t believe I have to agree with that dumb Orange Joe metaphor....” Aubrey’s annoyed muttering cut through Mari’s train of thought for a second. “But Kel’s right. We’re friends with you ‘cause we like you, I’m not gonna let anybody say that’s stupid.... Not even you!”

That wasn’t-

“....If we wanted to leave, wouldn’t we have done it already? But I bet nobody was even thinking it. We all came over today, right?” And that was Hero, always being so frustratingly earnest and reasonable about everything. “We’re all here for you, Mari.... And that goes for you too, Sunny.” he added, looking over at Sunny. “If either of you needs anything, please just talk to us! Don’t let it bottle up until things get bad....” he implored them both.

Sunny nodded slightly next to Mari, but she didn’t know-

“It’s kind of like gardening.... Every plant needs different things to take care of them, right? And it can be a lot of hard work, but then they’re beautiful when you get to see them all growing together.” Unsurprisingly, the garden metaphor came from Basil. Mari didn’t mind him using those comparisons to help put things into perspective, though. He had a way of explaining them that made them sound oddly appealing, like a sort of ideal you wanted to strive for. He smiled slightly. “So I guess we’ll just have to make sure you and Sunny get enough water, right?” he added, letting out a soft laugh at his own joke. Kel shot him a grin and a thumbs-up.

.

.

Mari was stunned. They weren’t-

She couldn’t-

Why was this-

“....Mari? Are you okay?” Sunny asked her quietly. “You’re shaking.”

Was she shaking? ....Yes, she was. Not just her legs or her hands, but her whole body, trembling in place where she sat. She had no idea when or how she’d started doing that. But the moment she noticed it, it only seemed to intensify.

“I don’t-” Mari choked. “I don’t know!” she managed to say, with far more effort than it should’ve taken. “I don’t know what to do! You all weren’t- Weren’t supposed to-!”

“Whoa....!” Aubrey exclaimed in shock. The reason would be obvious: Mari’s eyes were burning all of a sudden, her cheeks wet with tears before she could even notice them rising, let alone do anything to stifle them. Her shoulders heaved with each breath, every inhale stinging at her throat.

“I thought.... I really thought.... this might be the last time we got to talk....” she gasped out, pressing her hands over her eyes in a futile attempt to stifle the rivulets of tears blazing down her cheeks.

“Hey.... hey, shh.” Hero murmured, and Mari heard his footsteps coming closer to the couch. “Everything’s gonna be okay, Mari....” he tried to reassure her. “Is there anything we can do to help?”

.

.

.

“....I’d like a hug.” Mari mumbled, her face burning with humiliation at how childish it sounded even as she said it. She wasn’t even sure what had driven her to say that. But she wasn’t lying either.

Sunny’s arms wrapped around her from the side without hesitation. After a second’s pause, Hero’s joined as well, just large enough to encircle both of them, albeit a little awkwardly. But not uncomfortably.

Another moment, and then another pair of arms draped across Mari’s shoulders, small yet surprisingly strong for their size. Aubrey.

Another set joined immediately after her, quickly and more enthusiastically than the others, but just as warm. Kel.

And then the final set, gentle in their touch to the point of almost seeming hesitant to join in at first, until a few other arms shifted aside to give them room, the implicit permission bolstering their confidence to hug more tightly. Basil.

Mari managed to extricate her own arms from the haphazard pile, trying to wrap them around the others as well as she could manage – as little as that may have been, given the chaotic jumble of limbs.

She didn’t deserve them. She never wanted to let go.

Chapter Text

"...then the teacher starts telling me off about my pink highlights, in front of the whole class and everything! Can you believe him?" Aubrey ranted, cheeks puffing in anger as she crossed her arms. Basil, once more seated at her side, reached over and (only slightly awkwardly) patted her on the shoulder a couple times – though whether this actually helped to calm her down at all would be anyone's guess.

"Yeah, I can imagine." Hero agreed sympathetically, tilting his head slightly up towards the ceiling as he thought for a second. "Mari and I actually shared Mr. Bancroft's class in sixth grade, and he already had a reputation for being really grouchy back then too." he explained, shooting a quick glance over at Mari as he said it.

Mari herself nodded readily, following along with the conversation. "That's true! I actually remember hearing even a few other teachers thought he should've retired a decade ago." Normally she wouldn't be inclined to share gossip about adults like that, no matter what sorts of things she'd accidentally overheard, but since it was for the sake of helping to reassure Aubrey, she figured that was more important. It was worth it for a good cause.

After all the heavy emotional matters had been aired out, the impromptu group hug had broken apart, and Mari was able to calm herself down once more, the tension hanging over their gathering had gradually wound down. Conversation had switched to lighter topics as her friends splayed out across the living room, seizing spots on chairs or back on the rug around the coffee table once more. Almost like they were having one of their lazy hangouts in the treehouse, just with slightly different furnishings. The remaining chocolate chip cookies hadn't lasted long – unsurprisingly – with the plate now sitting empty in the kitchen sink ready to be washed, a few crumbs sticking to it as the only evidence of its former contents. While Mari herself had been content to mostly observe, sitting quietly with Sunny (who had stuck close to her on the couch), after awhile she eventually felt the need to contribute to the ongoing chatter once more – she was technically the host, after all – which had led to a bit of smalltalk about how everyone else's day had gone.

Kel had groaned about how much homework he'd apparently been given, and for some reason Aubrey seemed to have interpreted that as some sort of challenge, taking it as her cue to expound on her own experiences at school that day too. Which was what led them to now, with her grumbling about her social studies teacher, the crotchety Mr. Bancroft. (Mari had no clue what his first name was. She was reasonably certain nobody else did either.)

"...You didn't get in any trouble, right?" Basil asked Aubrey, looking at her with a slight furrow in his brows. "I don't think dyed hair is actually against dress code, so it wouldn't be very fair to punish you for it..." he said, a small note of concern entering his voice. Aubrey shook her head quickly, sending the pink-dyed streaks in question bouncing slightly.

"Yeah, it's allowed, me and Mari looked through the student handbook back when we were both..." Aubrey trailed off as she looked over at Mari for a brief moment. All Mari could think to do was give her an apologetic frown in return: she knew the younger girl had been quite disappointed that they wouldn't be allowed to dye their hair together. She would've happily promised to do it – been excited about it, even – if it were just up to her, but mom had disapproved and that was that. Aubrey shook her head once more, presumably to get herself back on track. "Anyway, nah, he didn't actually try to do anything about it." she addressed Basil again.

"Well, that's good at least, right?" he replied optimistically, giving her a small smile in return.

"Better than getting detention again." Kel added with a lazy shrug.

Aubrey huffed. "I mean, yeah. But he was still being a total jerk getting onto me about it." she said, turning her head away grumpily.

"Well, if it helps, just remember that it's not anything you did. Like we were saying, his class's always been like that. In fact..." Mari spoke up to reassure her, only to trail off momentarily as a thought suddenly occurred. She felt a small smile start to form on her face. "One time – I remember because it was right before spring break – as Hero and I were leaving class, out of nowhere Mr. Bancroft suddenly goes 'Rodriguez! Quit using so much hair gel, you look like a rabid porcupine!'" Mari put on her best attempt at mimicking a growly baritone as she did the impression, though given that her natural speaking voice was fairly soft and airy, this wasn't an easy task. It hurt the back of her throat a little, and she coughed into her hand a couple times before she continued. "And Hero just stopped and-" She was cut off by a sudden burst of giggling bubbling up.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't be laughing!" Mari exclaimed, even as she fought to keep another laugh down. "But Hero's face! He looked-" Her voice pitched up, cracking slightly from the futile effort to stifle her mirth. "He looked just like Mewo getting caught in the rain!" Mari pressed her fingers over mouth, almost doubling over where she sat.

A loud snort came from Kel's direction, who was making no such effort to hide his own amusement. In fact, if Mari had to describe his expression, she would say it was like his birthday had come a few weeks early (and if she had to guess, his present was in the form of months' worth of ribbing material). Aubrey, similarly, seemed to have been broken out of her bout of grouchiness by the anecdote, eyes lit up as she let out a few laughs of her own. Basil couldn't help but chuckle softly alongside her, even if he looked slightly embarrassed by it, shooting Hero a look probably meant to be apologetic. Even Sunny's shoulders were shaking in silent amusement, presumably at the mental image – after all, he'd been there on the day when Mewo had slipped out into the rain and so knew exactly what expression Mari was thinking of.

And Hero? Hero was leaning forward, pressing his face into his hands. "Agghh..." he groaned melodramatically. What little was visible of his cheeks had turned visibly red in embarrassment. "Did you have to bring that up, Mari? I was happier having forgotten that!" he grumbled into his palms – though Mari was glad to once again recognize it as his exaggerated annoyed tone and not seriously upset.

"I'm sorry!" she said again, though the apology was undercut by the fact that her voice was still squeaking with laughter.

"I don't even use hair gel! It just grows spiky like this!" Hero protested with a miserable shake of his head.

"It really does. Mamá broke a comb trying to smooth it out one time." Kel put in helpfully, still snickering slightly to himself. This didn't seem to improve Hero's mood any, if the way he let out another groan was any indication. Mari decided to take that as her cue to ease off for now, feeling that he'd been picked on enough for one day. Even if his exasperated reactions did seem to have helped lighten the mood some more just like she was hoping.

"...Heh, thanks, you guys. That actually does kinda make it better." Aubrey said, giving a smile towards Mari and Hero (not that the latter would actually see it, as his face was still in his palms). Mari nodded her head, trying to return the expression with equal sincerity. "But really, it wasn't that bad anyway, I guess. Something kinda cool happened later." Aubrey continued thoughtfully, glancing up for a second. Mari looked at her curiously, wondering what the younger girl was referring to. "One of the other girls in class came up to me and said she actually liked my hair streaks, and we got to talking. She said she wanted to dye her hair too, but she couldn't find a color that matched right with her glasses... Anyway, her name's Kim and she's pretty cool, we're gonna hang out sometime next week." Aubrey's voice picked up speed a little as she spoke, starting to ramble a little in her excitement. But Mari certainly wouldn't begrudge her for that, nodding along as she spoke, just happy that she was having a good time.

Surprisingly, however, Sunny picked that moment to speak up. "Ah, that's gotta be Kimberly." he observed simply, a hint of recognition on his face. Mari felt like a metaphorical lightbulb lit up in her head at his words. That was why it had sounded so familiar.

"Oh right, Vance's sister! She does have those neat red glasses, huh?" Mari voiced her thoughts, clapping her hands together once to punctuate the realization.

"Yeah! She did mention she had a brother, and-" Aubrey started to say, but paused, blinking a couple times, and then she looked over at Mari and Sunny, her eyebrows furrowing. "-Wait, how do you guys know them?"

"I wouldn't say 'know', exactly? We've just seen them around." Mari corrected quickly, wavering her hand in a "so-so" gesture. Sunny nodded his head in agreement as she spoke.

"The two of them spend time around the sweets shop a lot." Hero said, finally retrieving his head from his hands and speaking up to help clarify. "They're the only people who pick fights with Ms. Candice almost as much as Mari does." he added, giving Mari a look with one eyebrow raised pointedly.

Mari, surprised, choked on her next breath.

"Wha-That's not-!" she spluttered between a couple coughs, leaning forward where she sat. Sunny, ever helpful, dutifully reached over to thump her on the back. "I don't pick fights with her!" she protested, crossing her arms indignantly. Silence fell for a moment in the wake of that declaration, and every single eye in the room slowly turned towards her. All her friends' faces had fallen into various skeptical or unimpressed sorts of looks. Even Basil had his brows set in a suspiciously flat line. Mari felt her face burning at the sudden scrutiny, but tried to keep from showing it, sitting up straighter and tilting her chin up. "I don't!" she insisted defensively, shaking her head. "She picks fights with me!"

(That was actually the truth, too. For as much as Ms. Candice's behavior tended to get on her nerves, Mari made it a point to try not to say anything rude to her unless she instigated it, and even then, it was usually better to just try to leave rather than getting engaged in an argument. Mari needed to be polite to adults, after all, even if she thought they were annoying, that wasn't an excuse to be disrespectful. Especially in front of Sunny – setting good examples and all that. Ms. Candice sure didn't make it easy for her sometimes, though.)

All of her friends looked between each other, trading glances as if unsure whether any of them should say anything or not. Meanwhile, Sunny just looked over at Mari with the flattest expression he could muster. (And given that this was Sunny, that was very flat indeed.)

"Uh huh." he said, in a voice to match his expression. Mari side-eyed him for a moment, equally unimpressed, before her ears caught somebody – it sounded suspiciously like it might've been Aubrey – stifling a snicker, though everyone managed to school their expressions when she shot them a look.

Mari turned her head away, giving a pointed sniff. "Don't look at me like that! You're so unfair, little brother." she complained. Sunny just lifted his shoulders in an indifferent shrug, spurring another round of suppressed laughter from their audience (this time it might've been Basil). Mari decided to change tact, looking over at Hero since he was the one who had started this. "Hero! You have to take it back! You know I'm not actually the one who starts it." she implored him.

Hero just looked at her for a long moment, eyebrows raised, and Mari got a sinking feeling in her gut.

"...Sorry Mari, but I don't think rabid porcupines can take things back." he replied matter-of-factly, crossing his arms.

All Mari could think to do was stare at him, wide-eyed. Did Hero – Hero of all people – just hold a grudge? Meanwhile, that seemed to be all it took for the group's collective restraint to shatter, as Aubrey and Kel immediately broke into fits howling laughter, Kel reaching over to slap Hero on the back as he did so. Basil covered his mouth with one hand, but it wasn't quite enough to stop Mari from seeing the grin peeking out from behind his fingers. And Sunny just snorted, his shoulders quaking, and he shot Mari another pointed look that she interpreted as something along the lines of "you had that one coming".

"...Unfair..." Mari repeated, folding her arms more tightly, feeling her cheeks still blazing. It wasn't often that she was put on the other end of the teasing – and even less common for the typically earnest Hero to get one over on her – so she simply couldn't resist the urge to pout a bit. (She wasn't actually offended, of course. It'd be pretty hypocritical for her of all people to be that thin-skinned. No, it was only fair her friends got to rib her in return. And honestly part of her was glad that they were still willing to laugh with her like that. It was just that said part had to contend with the other part of her that just wished she could huff and curl up into a ball like Mewo did when moody.)

It took several moments before her friends managed to regain their composure, Hero shooting Mari a slightly sheepish look in apology, which she quickly waved off as unnecessary, while Kel was left pulling in heavy gasping breaths from his fit of laughter like he'd just run a marathon.

"Jeez... Kel. Could you breathe any louder? You want to be... an athlete. Get some better... breath control." Aubrey huffed, even as she was forced to break up the criticism with her own slightly strained inhales, pressing one hand against the coffee table to steady herself.

"Like you're... one to talk!" Kel snapped back. Privately, while Mari figured that she really shouldn't take sides, as was usual for the two's bickering, she had to admit that he wasn't exactly wrong in his retort. (Especially since, as a former athlete herself, she was pretty inclined to sympathize with his side.)

"Guys, please don't fight..." Basil cut in, looking between Aubrey and Kel with an almost pleading sort of expression. "You've been doing so well lately and everything." he added. Mari glanced at him, feeling her eyebrows raise slightly. That was actually a good point too, now that he said it. While Aubrey and Kel never seemed to be fully able to resist sniping at each other any time they were brought together, they hadn't had any big arguments in a while. She hadn't really thought about it much (especially with everything else she had going on recently) but it was probably a good sign if even Basil was confident enough to bring it up, right?

"But I... Fine." Aubrey was the first to concede, sounding like she was about to protest only to look away with a reluctant grumble as she saw the expression on Basil's face.

Kel, for once, had the good grace to not decide to throw in any last taunts or teasing to rile Aubrey up, and apparently decided to leave things there as well. With the potential argument nipped in the bud before it could really get going, the conversation trailed off for a few moments, silence falling across the room. It wasn't uncomfortable by any means – with the heavy conversations having already been aired out earlier, there wasn't that sense of tension hanging over the room to make things awkward. (Or at least, if there was any awkwardness, it certainly wasn't obvious enough for Mari to pick up on – she'd simply have to trust her friends to tell her if there was anything beyond that.) Basil and Hero both looked like they might've been relieved that a fight between Kel and Aubrey was averted, but beyond that, nobody seemed to be doing much of note. Sunny was being fairly silent, with his typical neutral expression, but that wasn't unusual for gatherings like these, so Mari didn't see any need to bug him about it. Things were just... quiet for a minute.

.

.

Until, that is, a thought suddenly occurred to Mari. More than anything, deep down she was honestly just grateful to even be able to still have moments with her friends like this. Irrational and ridiculous though it may have sounded now that she'd calmed down enough to actually see things with a clear head for once, the truth was that part of her had genuinely thought this gathering might end with her friends deciding to distance themselves from her. She hadn't thought they would just disappear, of course – they'd still be friends with Sunny, after all, so even in her worst-case scenario they'd still be around... but that didn't mean they'd like hanging out with her once they knew how much trouble she could be... But she tried to shove that line of thought down. Aubrey and Hero hadn't been wrong when they called her out on how unfair it was to assume that of them, after all. Even if Mari still wasn't entirely sure why or how things had played out like this, she was trying to accept that her friends really were willing to stick with her, even knowing how she was.

("...For however long it lasts.")

But now that she was thinking about it, a question suddenly arose in her mind. One she honestly couldn't believe she'd overlooked until now, it seemed like such an obvious thing she really should've asked. She must've been more caught up in things than even she realized if it was only just coming to her now.

"Hey guys?" she spoke up curiously, her voice cutting through the brief quiet and immediately drawing all eyes in the room to her. Sunny in particular seemed to notice the slightly more serious edge to her voice and shuffled a bit on the couch cushion to sit up a little straighter, more attentive. "There's something I just thought of... About what happened at the park the other day. With how you all knew I was..." Mari paused for a second, feeling the sudden urge to swallow. If she hadn't gotten one-hundred percent of everyone's attention before, she certainly did with those words.

"Mari..." Hero spoke up in concern before she could school her thoughts to continue. "You don't have to explain any more about any of that if you don't want to, we all understand and I don't think anyone minds." he said, looking around Kel, Aubrey, and Basil for a moment as he spoke. True enough, none of them seemed to disagree with his words – in fact, Kel was nodding emphatically, a gesture Basil matched with slightly less force.

Mari, however, shook her head. "No, that's not what I mean! There's actually something I wanted to know." she corrected quickly.

"...Well, okay. I just don't want you to force yourself to talk about it if you're uncomfortable, you know?" Hero replied, a worried tilt to his brows and his mouth set in a small frown.

"It's fine, Hero. Honestly." Mari replied, giving him what she hoped was a patient smile. It was all she really could think to do in response. This was what she meant when she said that her friends really didn't know what it was like for her. She appreciated Hero's concern for what it was, of course, she didn't doubt for a second that it came from a place of sincere care. Hero was just honestly, unquestionably good like that. But that didn't mean she could agree with him. After all, forcing herself to do things when she was uncomfortable was an everyday occurrence for her. Shoving her discomfort down and powering through was the only way she got anything done, some days.

She wouldn't be able to even get out of bed if she didn't.

.

A finger poked Mari lightly in the side, snapping her out of her thoughts.

"Sis?" Sunny asked her quietly as she turned to him, blinking a few times at the abrupt interruption. "You were saying something? You went quiet." he prompted her, and Mari felt her cheeks burn slightly at needing her little brother to keep her on track from zoning out. (She could have sworn one of her friends might have snorted slightly at her distraction, though she didn't look to see who.)

"Right! Ahem." Mari shook her head a little to clear it, trying to force herself to refocus on the reason she originally brought this up. Bringing her hand up to brush a few strands of her black hair away from her face, she looked back out across the living room at the others again. "I actually wanted to know... how you guys even found out? Since I didn't think to ask before." she said, feeling her forehead scrunch up slightly in curiosity.

Her friends all glanced between each other again at the question, though Mari couldn't be entirely sure what any of them were thinking.

"I didn't say anything." Sunny added from her side. "Knew you didn't like to talk about it." he said, crossing his arms, and Mari looked over at him again to shoot him a reassuring smile. She hadn't really figured he had anything to do with it, and she certainly wasn't going to accuse him of anything (not that she was accusing anybody, since she was asking out of genuine curiosity, not because she was mad about it). Going around spreading rumors about people really wasn't Sunny's style. Not to mention the fact he was her little brother. If he said it wasn't him, she was simply going to believe that without question. Because she did trust him, and she hoped he knew that too.

Hero and Kel, meanwhile, looked at each other for a moment, and then Kel shrugged.

"Me and Hero found out from our parents." he said simply. Mari felt herself frown slightly at the vague answer – while she could probably think up a few different situations that would lead to Mr. and Mrs. Rodriguez bringing up the subject, she'd rather not get caught up in aimless speculating when she could just ask how it actually happened. Before she could speak up to request clarification, however, Kel seemed to realize that his answer was somewhat unhelpful on its own, as he quickly continued. "I overheard mamá mention it one time-"

"You mean you were eavesdropping." Aubrey interrupted him, crossing her arms and fixing Kel with a pointed look. Basil winced slightly next to her, though this appeared to go unnoticed by anyone other than Mari.

Kel's head snapped towards her. "I was NOT!" he protested loudly. So loudly that it made Mari flinch, the sound bouncing off the living room walls. She clenched her eyes shut for just a second, trying to force back the sensation of something stabbing into her ears. It wasn't Kel's fault she was so sensitive, of course, so she didn't blame him... But still, that didn't make it any more pleasant when this happened. "She just talks on the phone kinda loud, so-!"

"Guys." Hero said sharply, letting out a pointed exhale that cut off the potential argument before Aubrey could gear up with a retort. Hero's eyes flicked over towards Mari for a moment, clearly having noticed her discomfort. She tried to give him a small, grateful smile in return, though she had no idea if it actually came across properly or not. Aubrey and Kel also seemed to have followed his gaze, because they both looked at Mari as well, and subsided with little more than some defensive muttering from Aubrey and a sheepish smile from Kel. Truth be told, part of Mari was a little relieved for her ears to be spared from more bickering for the moment (even if she felt a bit guilty for thinking it).

Hero shook his head to himself. "Anyway... Kel asked mamá what it meant, so she and papá sat us down and explained the whole thing." he explained, picking up where Kel had been interrupted. "They said it would be rude to bother you about it, and obviously we weren't gonna treat you any differently anyway... and this was years ago, so after awhile I think we just stopped thinking much about it? That's why we never said anything." Hero's voice took on what Mari recognized as an apologetic tone while he spoke, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly as he looked at her.

"I see." Mari replied, nodding her head slowly in understanding. Hero... almost looked like he winced a bit from those words, his eyebrows pinching, and Mari paused. Only on replaying the exchange in her mind did she realize how blunt her reply must've sounded from the outside. Maybe even frosty. Hero opened his mouth, probably about to apologize, and she quickly held up her hands in a gesture to stop him. "Wait, hold on, that came out wrong!" the words rattled out of her mouth rapidly and she gave a sharp shake of her head. "I don't mind that you guys found out... I mean, I didn't ever really want anyone to know, but I'm not mad at you for it. It's not like I told anybody it was a secret, and I can't blame you for being curious – I would be too! So I know it's not anyone's fault." she said, crossing her arms and hoping her sincerity came through.

That made sense, didn't it? It was true that deep down she had hoped she would be able to pass as normal enough for her friends to never have to find out she was autistic – and it had come as a nasty shock to find out that not only did they know, but they'd known for some time and she hadn't noticed...

("Just blithely traipsing along in your own little world where everything goes your way.")

...But that didn't mean she actually blamed them for any of it. There arguably wasn't really anybody to blame in this situation, and certainly not anyone sitting around her at present. Even in the heat of the moment at the park, when she'd freaked out and fled, she wasn't even close to being upset at her friends in particular, only upset that it had come out that way at all. She was being entirely honest with she'd said earlier, after all: it was ultimately herself that she didn't trust.

Hero seemed to have been mollified by her words, at least enough to not look unnecessarily apologetic anymore, though the corners of his mouth were still turned down ever so slightly in an expression Mari had a hard time parsing. Still, whatever he was thinking, it apparently wasn't urgent enough for him to press it, as he nonetheless accepted her explanation with a small nod. A quick glance around the room revealed that her other friends appeared to have been somewhat reassured as well. (Basil in particular had a small, relieved smile, which wasn't surprising given how sensitive he could be to people fighting.) She supposed that, in hindsight, she really should've made it explicitly clear that she wasn't mad at them about the whole thing earlier. She'd been concerned about needlessly worrying them, but she hadn't fully thought about how it must've looked from their perspective. If somebody suddenly stormed off mid-conversation, of course you'd be worried that what you just said had offended them. That was such an obvious conclusion to reach that even she could figure it out – even if it wasn't correct this time, it was perfectly understandable.

"...Uh, so I guess it'd be my turn?" Aubrey's voice cut through Mari's contemplating and she looked at the younger girl, giving her a small nod to show that she was listening. Aubrey paused for just a second, eyes flicking over towards... Hero, for some reason? Before Mari would have a chance to wonder about the meaning of that, though, the answer would become apparent. "...Hero actually explained the whole thing to me." Aubrey admitted, prompting Hero to nod his head in confirmation. "We weren't gossiping about you or anything!" she hastened to clarify (though Mari hadn't actually been thinking that anyway). "It was a few weeks after we met, he knew we were hanging out a bunch so he wanted me to understand what was going on in case, like, you needed help with something and it was just us..."

Mari simply nodded again, accepting the explanation at face value. It made perfect sense, after all. Hero, ever considerate, wanting to make sure their new friend was prepared in case Mari got overwhelmed. Not that she ever had any intention of making them deal with that if she could avoid it, but still. It sounded just like the sort of thing Hero would think of. And it wasn't a secret how Aubrey had very quickly connected with Mari and Sunny in particular out of the group, so she probably hadn't even questioned it, simply accepting the matter since she had no reasonable way of knowing how badly Mari truly felt about being that way. Yes, considering it from that point of view, it was entirely sensible, and as promised, Mari wasn't going to begrudge them for it in the slightest.

.

"...Huh. Hero did pull you aside one time. After school." Sunny observed matter-of-factly, looking at Aubrey, and Mari knew his expressions well enough to recognize the way his neutral facade had shifted to something like mild interest, the look he tended to get when he was making sense of things. Like fitting a piece into a puzzle.

"Yeah." Aubrey confirmed readily, then paused, looking over at Sunny with one eyebrow raised. "You actually remember that? That's so specific." she commented. Sunny just shrugged slightly.

Mari let out a small laugh. "Sunny's always been better at remembering stuff than me, you know that." she pointed out honestly. While her little brother didn't have a perfect memory by any means, it was undeniable that it was far more precise than hers, on average. If Sunny forgot things, it was generally more likely that he was willingly ignoring them rather than letting them slip on accident. Which was part of why Mari often took on his share of chores in addition to her own: it was more convenient for both of them than having to goad him into doing it if he felt like being lazy and deliberately "forgot". (Well, that and the fact that she didn't mind chores anyway, since at least they gave her a way to occupy her mind if she was forced to be alone for awhile.)

Regardless, with Aubrey having answered, that left only one member of the group unaccounted for. Slowly everyone's gazes ended up settling on Basil, who – even though he obviously knew this was coming – shifted slightly under the sudden expectant attention. Mari noticed his hints of discomfort fairly quickly and tried to give him an encouraging smile. Just as a reminder once more that she wasn't mad at anybody present, including him, hoping that would help his confidence a little. Basil visibly swallowed slightly to steel himself before returning his own, slightly shaky smile for a moment.

"My grandma actually told me about it, that first time when you and Sunny came over to my house." he said softly, glancing between Mari and Sunny for a moment. Sunny nodded his head and raised his hand in a quick thumbs-up in understanding. Mari did remember that day as well... at least, somewhat. She didn't particularly recall what they had done at Basil's house, but she remembered that it was a fairly pleasant day overall, and that Basil was actually a pretty good host despite being a little nervous about the whole thing...

Speaking of him being nervous, Basil's eyes suddenly widened and he waved his hands a little frantically. "It wasn't anything bad!" he added hastily. "Grandma actually likes both of you, she says you're really polite!" That claim... actually didn't surprise Mari at all, honestly. While neither she nor Sunny had interacted extensively with the elderly Mrs. Abner, they still made an effort to be respectful to her, and Mari had always gotten the impression she was quite kind in return, always offering them snacks and such. Basil looked down for a second, tapping his fingers together, nervous energy still strong, and Mari patiently waited for him to continue. "It was just that, um, she was telling me that I might hear some other old ladies in town gossip about... some incident at church, I think?" He paused for a moment to look up at Mari questioningly, an uncertain furrow in his brow. "Something that happened because you were autistic, anyway. And grandma was saying I shouldn't listen to any of it because it was... uh, she said 'complete tosh'?" he finished, sounding slightly confused. Mari found that she didn't actually know what that word meant either. It was pretty easy to guess from the context, though.

That wasn't what she was focused on, though.

.

"Gossiping about an incident at church..." Mari repeated slowly, and Basil hesitantly nodded his head. Mari closed her eyes momentarily. "So people are still upset about that after this long. I guess I should've known." she murmured, more to herself than anyone else. But it seemed like the rest of the room heard her anyway, because when she opened her eyes again, they were all looking at her. Sunny reached out to take her hand and give a supportive squeeze, a deep frown forming on his face. Mari wondered what her own expression must have been like for him to feel the need to do that unprompted.

"...Huh?" Kel wondered out loud, blinking a few times in confusion as he looked at Mari and Sunny. "What happened at church? You guys barely even go there anyway, right?" he asked, sounding genuinely baffled.

Mari gave him a nod. "You're right, we don't... And this is why." she said, giving him a meaningful look. Next to Kel, Hero's face was dawning in realization. But, seeing that Kel was still confused (and figuring she should probably explain for Aubrey and possibly Basil's sake), Mari set her shoulders and sat up a little straighter as she went to elaborate.

"We used to go to church services just about every Sunday. But one time, years ago when I was about... eight, I think... there was this one particular service that was supposed to be special. I think it was... yeah, I remember because it was Easter Sunday." Mari's words were a little more fragmented than usual, strewn with long pauses between sentences as she tried to recall the events in question. Dredging up memories from that long ago, even fairly important ones, was a crapshoot at best. A lot of details seemed fuzzy and blended together, when she could envision them at all. But still, she knew the important part, so she tried to make herself focus. "Me and Sunny had to get all dressed up and everything. You should've seen little Sunny with a bowtie!" A smile briefly broke through the otherwise serious look on her face as she recalled that part. Sunny groaned and covered his face with one hand.

"Agh, sis...!" he whined, earning a few snickers from Aubrey and Kel. Mari was absolutely going to have to see if she could find any old photographs of five-year-old Sunny's "formal wear". It was her right as big sister to have some blackmail material.

But her mirth didn't last long as she remembered the subject at hand.

"...Anyway, though, when we got to church, at first everything seemed fine, but... there were way more people there than usual. I guess even people who didn't always attend wanted to observe the holiday..." Mari shook her head to herself. "The point is, it was really crowded. And then, when the sermon started, the preacher was talking way louder than normal, in this extra booming voice so everybody could hear him..."

"...Oh no. I remember this now." Sunny whispered in realization, looking at Mari with slightly wide eyes. Mari swallowed and nodded slightly in return, grimly confirming what he must have been thinking.

"I don't even remember exactly what set me off, but it was all just a lot." she said, looking down at her hands for a moment. "I just... started sobbing, out of nowhere. Right in the middle of the service."

"Mari..." Hero murmured, while at the same time Kel let out a small hiss through his teeth in solidarity. A quick glance at Aubrey and Basil revealed sympathetic looks from both of them as well, open worried eyes in Basil's case and a wince from Aubrey. The secondhand embarrassment couldn't have been hard to imagine – nobody wanted to be mortified in public, after all.

"All I could do was just cover my ears and cry about how noisy everything was... Until mom eventually managed to pull me outside." Mari didn't fully remember what had happened at that point, but she knew her mother had been furious with her. Understandably, of course, given how much trouble she'd caused. It was probably one of the angriest times Mari had ever seen mom, in fact... until recently, anyway. (The bruise on Mari's cheek seemed to ache. But obviously that had to be her imagination.) "We went home right after, of course, and I couldn't really hear what anybody was saying at the time... but I know a bunch of the other attendees were pretty upset about it. And I guess somehow it got out that I was... autistic and that was why I freaked out."

Mari paused for a second, a sigh carried along with her breath. "But knowing that people are still talking about it even now..." she trailed off, closing her eyes again. In that moment, her body felt... heavy. Yes, that was it. Like a weight was being set upon her shoulders – except the truth was that it had been there all along, the feeling eminently familiar even as it seemed to drag her down. It had just loosened up a little, perhaps, between her making up with Sunny and her friends' insistence on sticking with her. It wasn't like those things were unimportant either! Of course they mattered to her, so much she didn't even know the words to describe it. But this conversation was just a reminder that... she'd had reasons for being so afraid, too.

("People in town saw one glimpse of how you really were, and it humiliated both you and mom badly enough to still talk about it years later. Who could blame you for trying to keep that secret?")

.

.

"...They're jerks."

Mari's head whipped up. That was Sunny's voice. He'd balled his hands into fists at his sides, eyes averted slightly and his mouth set in a hard line. "...Shouldn't talk about you like that." he muttered.

"Sunny..." Mari began, feeling herself starting to frown, but not quite knowing how to continue. Sunny only seemed to set his face even more stubbornly at the word. It should have been incredibly disrespectful to insult adults like that, but... somehow she felt like there was more going on here, just enough to make her hesitate in scolding him.

"No, he's totally right!" Aubrey cut in loudly, her cheeks puffed in a familiar look of indignation. "You said you were eight? You're fifteen now! What the heck kind of grownups spread rumors about a kid for seven years!?" she demanded, crossing her arms for emphasis. Mari felt her eyes going wide, too taken aback to muster a response right away. Not that she had the opportunity to.

"Yeah, seriously! Even I don't talk about stuff for that long. Like, get a life!" And there was Kel, both looking and sounding just as offended. Part of Mari noted that the very fact that he was so readily backing up Aubrey without even a hint of disagreement was probably significant by itself.

"That's exactly why grandma said I should ignore it too. And she was right." Basil added with a small frown, his eyebrows furrowed, his voice not quite as loud, but no less certain than the prior two. And if Kel and Aubrey being on the same page was notable, then Basil being indignant most certainly was too.

Hero let out a small sigh, shaking his head. "I said it earlier, and I'll say it again: We're all here for you if you need us, okay? We're not going to judge you for something like that, Mari. It's not your fault." he explained insistently, staring straight at her with an almost imploring expression, like he was trying to will her to believe him.

"I... But I..." Mari stammered for a second before cutting herself off, abruptly leaning forward and pressing her face into her hands. She needed to take a deep breath. In and out.

It wasn't as scary as she thought.

.

.

"...Sorry, I promise I'm not going to start crying again." she muttered as she lowered her hands again, her cheeks burning a little. While her claim was true, her eyes completely dry, she carefully neglected to mention the fact that she felt like she was probably too worn-out to actually have the energy to cry anymore today regardless.

"Take all the time you need." Basil replied softly, serious expression shifting to one of understanding almost instantly. His words were met by a round of nods of varying enthusiasm (which was to say, Kel's was noticeably more vigorous than anyone else, not that this was surprising).

Mari exhaled another breath. "...I'll be okay. I only started this conversation because I was curious, but... I guess part of me was still worried about... about something, I don't even know what to call it. Just worried. So when you mentioned those rumors and I thought of that bad memory it just..." Before Mari realized it, she was balling up her fists against the fabric of her skirt, shaking her head sharply. "Ugh, this is so frustrating! I don't know the words!" she groaned. It was far from the first time it had happened, of course, but even so, that didn't make her inability to find a good description any less tiresome.

"You don't have to say anything more. Nobody's expecting you to tell us every thought in your head." Hero offered, clearly trying to give her an out.

But surely he must have known her well enough by now to realize that she was too stubborn for that. Powering through things was arguably Mari's most significant skill. Most other things she was "good" at tended to stem from that, when you boiled it down.

"When I think about the way you react to this stuff... You all knew how I was for months, or years! And you heard that story with the church too, and it just... you aren't reacting like I thought you would. I didn't think that was how people were supposed to react!" Mari tried to explain, even as she felt like she was teetering on the verge of devolving into an aimless ramble. She stopped to take yet another breath to steady herself. "And I'm not saying it's bad! I know we just talked about this a bit ago. But, I don't know! It's... throwing me off." Her hands fidgeted with her skirt as she spoke, rumpling and pulling at folds in the fabric, her arms buzzing with too much of whatever this odd energy was to keep them completely still, but not actually having anything useful to occupy them with.

"I guess... I'm just having a hard time believing today is real. It's too strange." she admitted, her voice growing softer as she said it.

"Then we'll remind you. As much as you need."

Sunny's voice sliced through her swirling thoughts once again. He was sitting up, looking at Mari seriously.

"It isn't a dream. Not colorful enough. So... we don't have to figure it all out today. You said... 'good enough is good enough', right? Is us being here good enough?"

If his voice sounded just slightly vulnerable on that last question, well. Mari certainly wouldn't see fit to comment on it. Instead, she simply tried to smile.

"...Yeah. Of course it's more than good enough." she said honestly.

And for that day, it was.

("But you know you haven't actually magically fixed everything, right?")

Chapter Text

Saturday dawned... with a sky so dark that one could barely tell it had dawned at all, and seemed set to remain that way all day long. It appeared that the rain from earlier in the week had returned with a vengeance, heavy black clouds blanketing the sky in all directions and casting the entire neighborhood in their shadow. Torrents of rain battered the house ceaselessly, and from where Mari sat at the kitchen table, she could hear the windows rattling hard from the constant downpour. Glancing towards said windows for a moment, part of her found herself hoping that it wouldn't turn to hail – normally she'd figure it was a bit too early in the season for that, but this whole week had been uncommonly cold, so you never know.

The other part of her was honestly just relieved that it was the weekend, going to school in these conditions sounded miserable. Even if she and Sunny took the bus, they'd have to make it to the bus stop first, and that by itself would probably soak them with how hard it was raining. Not to mention the hassle of trying to focus on schoolwork with the constant pattering on the roof distracting her... No, she was really glad it was Saturday so she could justifiably spend it shut indoors.

Though, speaking of Saturday... It was still a little hard to believe it had been a whole week since the day of the recital. Yet, at the same time, it felt equally unbelievable that it had only been a week. It was the strangest sensation, where time inexplicably felt like it was rushing by at a breakneck pace, things constantly shifting faster than Mari could keep up with, yet somehow it had also slowed to a crawl, creating some of the longest days of her life. The only other time she'd felt anything like that so strongly, at least that she could remember, was the period after she'd broken her leg. The difference was, back then she'd been injured, creating something of a blur of hospital beds and casts and crutches. This past week should've been, in most respects, just a normal week. Except that it wasn't. But she shook her head to herself slightly. There was no need to go over all that in her head again for the millionth time.

It was just about noon now – hence why she was in the kitchen – and Mari was pretty sure Sunny was still asleep in their room. Perhaps she ought to have woken him by now, but... Well, she didn't really want to disturb him. Besides, it wasn't like she could really blame him: she knew he liked sleeping in, and a cold, rainy weekend was one of the best times to do it. Plus, it was entirely possible he just didn't even know what time it was. With how dark it was from the clouds, telling time from the windows was basically impossible. She couldn't expect her brother to wake from the sunlight in his eyes when there wasn't any sunlight to begin with. As far as his brain would be concerned, their room was still nice and dark, no morning light pressuring him to get up. So it was perfectly fair, looking at it from that perspective, it wasn't like he was just being lazy, and it wouldn't have hurt anything even if he was. She should probably see about rousing him pretty soon though, she wouldn't want him to be too sore and groggy once he finally did awaken. But a few minutes more would be no harm.

("That's not what you said a week ago.")

.

...It did feel a little strange to find herself thinking that way, Mari had to admit. Just last Saturday, she had been hurrying Sunny out of bed – practically dragging him, really – early in the morning. Trying to get in as much practice before the recital as possible. They'd been so close to getting it perfect, after all, but just couldn't quite stop a few mistakes here and there. It had simply seemed so absolutely important to try to nail it down as much as they could... What a stupid thought, in hindsight. With what she knew now, looking back on that, it was honestly no wonder Sunny was angry with her about it. The fact that he had as much patience as he did for her frankly unreasonable attitude was downright miraculous. But now? Now here she was, happily letting him sleep in on Saturday if he wanted. He was just a kid, of course he should be allowed to spend his weekends lazing around, that shouldn't even be a question.

Mari absolutely meant it when she said she was going to try to do better by him, after all... It was just that she was self-aware enough to realize that the shift was more than a little jarring. It wasn't bad, not at all, it was just... a bit odd when she thought of it. She didn't feel like she'd changed as a person in the last seven days, but here she was doing something the Mari of last week definitely would've considered a waste of precious practicing time. Once again, she was struck with how utterly unbelievable it was that it had only been one week. If she tried to explain the whole "Mari of last week" phrase out loud, it would undoubtedly sound completely crazy. But it was also a completely truthful description of how she felt about everything that had happened. It was an undeniable fact that she was thinking about things differently now, and she was trying to change her behavior to account for that. That was just...

...That was just the thing she was trying not to spiral into thinking about, wasn't it? Dang it.

Well, she supposed since she was thinking about it anyway, it wouldn't hurt to go over her plans one more time. After the emotional rollercoaster that had been the meetup with their friends on Wednesday, the following couple days had been relatively uneventful. But that didn't mean Mari had been idle. She'd spent most of Thursday and Friday, or at least the time that wasn't spent at school or hanging out with Sunny, trying to work out what she could do doing forward. Amending her mistakes would take more than a couple cookies and some conversation with their friends, after all (even if that conversation had somehow gone so much differently than she'd ever expected). It was good to know she still had people in her corner, but... that didn't mean she could afford to slack off on her part either.

The first and most obvious thing was, of course, the matter of instrument practice. Mari knew that she couldn't put off doing it forever – she'd probably skipped too many days that week already, to be honest – so she'd decided to set her nose back to the grindstone once more. But with a few key changes. For starters, she would no longer demand that Sunny join her. He'd always be welcome if he wanted to, naturally, but only if he wanted to. If he didn't think it'd be enjoyable, then as far as she was concerned, he had absolutely no obligation. The way it always should have been, really. His violin had been a gift intended to make him smile, not some kind of chore or school test or any other nonsense like that, and Mari was not his taskmaster. Quite frankly, for that matter, she shouldn't be a complete taskmaster for herself either – and that was the second part. It seemed like such an obvious solution in hindsight: she'd decided to start setting a time limit for herself.

Not just her trying to keep better track of time in her head or whatever, but a very literal time limit, enforced with the aid of a spare baking timer pilfered from the kitchen. She'd discussed it with Sunny, and they'd ultimately figured that an hour sounded like a fair compromise. Long enough that she'd have time to get herself warmed up and hopefully make some progress on whatever song she was practicing. But not so long as to run herself ragged and demand her constant attention at the expense of everything else. And once the hour was up and the timer went off, that was it. No deciding to go for another ten minutes because she could spare it, no running through the song one more time because she was so close and she was sure she'd get it this time, none of that. The timer's word was law and when it said she was done, she was done, no matter how frustrating it might feel in the moment. Or at least, that was the rule she hoped to hold herself to going forward. Time would tell how well she'd be able to keep it up. But she absolutely was not going to go back to shutting herself away for three or four or five hour sessions like she'd done all too often before. No more of that.

Honestly, from the two practices she'd had so far, the timer was probably going to take some adjustment. Not just the time limit – of course getting used to that new rule would take a bit, that much was obvious. But the physical timer itself on top of that. Privately, Mari felt that whoever had designed that thing had perhaps done their job at bit too well. Maybe it was just the acoustics of the piano room, but it was loud. Louder than you'd expect a kitchen timer to be, even, which was already pretty loud to begin with (since being heard was the whole point and all). The first time it had gone off, it had startled her badly enough that it took all her restraint not to reflexively grab it and hurl it at the nearest wall. She'd done that with her alarm clock once, and it had taken Sunny months to let her live it down. It was something of a miracle that the poor clock still worked – and it was left with a visible dent from its flight all the same. It probably didn't help that this had been back when she was still on the softball team, so the alarm clock had been subjected to Faraway's meanest pitch.

...Alright, she was getting a little sidetracked, but the point was, there were some things she'd need to get used to with this new arrangement. And perhaps only a couple days in was too early to judge anything. But still, she was set in her resolve to give it a shot, and she was optimistic for how it could turn out. Sunny deserved no less than a sincere effort on her part, so a sincere effort she would make.

.

.

*thump thump thump*

The soft thudding sound drew Mari out of her thoughts and she looked up from the kitchen table – which she just realized she'd been staring at blankly for the last couple minutes, spaced out. Oops. At least nobody was around to see that. Though that was probably going to change any moment now, as she recognized those sounds for what they were, having heard them a million times before. Footsteps thumping down the stairs and across the floor. Probably not Sunny, either, as the sounds seemed a little too loud and distinct to fit his small frame. Some of that might have been chalked up to the odd acoustics of their house, echoing louder than they should be. But Mari didn't really think so. She knew what Sunny sounded like moving around the house, having spent so long practically joined at the hip when they were younger. On a day like today, when he'd been allowed to sleep in, his emerging downstairs would probably be more of a tired shuffling (Mari liked to call it his zombie shamble) than the clear individual steps reaching her ears right now. No, Sunny was probably still snoozing in their room.

Sure enough, she'd be proven correct mere seconds later when mom stepped into the kitchen, the sound now recognizable as her shoes tapping against the floor. Mom was the only one in the family who tended to wear shoes indoors very often – even dad typically preferred to leave his by the front door, though it wasn't a hard rule in their household. Mari herself tended to be content with just her favorite style of long socks to protect her feet from the cold floor. Just like the ones she had on right now, in fact. But she didn't want to get sidetracked for too long on that tangent right now.

Mari straightened up slightly where she sat, looking at her mother carefully. Mom didn't seem to have registered that she was there yet, the look on her face seeming more-or-less completely neutral. It was hard to get much of a read on her expression, honestly. But she didn't look like she was upset or irritated – she probably wasn't in an especially bad mood, as those tended to be a bit more obvious – so at least that was something. Because the truth was that Mari actually had been planning to talk to mom today. She wasn't exactly hanging around the kitchen waiting for her mom to come downstairs to grab lunch per se... but if Mari might've lingered for a bit longer than usual after finishing her own lunch, hoping the timing might line up... well, she felt she had a decent reason for it, at least. It was certainly better than disturbing her in her room, where she might be working or otherwise occupied.

"Mari." Mom greeted her evenly, finally acknowledging her daughter's presence as their gazes briefly met, though Mari made no attempt to force herself to hold eye contact in that moment, content with simply looking in the general direction of mom's face.

"Morning, mom." Mari replied politely, for once remembering to actually give her mother a verbal acknowledgment as was expected. Then she tilted her head slightly as a thought occurred to her. "Or... would it technically be afternoon?" she wondered.

"Hmm. I take it you're just finishing your lunch, sweetie?" Mom seemed to brush right past Mari's question without a reply. Not that Mari could really blame her, it was pretty much just a bit of meaningless musing. Her mom had always said she never much cared for pointless small talk – or at least, not at home, anyway, she seemed pretty content chattering with various neighbors when they ran into each other at the store and such, though maybe that was just to be polite. One of those adult interactions Mari hadn't quite figured out yet.

"Yeah." Mari confirmed with a small nod. 'Just finishing' was, perhaps, a slight exaggeration – she'd finished eating a little bit ago and had simply been sitting around since – but it was close enough. "I just rewarmed some pizza, but... Oh! I could reheat some for you too if you want, I think there's still a few slices." she offered quickly. Mari had ordered pizza for herself and Sunny on Wednesday night, not really feeling like cooking dinner at the time. But Gino's had been having a 2-for-1 deal, so there was a substantial amount leftover to be put in the freezer.

Mom frowned slightly. "No, I was planning to grab something for myself here in a minute. I was just meaning to ask you whether you were going to take care of your dishes." she said, putting her hands on her hips and glancing at the table. Mari followed her gaze, eyes falling upon the empty plate and glass she'd left from her meal, simply pushed aside for the moment.

"Ah, of course! I'll wash them up now, I was just distracted for a minute." Mari said, realizing that she shouldn't have been neglecting to do that, standing to her feet quickly enough to send a brief jolt up her bad leg as she hurried to grab the dishes in question and bring them over to the sink. Her mom simply hummed neutrally, and though Mari couldn't really read much into the noise, she got the vague sense that it wasn't a particularly impressed sound. Normally she was pretty diligent about doing her own dishes, so it wouldn't really be overly surprising if mom was a little exasperated with needing to remind her. That was perfectly understandable when she thought of it like that.

Silence fell across the kitchen for a minute while Mari busied herself at the sink washing the crumbs off her plate. Meanwhile, true to her word, mom had set about grabbing things to fix her own lunch, namely a couple slices of bread and some kind of sandwich meat from the fridge (Mari wasn't sure what kind, as she only glanced at the pack when mom walked by). It was only once the dishes had been set aside on the drying rack, and Mari had finished drying her hands, that she decided to speak again. She'd been hoping mom would come down so she could talk to her, after all. There wouldn't really be any better opportunity than this today.

"...Hey mom, can I ask you something?" she began slowly, looking over at her mother, who was just sitting down at the table.

Mom raised an eyebrow. "You just did, sweetheart." she pointed out matter-of-factly. Mari had to resist the urge to wince slightly – she knew mom didn't tend to be very fond of what appeared to be pointless questions, after all, she just hadn't really been able to come up with a better way to start the conversation. Despite theoretically having a plan for what she wanted to talk about, now that the moment was here, she found herself pretty much having to wing it. Mom waved her hand slightly in what was presumably a 'go ahead' sort of gesture, the look on her face expectant. Like she was waiting for Mari to get on with it. Seeing this, Mari cleared her throat slightly and went to continue, leaning her hands back against the countertop behind her idly as she spoke.

"Well, you know how Halloween is on Monday?" she asked, rhetorically. The recital had been on the twenty-second of October, and since that was exactly one week ago, today was Saturday the twenty-ninth. Normally she was the type to get pretty into holiday planning, but with the recital and then dealing with all the... everything else after, she'd had to put off her Halloween considerations to the last minute. "I was wondering if-"

"No, you may not go out with your friends." Mom interrupted her bluntly, leaving Mari's mouth to click shut awkwardly, with her feeling a small frown starting to form. "You're grounded, remember? Your brother's grounding ends today, so he can go if he wants. But you still have another two weeks due to your... incident earlier this week." Mom said, crossing her arms. Mari couldn't even quite explain why, but she didn't like the way mom emphasized the word "incident" like that. Something about it made her skin feel like it was prickling.

"I know, I didn't forget, you've got it wrong." she protested. Mom's unimpressed expression only seemed to deepen at the argument, so she hurried to explain. "I wasn't thinking of going out in costume or anything, I just figured I could hang back and... supervise, I guess? Otherwise it'll be Hero watching four other kids by himself, and-"

But mom cut her off again. "And you thought you could use that as a loophole?" she asked pointedly, and this time Mari couldn't stop herself from wincing at the tone. If mom noticed her discomfort, though, she didn't see fit to comment on it. Mom shook her head where she sat. "Honestly, honey, did you really think that would work? Of course the other children wouldn't want you to feel left out. I'm sure you were counting on them sharing their candy with you, even though you technically weren't participating. Right?" She reached out to tap her fingers idly against the table as she spoke, sharp perfectly-manicured nails clicking noisily in time with her words.

Mari found herself floundering, so taken aback that she was unable to do more than stare blankly at her mother for a moment. That wasn't at all what she'd had in mind. Now, it was... admittedly true that she had an ulterior motive of sorts. She'd skipped out on more than enough gatherings with Sunny and her friends, and Halloween seemed like as good a time as any to start rectifying that. She knew Sunny'd be a lot happier if she was there, even if she was only allowed to hover in the background, rather than sending him off while she stayed home. Again. But that was all. It wasn't some... attempt to trick her way around being grounded so she could get Halloween candy or whatever mom was saying. Yes, Mari could admit that she liked candy – obviously, her sweet tooth was practically legendary in the neighborhood, rivaled only by the likes of Vance – but she wouldn't go out of her way to concoct some convoluted scheme to bypass her mother's authority just to get it. Why would she even want to do that?

(It was true that she'd outright defied her grounding by hosting the meetup on Wednesday, but that had been because she and Sunny wanted to clear the air with everyone. That felt like something of a necessary evil, her friends' peace of mind outweighing the pang of guilt she felt over it. It was certainly a lot more important than something as petty as some holiday candy.)

But she didn't know how to explain any of that, couldn't think of any words that wouldn't just sound like whining or excuses. She'd had this planned out, had a clear image in her mind going in about how to phrase her request so it sounded reasonable. To make it clear that she legitimately meant well by it and wasn't trying to be argumentative or rebellious. But now that the moment was here, no matter how she wracked her brain, she couldn't seem to find that nice, perfectly logical explanation again. Mom's response had just completely blindsided her – she'd known that asking for an exception to being grounded might be a stretch, but being outright accused of trying to exploit loopholes was not something she'd been prepared for. Maybe mom was in a bad mood today, and thus feeling a bit less inclined to be charitable? ...Perhaps that was getting too speculative. It wasn't like Mari of all people would really be able to tell the difference very easily. Either way, though, all her carefully-reasoned points slipped right from her grasp, leaving her with no response. This wasn't going how she planned.

"Really now, Mari. You should know better than to try something so ridiculous." Mom continued, either not noticing or simply not acknowledging Mari's disconcerted state. She continued tapping her fingers against the table, each click-clack sharply audible to Mari's senses. "I was born at night, sweetie, but it wasn't last night." Mom scoffed, glancing up towards the ceiling for a moment as if in disbelief.

("She's right, of course. Your 'plan' was half-baked at best. You can't think of how to explain yourself because there isn't a good way. Anyone else would've seen that.")

"That's not what I-" Mari tried to rally herself, but for the third time, mom cut her off.

"I don't need to hear your excuses, the answer is no and that's that." she said. The continual tapping of her fingernails was really starting to sound grating to Mari's ears now, enough that she had to actively force herself to focus on her mom's words rather than the constant clicks. "I don't know what's gotten into you that made you think this was a good idea, but please just drop it, sweetheart. I've had a long week and I really don't need this." Mom sighed, shaking her head again in what Mari recognized as a sign of clear exasperation.

Something about the words struck Mari then. A long week. Her mom had been through a long week. It was almost funny, because that was close to exactly what Mari had been thinking about herself. But the difference was, mom was a grown adult. She worked hard, harder than anyone else Mari knew (except maybe dad), throwing herself into her job day after day. Of course her week would be long and tiresome. And thinking about it like that, well... what had Mari herself really done this week? How many of her issues were really just fake problems she was blowing out of proportion? It had all felt so real and critical in the moment – and she definitely wasn't going to back down on her resolve to do better for Sunny and her friends going forwards – but compared to her mom's real, tangible adult issues... it just made her feel kind of ridiculous. Did she really have the right to sit around moping about that so much when other people had to do actual work for what they wanted? Face burning in embarrassment, all she could do was look down at the kitchen floor, an uncomfortable frown on her face.

.

.

Awkward silence fell across the kitchen as the discussion petered out... or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it had slammed headfirst into the brick wall that was mom's disapproval. Either way, though, there just didn't really seem like there was anything else to say. At least mom had finally stopped tapping her nails against the table – if Mari'd had to put up with another few minutes of that sound, she felt like she was going to scream. She knew that was an absurdly unreasonable and melodramatic reaction, not to mention extremely impolite, which was why she hadn't said anything about it. It was definitely one of those things that wouldn't bother anybody but her. But man that sound was annoying! Mari wasn't particularly fond of the noises fingernails made against surfaces in general. Even her own nails could get on her nerves sometimes, particularly if her hands started jittering. But mom's were particularly bad; she always kept them long and neatly manicured, ostensibly to look like a professional career woman. Dress for the job you want, as she'd say, and she wanted to rise as high in her company as she could.

Things stayed like that for a couple minutes, mom silently taking a few bites out of her sandwich while Mari stood there awkwardly, trying to come up with a good reason to excuse herself that wouldn't seem rude. The only sound in the room was the pouring rain battering the windows outside. It would appear that the conversation was well and truly dead... or at least, that's what Mari had thought. Mom, however, apparently didn't agree, as out of nowhere she suddenly decided to speak again.

"...You know, you really should be more thankful, Mari." she commented, seemingly apropos of nothing. Mari blinked, honestly having no clue what that was supposed to mean, feeling her brow furrow in confusion. But before she could ask, mom continued. "Since you'll be staying home Monday evening anyway, that means you'll have more time to practice for your recital." she brought up matter-of-factly, as if it were something obvious. Which perhaps it should have been. "Your father and I are going to see about rescheduling that as soon as we have time to sit down and work out the details. So don't get complacent, sweetie, we really can't have more troubles like last week." she said expectantly.

Mari paused at that. Right. The recital. She'd known that was going to be a thing... sooner or later. She hadn't been entirely sure how long it would take mom and dad to arrange a redux after the last one had been such a disaster. But it made sense that it would be soon, just dependent on when her parents could take the time to put their heads together on the issue. Them being so busy with work all the time handily explained why they hadn't said anything about it yet: they simply hadn't had a chance to fully plan it out yet. That made perfect sense in hindsight. Yet... even so... Mari found herself hesitating. Mom and dad didn't know about what had happened between her and Sunny earlier this week. Or maybe it'd be more accurate to say, had been happening ever since before Sunny got his violin and Mari simply hadn't realized until this week? ...Semantics aside, the point was that the situation had changed in a way nobody had seen coming.

If Mari just threw herself right back onto the nonstop recital practice train again in a week or two, and especially if she'd be expected to drag Sunny into the same... No, that wouldn't do at all. With what she knew now, it just felt... wrong. It'd be breaking her promises to do better, to herself, to Sunny, and to their friends. That wasn't acceptable. It wouldn't be okay no matter how she tried to justify it. It'd make her apology to Sunny pretty much ring hollow, it'd be little better than lying.

And... maybe... she just didn't want to either.

It was crazy. A week ago, she would never have even thought of this. She'd been awkward and quivering with nerves just with the suggestion of putting off the recital by a day or two because of Sunny's hand injuries (even though she had meant the offer seriously nonetheless). But she wasn't the Mari of a week ago. She was the Mari of today, who was committed to cutting her practicing down to a more reasonable time, to not dragging her brother into anything he didn't want to do, and to spending more of her precious time with him and their friends whenever she could. Which meant... there was something she needed to do, and do it now, before things spiraled out of her control.

Swallowing slightly, she tried to steel herself. She had no idea how this was going to go.

"...Actually, mom... About the recital?" Mari began cautiously, her nerves causing her to drag out the words more slowly than usual. As if sensing that something was coming, perhaps from the odd shift in her daughter's demeanor, mom sat up a little higher in her chair and set down her sandwich on the table, eyes locked on Mari intently. Waiting expectantly for her to go on. Feeling rather like how she imagined a soldier would when treading through a minefield, Mari continued. "I was wondering if there was any way we could postpone rescheduling it for awhile, or maybe even... just not do it?"

.

*SQUEAK!*

The razor-sharp squealing of chair legs scraping against the floor rang out, loudly enough that Mari flinched harshly, taking all her willpower not to instinctively clamp her hands over her ears from the noise. The reason would be immediately obvious: mom had stood from the table so abruptly that it was almost impressive that she'd only scraped her chair rather than outright knocking it over.

"Excuse me?" Mom's voice slashed through the air, earning a second flinch from Mari before she could stop herself. Her mother took a moment, seemingly to steady herself, pinching her eyes shut and exhaling through her nose before she continued, walking around to stand in front of the table as she spoke. "I must have misheard you. Because it sounded to me like you were saying you didn't want to do your recital." she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

Mari could feel herself grimacing, the urge to shy away from her mother's watchful eyes growing with every moment. That was... not a good reaction. She wasn't entirely sure what she'd been expecting, but that hint of challenge in mom's voice wasn't it. Yet it was too late to back down now, wasn't it? She'd already convinced herself to do this, after all, she was committed regardless of whether it was going to be a pleasant conversation or not. (But she was suspecting not.)

"I-I don't." Mari admitted uncomfortably. Internally, she cursed herself for the stutter. If she were talking to anyone else about this, she'd be able to say it more confidently. She wasn't going to go back on this. But somehow, when it was mom, it just felt... different. Like her every word was under intense scrutiny, and giving anything less than an ideal response could spell disaster. It was almost like being back on stage during the recital again, that driving fear of mistakes pounding in the back of her mind, and even though she knew it was irrational, she just couldn't quite stop it. But she had to give it a shot anyway. "I don't want to do the recital. I don't... feel like I'm ready." she said, lamely. She knew it was a terrible excuse the moment the words formed on her tongue.

Mom scoffed. "That's not what you said after last time." she pointed out, tone somehow even less impressed than it was before. "You assured me that you had gotten it perfect in practice, remember? Or was that not true?" she asked, raising one eyebrow expectantly as she spoke.

Mari paused for a moment. Had she said that after the recital? The details of that night felt a little hazy compared to everything else that had happened this week. She couldn't fully recall everything she'd said, but... No, she must have mentioned that. Mom would have no way of knowing about her and Sunny getting the song perfectly that one time in their last-minute practice, unless one of them told her about it – and Sunny definitely had not, Mari remembered that much at least. So mom was definitely right, but... this wasn't going well, her excuse had already been flimsy enough without getting a massive hole shot in it like that.

"No, we did do that, but... that's not what I mean!" Mari said quickly, resisting the urge to cringe at what she knew must have looked like complete floundering. Why did she always feel so off-balance talking to mom anyway? "I just feel like the constant pressure with the recital and all the practicing is... too much. I wanted a break." There, that was close enough to the truth, wasn't it? It wasn't the full reason, but it wasn't exactly false either.

"A break?" Mom repeated, as if in disbelief. She stepped away from the table then, striding across the kitchen so that she was standing directly in front of Mari now. "A break is what you've had for this whole week, Mari! What you want is to just throw away this opportunity we've given you." she said, voice pitching up in audible exasperation now.

"I-"

"And what about your brother? It's his recital too." Mom kept talking, brushing right over Mari's attempt to interject. Distantly, some part of her noted that this might have been the first time she'd heard mom actually call it Sunny's recital in so many words. Usually it was acknowledged as hers or, at most, theirs. Not explicitly his. "Do you really want to ruin this for him?"

"No, that's not it either!" Mari protested, only to wince slightly at the volume of her own voice as it echoed around the kitchen. She hadn't been trying to speak that loudly, the subsequent sound taking even herself by surprise. Mom's face was difficult to read, but it definitely wasn't a pleased expression. Mari rubbed her arms uncomfortably. "Sunny doesn't like practicing either, I'm asking this for both of us." she admitted quietly. She'd been trying to avoid dragging Sunny into it like that, she didn't want to throw him under the bus. If one of them were going to get in trouble for this – which she'd known was a possibility – she'd rather it be herself any day. The whole situation was her responsibility, after all.

The look in mom's eye shifted somehow. "Ah, I see." she clicked her tongue. "So that's how it is. You came up with some harebrained scheme and now you've manipulated your brother into going along with you, is that it?"

Mari felt rather like she'd been sucker-punched in that moment.

"Manipulated!?" she repeated, aghast. She could feel her eyes going wide. Was she hearing this right? Mom, however, looked completely unswayed by her baffled response.

"You heard me. I know it isn't a very nice word, sweetie, but I don't know what else to call it!" Mom paused just long enough to exhale sharply through her nose before she continued. "Did you think I don't notice the way you cling to him? Honestly. It was cute when you were five, but when you're still dragging him around as a teenager... normal girls don't do that, Mari! You need to grow up!"

.

For the second time that day, Mari was struck silent. She honestly, genuinely had no clue how she was supposed to respond to that. How could she respond? She wanted to argue that mom was wrong, that she wasn't trying to be clingy, but...

("But you are. That's exactly the word for what you're doing, isn't it? Of course the girl who breaks down sobbing about being left alone would try to keep her brother near her. It'd be crazy to expect anything else.")

Not that she'd have much of a chance to respond anyway, since mom just kept talking, seemingly oblivious to the bombshell she'd just dropped. Or perhaps she wasn't oblivious at all – Mari's feelings were probably blatantly apparent from her face. Other people didn't have anywhere near as much trouble reading that sort of thing as she did. Her own feelings must have been far more obvious to mom than mom's were to her.

"...-f course Sunny would agree with you about the recital." Mom was saying as Mari tried to make herself focus on the words, not wanting to let herself spiral into being fully distracted. No matter how poorly this was going, and no matter the whirlwind of thoughts starting to swirl in her head to rival the storm outside, she absolutely couldn't afford to ignore mom completely. That would be unspeakably rude, and ruin any chance of salvaging this mess. If any such chance existed, which she was starting to doubt more and more with each passing second. "He'd probably agree with anything you say! You've got him wrapped right around your little finger by now, don't you?"

"That's-!" Mari tried to say, but if mom noticed her attempts to interject, she definitely didn't acknowledge them.

"Clearly I've let this go on too long without saying anything, and- And for god's sake, Mari, quit that ridiculous fidgeting with your collar and look at me when I'm talking to you!" Mom snapped.

Fidgeting? The bizarre non-sequitur was enough to slice clean through Mari's train of thought, any possible counterargument formulating in her head grinding to an abrupt halt as she tried to make sense of what mom had just said. Slowly she glanced down, and sure enough, there was her left hand clenched tightly around the collar of her shirt, the fabric balled up in her fist uncomfortably. Bizarrely, and completely inappropriately, it conjured the almost humorous image of somebody threatening to beat themselves up, complete with lifting themselves by the shirt collar. Was she going to try to steal her own lunch money next? She'd almost laugh at the mental image, if she didn't feel like laughter was the furthest thing from her mind at the moment. And... Hold on, what was that second part mom had said?

As if on cue, mom raised her hand towards Mari's face. Mari flinched, though she wasn't entirely sure why... but mom's hand simply cupped her chin, tilting her head up to make their gazes meet, mom staring down at her impatiently. Or perhaps 'down' wasn't entirely the right word – the truth of the matter was that Mari wasn't even that much shorter than her mother anymore. Only a couple inches, and Mari was still growing too. Give it another year, and she'd almost certainly be as tall, or even taller, than mom was. Yet somehow, every time she saw mom standing in front of her like this, it felt like she was being towered over, just the same as it had when she'd been much younger. She was fifteen years old, yet she felt just as small now as she did when she was five and her mom was scolding her over tracking mud into the house or not using her inside voice at the supermarket.

And having mom actually grab her chin to force her to make eye contact like that... That hadn't happened in years. Mari couldn't even remember the last time. Her face burned in embarrassment, she'd even go so far as to call it humiliation, and her first instinct was to jerk her head away and stubbornly refuse to meet her mom's eyes. But she had to shove that part of her down, knowing that it'd do her no good in the long term. Or even the short term. Even so, the feeling of mom's dark eyes boring into her, combined with the hand on her chin... There it was again, that horrible feeling of things skittering across her skin. Like someone had shoved a centipede down the back of her shirt. She still didn't even know the word to describe it. It was just... wrong. She didn't want to be here. She didn't want to be having this conversation anymore. Nothing was going the way it should today, she should've just let mom have her lunch and brought it up some other day, or... something. Anything else.

"That's better." Mom said, withdrawing her hand. Once more, Mari had to resist the urge to immediately look away again. The crawling feeling wasn't receding. "Now, what was I saying...? Oh, yes. We've let you get away with being clingy to your brother for this long, but if you're going to rope him into this sort of nonsense, then maybe it's time I had a talk with your father about separating you two. Perhaps we could move your bed and dresser into the piano room and-"

"You can't do that!" The shout tore from Mari's throat before she could stop herself. Not that she was even sure she wanted to. That wasn't fair! It wasn't Sunny's fault that she'd asked to cancel the recital. He probably wasn't even awake right now, much less aware of what was going on. And splitting up their sleeping arrangements would basically be punishing him! If he was made to stay in their room alone, who'd help him get up on time for school? Who'd comfort him when he had nightmares? The shared bedroom wasn't really for Mari's benefit, it never had been. She liked it, sure, but it wasn't set up like that for her sake. So why? Why would mom even think of that?

She realized her error a moment too late when she saw mom's face reddening. Before Mari could think to react, her mother was stepping forwards, hand lashing out, and for just a second... Mari thought she was about to get hit again.

.

But instead, mom seized her by the arm, pushing her back angrily so that she was forced to back up towards the countertop, her mother looming over her while holding her arm tightly to keep her from trying to slip away. A small cry rasped from Mari's mouth as her back hit the hard edge of the countertop, sending an unpleasant jolt up her spine.

"Do not shout at me, young lady!" mom snapped, her agitation sharp enough to silence Mari's train of thought for a second. "I am your mother, and you will respect what I say! Do you understand me!?" The grip around Mari's arm tightened with each word, and she felt mom's fingernails pressing against her skin. The same immaculate nails that had been tapping so gratingly against the table before. It had only been a few minutes, yet somehow it felt like hours. Even with the long-sleeved shirt she was wearing, her mom's nails were sharp, and Mari could feel them poking hard against her skin. So hard that it made it difficult to focus on anything else, even.

"Mom... Please let go." she tried to ask, squirming a little to try to loosen her mother's grip a little, though with how close mom was standing, she had very little leverage.

Mom, however, didn't even seem to hear her. "I don't know what your problem is today, sweetheart... And I don't really care! I've had enough of you causing trouble for one month, thank you. So you can take whatever ridiculous plan you've come up with, and just forget it!" she ranted. Her grip on Mari's arm only seemed to tighten further.

"Mom, let go!" Mari tried again, flinching as the feeling of the fingernails against her skin intensified. It was... so hard to think about anything else right now. What was mom even saying? What were they talking about again? Mari's blood was pounding in her ears. She just wanted her mom to let go. She just wanted this to stop. But once again, she was ignored.

"So I'm going to tell you what's going to happen: you're going to be quiet for the rest of the day, understand? You're going to go to the piano room, and you're going to practice for your recital, and you are not going to do any more of this silly whining about it! And when your father gets home, we're all going to have a talk!"

But mom's demand might as well have fallen on deaf ears.

"Mom, let go! Let go!" Mari gasped, her protests growing increasingly desperate. Mom's grip wasn't just uncomfortable now, it had crossed the line into outright painful, clearing every other thought from Mari's head. The fingernails... they might as well have been actual nails with the way they were being driven into her arm. They- oh god, Mari could swear she could feel her skin almost splitting beneath the deathgrip it was in. She felt like she was going to be sick. She wanted this to stop. "Let go, you're hurting me!" she cried, the corners of her eyes burning.

"Be quiet!" Mom snapped back even louder, her glare practically blazing for a moment before she visibly reined herself in. "Do you think I like having to do this, Mari!? These things wouldn't need to happen if you could just behave for once in your life! You're the one making things painful on yourself, sweetie! All you have to do is just stop throwing tantrums and think about someone other than you! I'm sick of coddling you and-"

"LET GO!"

The scream echoed deafeningly around the kitchen. But Mari didn't stop there, already in motion. The only thing she could process right then was that she needed the hand on her arm, the nails digging into her, to let go. She couldn't see anything or hear anything or think anything else. And there was one way she knew for sure to make somebody back off. If you asked her later, she wouldn't even be able to tell you why it was her instinctive reaction. But she was taking a page out of Aubrey's playbook.

Before Mari knew it, she was slamming her head forwards with all of her might, her skull crashing hard into something that – in hindsight – could only be her mother's face.

A pained breath echoed from somewhere in front of her, the presence looming over her backing away, and... at last, mercifully, the claws clenched around her arm released. Mari's other hand came up, rubbing at the place where the vicious talons had been, even as she blinked to try and clear the dizziness from the headbutt.

.

.

And then a wave of cold dread washed over her as it started to dawn on her what she'd just done.

Slowly, Mari looked up, seeing her mother reeling in front of her, one hand cupped over her nose. A small hint of something red glinted in the light beneath the fingers. She'd just... she'd just slammed her skull into her mom's nose.

She'd made a horrible mistake.

As mom straightened herself back up, her eyes locked on Mari, and the expression she made then... All Mari could do was freeze. She had never seen a look like that in anybody's eyes. Never. Not even her own self-loathing stare in the bathroom mirror could compare to this... whatever this was. It shouldn't be like that. Mom shouldn't look at her like that. It was wrong. Just wrong.

Slowly, mom lowered her hand, letting Mari see the thin trickle of what was undeniably blood trailing from one of her nostrils.

Cold. Mari felt cold. She didn't want to be here.

"I have had... Just about... ENOUGH OF YOU!" Mom's composure finally shattered completely, her furious shout barreling into Mari like a freight train and sweeping her breath away.

"IS THIS SOME KIND OF GAME TO YOU!? DO YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY!?" Mom all-but-roared. Mari didn't want to be here. "WELL I'M NOT LAUGHING, MARI! I AM SICK AND TIRED OF DEALING WITH THIS!"

"I d-don't-"

"SHUT! UP!" Mom cut her off, her hands curling angrily at her sides. Her normally-perfectly-styled hair seemed like it was starting to become frazzled from stress, a few strands sticking out wildly. Suddenly, instead of her composed and professional career woman mother, for a second Mari almost thought she was looking at... someone else.

"Every single day, you're like this! Always demanding the stupidest little things, and changing your mind, and whining about nothing, and refusing to just BEHAVE! For the last time, you are not FIVE YEARS OLD, so stop acting like it! Jesus CHRIST! Would it kill you to PRETEND to act your age for... for five minutes!? Can you do that for me!? It's so goddamned embarrassing when you're like this! Do you have any IDEA how bad you make me look in front of our neighbors? DO YOU EVEN CARE!?"

"I-" But Mari stopped herself this time, not knowing what to say. She didn't want to be here.

"Oh, what am I saying, OF COURSE YOU DON'T! Mari doesn't care about anything but MARI! Couldn't you at least ACT like you love me!?"

Mari thought she heard something crack. Something that echoed deep inside her chest.

"...I do love you..." she managed to get out, voice barely above a whisper.

"I said be QUIET! If you really loved me, you'd do what I say instead of following your own stupid whims like a spoiled little brat! But you can't even do that, can you!?"

Another crack. Mari's chest hurt.

"I-I don't understand why you're being like this! I just wanted to-"

*WHAM!*

Stars exploded across Mari's vision, blinding her for a moment as her head snapped to the side. A sharp, agonizingly familiar pain blazed across her cheek, and she didn't even need to see mom's raised hand to know why. Another smack. But as she blinked at her mother, trying to clear the ringing from her head-

*WHAM!*

-A second blow struck, crashing into her skull like a hammer. This one hit higher, battering her across the brow and right over her right eye. Staggering backwards, only Mari's hand catching the counter managed to keep her standing. She cringed on instinct, nearly doubling over as she cupped the other hand over her eye. Not that it mattered, since in that moment, the only thing she could see was pure white. She thought – perhaps even hoped – that somehow the strike had blinded and deafened her. But no, soon enough her senses started to return, the room seeming to spin woozily as it came back into view. Everything around her was shaking, or... or was that her? She pushed her hand against the counter trying, trying to stand up straight. And mom-

"I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU WANT!" Mom screamed at her, one hand coming up to pull at her hair in anger. "NOBODY CARES ABOUT WHATEVER ROTTEN LITTLE THOUGHTS POP INTO YOUR HEAD, OKAY!? THIS ISN'T! ABOUT! YOU!" It barely even seemed like she was looking at Mari now, hateful eyes staring past her as if hardly seeing her. Or maybe, just seeing whatever they wanted to see. "WHAT ABOUT WHAT I WANTED!? DID YOU EVER THINK ABOUT THAT!? I WANTED A NICE, NORMAL DAUGHTER... A DAUGHTER WHO'S NOT SOME AUTISTIC FREAK!"

Something in Mari's chest felt like it shattered.

This couldn't be real. It had to be a nightmare. It had to be. She had to wake up. She had to get out. She had to get out. She had to get out get out get out GET OUT!

Before Mari knew it, her legs were moving. Her arms coming up to shove mom out of her way. Her feet pounded against the floor, carrying her out of the kitchen and into the living room.

"What the-! Where do you think you're going!? Get back here, Mari, we're not-!"

But Mari ignored the words, her legs simply moving, the edges of the living room rug kicked up as she crossed it.

She had to get out.

Arms scrabbled in front of her, finding a knob.

The door was thrown open.

The patter of pouring rain met her.

Her legs kept going.

Carrying her out the door.

Uncaring of the droplets pounding against her shoulders.

She had to get out.

Mom's voice was screaming something behind her.

Screaming at her to stop.

Mari didn't stop.

Chapter Text

Feet pounded against the ground, splashing puddles licking at her heels as she tore through them, cold water soaking into her socks with each step. Not that it particularly mattered, since she was already drenched from head to toe, the ferocious downpour that had been assailing the town all day not letting up in the slightest, even as she sprinted through it with nothing but her clothes to shield her. But Mari didn't care. She just ran. Ran, and ran, and ran. She had no clue where she was going, the world looked like nothing but a blur of vague colors and shapes around her as it passed by. Perhaps she was running so fast her vision couldn't keep up. Or maybe the rain had gotten into her eye. Maybe it was tears. She didn't know. The only reason she even recognized that she was going anywhere at all, and not just running endlessly into nowhere, was the feeling of the ground she was running on changing under her feet. Sidewalk at first, then asphalt (crossing roads?), and then eventually grass and dirt.

Not that she especially cared about destination at the moment anyway. She wasn't running because she wanted to be somewhere. She didn't really want much of anything right now. She couldn't focus on anything or anywhere enough to want it. It wasn't like she'd had any real plan for what she was doing. Or even much of a faint idea, to be honest. There hadn't been any time for planning or thinking things through, and even if there were, she almost certainly wouldn't have been able to make herself do it. The only reason she ran was to get away. To get out. She had to get out. She had to get out. That was the only thing going through her head – or at least, the only thing she would allow herself to recognize. So she just ran.

She was so completely absorbed in her sprint, her mind so completely blanked of anything else, that for a minute she even forgot about her bad knee. But it certainly wasn't going to wait for her to remember it. The pain began subtly, small twinges in her knee, so minor that they could easily be ignored. But it rapidly escalated, from twinges to jabbing needles to pounding thrums. Soon, every strike of her heel against the ground had become the catalyst for a sharp jolt to travel up her leg and grind its way against her knee.

Mari should have recognized the warning signs. She should have known what would happen if she kept going. She should have known to stop. And maybe on some level she did know. But she couldn't stop. She couldn't, she couldn't, she couldn't. She had to keep running. She still didn't know where she was running to, or why, but she had to keep running. She had to. And so she ran.

.

.

Until she didn't.

Distantly, she became aware of the consistency of the ground beneath her feet seeming to change again, the grass she was tromping through growing thicker, long blades brushing around her feet at each step. Whatever place she had reached must have been just a little wilder, somewhere a little more out-of-the-way where the landscaping wasn't maintained as carefully as the parts she'd been passing through previously. Under normal circumstances, the difference wouldn't be that significant – the longer grass was enough to be noticeable underfoot, sure, but that should've been the extent of it. It shouldn't have been nearly enough to really impede movement. Even a very young child would normally be able to walk across it with no issue, let alone a fairly tall teenager. But Mari's specific limitations weren't entirely normal. And this time, it seemed that the slight shift in terrain was just enough to be the very last straw for her knee.

Abruptly, without any further warning than the pain that already assailed her, Mari's foot struck the ground... and then her leg was on fire. Blazing magma surged through her veins and across the vengeful limb, the edges of her vision encroaching in black, as if scorched from its heat. Some kind of gasping, strangled screaming noise echoed through the space around her... Who could that have come from? It didn't matter. The crumbling molten spire she called her leg couldn't endure the impact with the grassy soil, and Mari felt herself tumbling, the blurry world around her seemingly upended in the blink of an eye. And before she could so much as consider trying to catch herself, or throw her arms out as a cushion, or even do anything... the ground rose up to meet her.

And then the blackness filling her vision overtook her completely.

.

.

.

.

.

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("Get up.")

Blearily, Mari slowly opened her eyes... or rather, one of her eyes. The left, specifically. Trying to open her right eye along with it only sent a throb of dull pain across her face, enough to make her body twitch in an instinctual flinch, wanting to shield her face and just curl in on herself where she lay. Now that she'd noticed it, the entire right side of her face felt tender and heavy, sensitive pressure squeezing faintly – but noticeably – around her eye socket. She knew this feeling, having felt the very same thing across her cheek earlier in the week. The swelling of a forming bruise. Only this time, it surrounded her eye, swollen such that it was keeping the eyelid shut. That... that probably wasn't good, but... she couldn't quite bring herself to worry about it when she didn't even know what was going on.

She'd have to make do with her left eye for now. Blinking said eye to try to refocus, she gradually became aware of the world around her once more. At first, the only thing that greeted her was a blur of green and brown, but... oh, that was just grass and dirt. It still took her a few moments to make sense of that, her train of thought needing a second to really catch up with where she was. She'd fallen over, and her head was laying on the ground, that was why her vision was nothing but the earth. That made sense. Rain continued to patter around her, but the sound was different now. Slightly muffled, and accompanied by an undertone of rustling... like it was cascading down through the leaves of trees around her before it could reach the ground. Had she made her way to some sort of wooded area? Mari frowned to herself in slight confusion – she definitely hadn't been planning on running off into the woods, nor did she remember doing so. Though, given her near-total lack of awareness of the world until just this moment, maybe that shouldn't have surprised her.

Had she really just blacked out? And... for how long? It couldn't have been for too long, she didn't think... it still looked about as light out as it had earlier, at least, though that wasn't saying much. And she didn't feel stiff in the way she was sure she would if she'd been laying on the ground for hours on end. Swollen eye notwithstanding. (Not to mention she probably wouldn't wake up so easily. If someone passed out for that long without being sedated, they probably had much bigger problems than just a terrible day and a bad knee.) But even so, while that narrowed it down a little, it didn't tell her enough. It could have been a few seconds or several minutes and she'd have absolutely no way of telling the difference. If only she still had that watch, the one she'd lost in the lake... Though since she couldn't know precisely what time she'd gotten here, maybe that wouldn't help either.

("Quit just laying in the mud and get up , what's wrong with you?")

Slowly, a long groan rumbling its way roughly out of her throat, she pushed herself up with her hands, raising her head to look around. Even that simple motion was enough to remind her body of the situation it was in, it seemed, as a wave of dizziness suddenly crashed into her. Her vision swam in her one good eye and a burning feeling spread across her lungs. Not violently protesting her actions in the way her bad knee did, but more like... a sputtering flame grasping for every bit of fuel around to keep itself going. A clinging, needy sort of feeling. She abruptly recalled that she had been sprinting for an unknown length of time – she needed to breathe! Mari immediately broke out into a series of heavy, gasping breaths, nearly slipping into outright hyperventilating before she managed to recall her old athletic habits and regain control of her rhythm. Even still, she ended up inhaling a few droplets of the falling rain, leaving her coughing and wheezing for a moment, lowering her head again to let the top of her skull shield her face from further rain.

All Mari could do was try to catch her breath for a long few moments. She knew she wouldn't be moving any more until she did. Which meant there was nothing she could do but think. Staring down at her hands pressing into the dirt to prop herself up, her mind swirled violently as the reality of the situation became clearer. A maelstrom that threatened to overtake her and wash out all other thoughts in a panic once more if she let it, and- no. No, breathe. She needed to breathe. Deep breaths, in through the nose and out through the mouth. But even if she could do that, it didn't change her situation. Here she was: splayed out on the ground, only her pale hands propping her up, fingers pressing into the soil beneath the grass from her weight. She was sure she'd be picking out grains of dirt from her fingernails for weeks.

("That's really the ridiculous problem you're focused on right now? You have to know that's completely inane.")

It was inane. Didn't mean she was any happier about it.

But it wasn't just her hands, of course. Running out into the pouring rain without an umbrella, well... it had clearly ended up exactly how you'd expect. Her clothes were absolutely soaked, sopping wet and sticking to her skin like she'd dived into a swimming pool fully dressed. Her hair, too, was much the same: jet black strands completely sodden and bedraggled, much of it clinging to her back, with a few errant strands dangling in front of her forehead. Who knew how much brushing it would take to untangle now? Worse still, she was utterly filthy now, enormous splotches of mud and flecks of grass spattered across her clothes from the fall. Her red skirt was so stained that it may very well have been ruined for good. The white blouse that accompanied it almost certainly was. She'd actually liked these clothes too, the fabric was comfortable and the style was simple but in a way she had thought was cute.

A chill ran down her spine as she realized it was worse than just some mud, though. As she stared down at her arms supporting her... it didn't take long to notice the dark red stain across her left sleeve. It was blotchy around the edges, mingling in with the rain that soaked the rest of her clothes, but still undeniably there. Mari knew exactly what that was. Unless she'd miraculously landed right on top of a palette of red paint without realizing – and she hadn't, obviously – there was only one thing that smear could be. Blood, oozing through her sleeve from... from something.

Mari's stomach lurched and the vision in her eye seemed to waver again, causing her to clench it shut on instinct, the tensing of her face eliciting a twinge from the bruised side once more. What in the world was that? The second she'd registered the blood, it was like- It felt like a hand had just squeezed around her guts, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to be sudden and uncomfortable. Almost warning. Her throat was dry, her arms quivering a little as they supported her. What was happening? She wasn't afraid of blood, she was quite sure that she wasn't. She wasn't. So why was she reacting like this to seeing it? Why was it that just thinking about her own blood, let alone glimpsing it, made her feel so nauseous? What had changed? The first time she could remember ever feeling like this had been... had been when Sunny had found her in the bathroom earlier this week. But that wasn't the same thing at all! She'd... done that to herself. So why was it bothering her now? It didn't make sense.

Taking another deep breath – slower than the ones she'd been heaving in a couple minutes ago – she tried to calm herself. She couldn't stay here like this forever, so she'd just have to power through this... whatever it was. (Because it still couldn't be fear. She wasn't afraid of blood.) Fortunately, if nothing else, powering through things was something she could definitely do. Swallowing her discomfort and forging ahead was pretty much just standard procedure at this point, so no reason she shouldn't be able to manage it now, right? Slowly, she opened her eye again, and thankfully, the ground before her didn't look like it was wavering anymore. That was good enough for now. Mari could work with that. Her stomach still squirmed a little from eyeing the stain on her sleeve, but surely it wasn't anything she couldn't handle. She'd dealt with sensations far less pleasant than this.

But if she was going to deal with the matter of her arm, then the first order of business was moving to a more reasonable position to examine it, right? She'd been hunched over here on the grass for more than long enough to catch her breath, so it was time she actually sat down properly instead of laying on the ground like a toddler. That made sense, didn't it? To that end, Mari gradually went to lift herself up, shifting to sit up, when-

Pain

-A gasp tore from her throat, her sight flaring pure searing white for a moment as a lance of fire ran up her knee. The very moment she'd tried to bend it, it reminded her of exactly why she'd collapsed in the first place. The corners of her eyes burned, tears threatening to well up before she could stop them – which, in turn, only made her face throb painfully as well, her bruised eye socket not appreciating the disturbance in the slightest. Blinking furiously, Mari slowly regained her sight once more... and saw that somehow, without even noticing it, she'd curled in on herself slightly out of instinct when the spike of pain hit. But at least it was only a singular spike. Now that she'd stopped trying to move her leg and let it go still, it didn't take too long for it to recede. But now she was distinctly aware that it was there, a faint crackling at the back of her mind that threatened to flare up into a molten inferno again if she provoked it. Mari couldn't help the groan that escaped her then, feeling almost tired for a moment. Message received: if she tried to bend her knee right now, only more pain awaited her.

("You really should've seen that coming.")

...Well, there was nothing for it now but to find a plan B, she supposed. She couldn't just will her bad leg to stop being awful, if that were possible Mari would've done it ages ago. She swallowed slightly to steel herself. If sitting up that way wasn't an option... then standing definitely wasn't, so the only other thing she could think of was to crawl over to the nearest tree and use that to prop herself up, all while trying to avoid agitating her leg as much as possible. It was not a good plan, she was fully aware of that. But until her knee recovered enough to actually move around, what else could she do? Staying here laying in the grass, rain constantly pattering down upon her, wasn't a tenable situation. It just wasn't. She really, really didn't like being soaked through with cold water and mud like this, it was an extremely unpleasant sensation that she was trying her hardest to ignore so she could deal with the other problems at hand. She couldn't stay here forever, nor would she even want to... but she didn't know what else to do besides sit back, figure out what was going on with her arm, and then... try to come up with something to do from there.

Mari glanced towards the closest tree in her peripheral vision, a fairly large oak with branches casting a dark shadow around its base. Maybe, if nothing else, its canopy would be dense enough to block a little rain. Not that it'd matter too much given that she already looked and felt like she'd been dredged up from the bottom of the ocean, but... Well, the cascading droplets upon her back were starting to get just the tiniest bit bothersome, not outright annoying, but just present enough to be constantly noticeable, like an itch at the back of her mind. So alleviating them a little would, technically speaking, be an improvement in her circumstances. And considering the situation she was in, she would genuinely take even the slightest point in her favor right now.

So, with no other good options coming to mind, Mari groaned to herself once more, and started to crawl. She was so, so glad right then that she had fairly strong arms. With one of her legs shot, they had to pick up most of the slack here. Even so, however, that didn't make dragging herself along a pleasant or easy experience, quite the opposite. Every few inches forwards was a struggle. Her lungs, still worn out from being put through the long sprint, started to burn as she exerted herself once more. Her face scrunched up unconsciously in effort, sending unpleasant jabbing thrums across her fresh new bruises. Pained hisses escaped her with every small rock or grassy bump her bad knee bumped across, even as she tried to hold it as gingerly as possible while she moved. Yet she knew that giving up would just put her right back at square one, and thus she persevered.

If there was one thing, one thing Mari was good at, it was stubbornly powering through things. So she crawled.

From the outside, it would probably look bizarrely like reenacting a scene from some military movie. She wasn't even sure why the thought occurred to her – she didn't even like watching those sorts of things – but once it did, she couldn't deny it. The rugged, battle-worn protagonist determinedly crawling their way through the muddy battlefield just like they'd done back in boot camp. Only rather than a rough-and-tumble war hero trying to get themself and their buddies out of the warzone alive... she was just some random teenager with a bad leg, and her situation now was pretty much her own fault. She should have known perfectly well that she couldn't run, that her knee couldn't handle it. That put a bit of a damper on the dramatic image.

("At least those movies are supposed to create a striking effect. Honestly, you'd probably look more pathetic than anything.")

After what felt like an eternity of dragging herself along – though in reality it couldn't have been much longer than a minute or so, stretched out agonizingly slowly by her imagination – Mari finally reached the tree. Even such a short journey left her panting for breath, leaning her head against the solid trunk for a moment and closing her eye. Honestly, for just a second, she almost wished she could doze off then and there, uncaring of the fact that hard tree roots would be serving as her pillow. Sleeping in odd places was usually more Sunny's thing, but... well, if he ever felt exhausted like this when doing it, perhaps she was starting to see the appeal. But no. She couldn't do that. Falling asleep here and now, in this weather, was a horrible idea for numerous reasons, and she knew that perfectly well. Had Sunny ever done such a thing, she certainly would've woken him and made sure to get him home safely before doing anything else. She didn't even know why she'd ever consider such a stupid idea.

Opening her eye once more, Mari braced herself against the tree to pull herself up into a sitting position at last, resting her back against the trunk while keeping her legs outstretched in front of her. If it weren't for the raging storm and her disheveled state, it could've been an almost normal scene, Mari sitting to relax under a tree after a long day... such a thing had happened many times before with Sunny and their friends at the park. Only today was far from normal. ...It was funny that she'd thought of the park, though. Now that she was finally sitting up instead of splayed out on the ground, she could actually look around properly and get a better grasp of where she was... and she recognized it immediately. She knew this place intimately – though she didn't have the faintest idea why her legs would have carried her here in her blind dash. It was somewhere she had promised herself she wouldn't go near again, couldn't risk going near again, after a certain incident. Her and her friends' old hangout spot, the hidden lake tucked away in the woods of the park.

From where she was sitting now, she was right on the edge of the clearing proper, the lake itself visible a ways up ahead, old statue on the tiny island and all. She could just about imagine the exact place where she used to like spreading out her favorite picnic blanket, a good spot just southwest of the lakeshore. From there she had a good vantage of the whole area, able to easily keep an eye on anything the group might've been doing, even if she couldn't participate due to her knee. Actually... that very fact had ended up being more important than Mari ever could've imagined (or ever would've wanted to). Because the day Sunny had almost drowned, she was in the perfect position where she could see him fall, and close enough to the waterline to be able to go in after him immediately. Knowing that it could very well have come down to sheer dumb luck in where she'd set up the picnic, well... there were reasons why she'd demanded they stop coming here. Pushy and unfair though it may have been.

But here she was now, leaning back against a tree looking out over the clearing. Did that make her a hypocrite?

Unconsciously, Mari went to wrap her arms around herself, shivering a little from cold – she was soaking wet, after all – only to wince as a prickle of pain ran up her left arm, reminding her of part of why she'd gone through all that effort in the first place. The bloodstain on her sleeve. Examining it while still being rained on wasn't exactly the most hygienic idea, but... she was already drenched and had been for who knows how long. A few more droplets wouldn't hurt whatever injury she had, not any worse than the thoroughly mud-and-rain soaked shirt could have already done. Her mouth curling into a small frown, she looked down at her arm and- And there was that squeezing feeling around her stomach again the second she looked at the stain, her train of thought stuttering abruptly at the sight. What was happening? This shouldn't bother her. She needed to just get over whatever fake problem that was and just devote her attention to dealing with the current situation. Gritting her teeth to force herself to focus, Mari slowly rolled up her sleeve.

The sight that greeted her was a bit of an odd one. Rather than a singular cut or scrape, there were multiple smaller ones, Mari counted no less than five thin red lines standing out starkly against her pallid skin. She supposed the trickles of blood drawn from each one must have mingled together with the rain to form a single smeared splotch on her sleeve. The shape of the cuts was odd too, slightly curved like thin gouges taken out of her skin... If she had to compare it to anything, it wasn't too different from the time Mewo had gotten spooked while resting on Mari's lap and clawed up her thigh. But these looked deeper, too long to have come from a teeny tiny kitten's claws. (And of course, she obviously would've noticed if a cat had decided to use her arm as a scratching post. Even with her shoddy memory, that was the sort of thing that tended to stick in one's mind.)

If anything, from the shape of the marks, the fact there were five of them, and the way they were arrayed, she would almost say they looked more like-

Mari froze. Had there been anyone around to see her, she was sure they would have witnessed her face going pale (or... paler), as she could practically feel the color drain from her cheeks. Nausea churned in her gut and swirled at the edges of her vision, and for just a second she thought she was going to be sick. Maybe on some level she even wished she would be, because at least that would be a clear and tangible problem she could deal with, instead of this dizzying feeling of... she didn't even know what to call it. Dread? But she did know exactly what those marks were.

("Let go, you're hurting me!")

She couldn't believe she'd actually let that slip her mind. Had she really been so out-of-it from waking up here that she wouldn't remember that instantly? ...Or maybe she'd thrown herself into dealing with the current situation and shut out everything else so she wouldn't have to remember. Not that it mattered. There was no denying it now, the truth wasn't something you could shove in a box and bury in a closet. Not forever. Even if sometimes Mari really understood the urge to try.

Fingernails. The cuts could only have been from her mom's perfect manicure clenched around her arm... Mari had thought she was being melodramatic when her mind had conjured images of her skin splitting beneath the grip. It had hurt, absolutely, but she'd assumed her imagination was running wild with panic due to how oversensitive she could be to unpleasant touch. Something as simple as a scratchy sweater felt like needles brushing over her skin, so of course a painful clawing sensation would be similarly exaggerated, right? ...But no. No, there the cuts were clear as day, five gouges deep enough to draw blood. That was real. That had happened. Mom had done that to her, mom had grabbed Mari's arm tight enough to hurt. And with what she'd had to say to Mari's protests...

( "Be quiet! Do you think I like having to do this, Mari!? These things wouldn't need to happen if you could just behave for once in your life!" )

...She'd known she was hurting Mari and she wouldn't stop, saying she had to do it, that it needed to happen. This wasn't like earlier in the week when mom had hit her. That had felt... horrible too, but... it could've just been the heat of the moment, right? Sunny had hit Mari before too. And Mari herself headbutted mom. Reflexively striking out when you were panicked or upset was just something that could happen, Mari understood. But this... This wasn't like that. It was... mom'd known. Mom'd known. That wasn't a reflex, it couldn't be. Mom had done it on purpose... or, if not completely on purpose, then at least not caring about the consequences despite being aware of what she was doing. And that distinction was so pedantic as to pretty much not matter.

But why? Why would she-

(" I have had... Just about... ENOUGH OF YOU!"

"Every single day, you're like this! Always demanding the stupidest little things, and changing your mind, and whining about nothing, and refusing to just BEHAVE!"

"It's so goddamned embarrassing when you're like this! Do you have any IDEA how bad you make me look in front of our neighbors?" )

.

Mari felt like something massive had struck her hard in the chest with the speed of a train, the impact crushing her chest hard enough to force the air from her lungs. A choked cry bubbled up from her throat before she could even think about trying to stop it, the wet sound almost lost among the pattering rain against the leaves above her. The memory of mom's furious words washed over her, the screaming voice deafeningly loud in her mind's playback. Mari's hands clamped across her ears on instinct, desperate to block the sound out... even as she knew on some level that there was no such sound, that it was simply her brain conjuring false sensations to go with what she recalled.

Mom... mom's anger wasn't just some... momentary thing. Those words didn't sound like mom was just having a bad day, or that she was understandably frustrated with Mari for some obvious mistake. Those were sensible, straightforward reasons that Mari could grasp, reasons that she'd have no cause to question and no cause to be upset over in the long run. Sure, it could be hurtful in the moment, but if there was a simple situational reason for it, then that was normal, right? Everyone got frustrated from time to time, even people as kind as Sunny or Basil, that wasn't something Mari would blame anyone for. But the way mom spoke...

( "Couldn't you at least ACT like you love me!?"

"If you really loved me, you'd do what I say instead of following your own stupid whims like a spoiled little brat! But you can't even do that, can you!?" )

Mari's eyes were burning again. But it wasn't from the pain in her knee this time. Tears welled up with nothing to stop them, their heat stinging against her black eye as they rolled from the corners of her eyes and mingled with the rain that soaked her cheeks. To an outsider, her crying wouldn't even be visible, but Mari felt every boiling droplet one by one.

Of course she loved mom. How could anyone... even say that? Mari had always loved her family, more than anything in the whole world. She loved her family and she loved her friends, and as long as they were around, she was happy. That was enough for her. She wasn't the type of person who wanted to be rich or famous or powerful. She just wanted the people she loved to be around her, and she didn't want them to leave her alone.

She would've done anything for them. Anything. And it all would cost was their love. Was that really so much to ask?

And mom was a part of that. Mom worked hard to move up in her career and support their family. Mari had always respected her for that, always understood why she was away from home so often to work. Mom had been the most vocal supporter of Mari joining the softball team – sports scholarships could be a good and respectable pathway to the future, she'd always said. Mari knew that the accident had let her down badly... the guilt from it still struck her, sometimes. But rather than giving up on Mari, mom had again been the one pushing forward, encouraging Mari to hone her talent for the piano. Dad had done that too, of course, but mom had always been the more forward-thinking with it. Mari doing public recitals had been mom's idea initially, before Sunny and the violin had even gotten involved. They'd all heard the famous success stories of teen musical prodigies... mom wanted her to look perfect up there, sound perfect up there, so people would notice. It would be good for Mari's future, she'd said.

So of course Mari had never doubted that mom loved her too. Sure, they didn't talk very often about things that weren't school or piano practice. Sure, mom was usually the first to scold her when things went wrong. But Mari understood. She wasn't an easy person to deal with sometimes. With the way that she was... Being her parent must have been stressful. She'd made things so difficult for Sunny without even realizing, and he didn't have to take care of her. (If anything, she preferred to take care of him. It was the least a big sister could do.) Mom had the herculean task of actually raising her, so of course she'd need to be strict or stern sometimes. She would still love Mari though, and Mari loved her.

Except-

("I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU WANT!")

-except she didn't.

Mom didn't act like she loved Mari then.

She didn't even act like she liked her then.

("NOBODY CARES ABOUT WHATEVER ROTTEN LITTLE THOUGHTS POP INTO YOUR HEAD, OKAY!? THIS ISN'T! ABOUT! YOU!")

She acted like she couldn't stand her.

She acted like...

("I WANTED A NICE, NORMAL DAUGHTER... A DAUGHTER WHO'S NOT SOME AUTISTIC FREAK!")

.

.

She hated her.

Mom hated her.

The thought was sickening. It was all wrong.

But she couldn't deny it.

Mari's chest ached. It felt like- It felt like there was a hole. Something or someone had just... punched right through her. Like a bullet through a pane of glass, or a boulder into a frozen lake. A gaping hole with fractured shards crumbling inwards. It was right where her heart should be, her pounding blood streaming into the black abyss, the jagged edges of the hole slicing into the flesh around them.

Except nothing was there. Nothing was wrong with her. But it was all wrong.

Mom hated her.

Mari loved mom, and mom hated her.

Because she was autistic.

But that wasn't new. Mari had always been autistic, it was something you were born with. There had never been a day on earth that she hadn't been autistic. And they knew that. They all knew that. Mari, her whole family, all her friends, and even random people in town. People knew.

Nobody needed to tell her that she was broken. That wasn't a surprise. She'd known that since she was three.

That was why it was so important that she try to act normal. She wanted to be normal. Because Sunny was born when she was three, too. She needed to be the best big sister ever for him, that was what she'd promised herself. And she tried. She had worked so hard to be a good sibling to him. She hadn't always succeeded. Maybe she'd even failed more than she'd done it right. But she still worked at it because she loved him.

But mom knew what was going on. And mom hated her.

Why?

Mari's lungs were burning, her chest heaving as she hunched in on herself.

She knew she was born wrong. She knew she couldn't be normal. But she still worked hard. She still tried and she still cared and she still loved people.

Why wasn't that good enough? Why was she never good enough?

Her lungs screamed. Breathe. She needed to breathe!

But she couldn't. Her nose flared and her mouth gasped and she was trying- trying to pull in as much air as possible but she couldn't- It was like something was blocking her airways, like someone had shoved a rock down her throat and she couldn't get it- she couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe!

Hands scrabbled at her throat. Too much too much too much too much too much too much too much too much too much make it stop

She scrambled back wildly, kicking desperately against the dirt, ignoring the pain in her knee with each flail. Her head struck the trunk of the tree, but she barely noticed.

Make it stop. Make it stop. Please make it stop. She was crying, choking. Her face hurt. Her arm hurt. Her eye hurt. Her leg hurt. Her heart hurt. She hurt.

The world was spinning. Black bloomed across her vision. A void opening up beneath her. A bottomless pit swallowing her whole before she could move. The abyss was closing in around her. She was dizzy. She was tired. She didn't want to be here. Didn't want this. It was all wrong. And for the second time that day, Mari's world was dark, and she saw no more.

Chapter Text

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The girl was three years old when her little brother was born. She couldn't remember almost anything from the days leading up to then, but the day of his birth itself? That was going to be engraved in her mind forever, she was sure. It had started out not too differently from any other day. Maybe a little unusual, since daddy had decided to stay home from work to keep an eye on mommy. Just in case. Apparently, the girl herself hadn't been "easy" when she was born – whatever that meant – so they weren't going to take any chances with her baby brother whenever he decided to come. And that could be really soon, they said, since mommy's belly had gotten extremely large, so much that she was having trouble getting up and walking around. All the more reason for another adult like daddy to be there with her at all times. Not that the girl necessarily understood the reasoning fully at the time – if mommy and daddy said they needed to, then that was really more than enough – but looking back on it when she was older, it made sense.

Their caution ended up being justified. The girl wasn't entirely sure what all had caused it, she'd been in her bedroom by herself (ostensibly she was supposed to be taking a nap, though in reality she was just sitting on her bed, unable to sleep). But then suddenly mommy and daddy were shouting from another room, and before the girl could even try to figure out what was going on, daddy was sweeping her out of the apartment and into the car along with a frantic, heavily-breathing mommy. Then they were on their way just as quickly. The girl, of course, didn't really understand what was happening and didn't know how to make sense of it. Nor did she know how to ask. Oh, she knew how to talk, of course; nobody would call her talkative exactly, and she'd maybe even started a bit later than some other little kids in the apartment block, but she knew pretty well by now how to use words and ask for things. But this situation was so far outside what she was familiar with that she couldn't think of what to say.

Fortunately, daddy seemed to understand her confusion, because he told her: they were going to the hospital because her brother was on his way right now.

Things were sort of a blur from that point on. Everything was so hectic, both the drive itself and even more so after they actually got to the hospital. There was so much rushing around, mommy being ushered away by doctors and nurses, and daddy asking a million questions... so nobody really had much time to stop and explain any more to the girl. She couldn't really make any sense of it at the time. Honestly, in hindsight, she was almost impressed with herself that she was able to stay mostly calm. Or, well, relatively calm, anyway. She didn't get so stressed out that she started crying despite how overwhelming the situation was, so that was something she could look back on proudly, right? This wasn't to say that she was actually calm by other metrics, though. As she and daddy retreated to the hospital waiting room, the girl was struggling to stay still, almost vibrating out of her seat when daddy tried to get her to sit in one of the cheap plastic chairs. Her hands were shaking and her eyes darted around the room constantly, her brain repeating the words over and over: her little brother would be here soon.

Though, after what seemed like an agonizingly long time – hours or days or years, the girl couldn't tell the difference – eventually a doctor approached daddy, and after a few hurried words that went over the girl's head, daddy was ushering her down the hall and into the room where mommy was supposed to be. And sure enough, laying there in the bed was mommy, and bundled up in her arms was-

The girl froze in the doorway of the hospital room, her eyes locked on the baby mommy was holding. The baby that could only be her brother. He was- He was so small. She knew babies were supposed to be small, of course. But he was so tiny it was almost unbelievable. The girl remembered being shown pictures of herself when she'd just been born, and while she had obviously been little, she was absolutely certain that she hadn't been that little. She was sort of surprised by how much hair he had, too. Weren't babies usually bald? But this one had a clear tuft of hair already – black, just like hers – atop his tiny round head, poking out from under the blanket he was wrapped in.

The sight didn't seem real. Maybe she was just imagining it, but whenever she recalled that day, the feeling was always what came to mind. It felt like a dream. Not a scary one, but still, a dream. And all the girl could do was stare. Just stop and stare, barely even remembering to blink. Barely even remembering to breathe.

"...Mari, sweetheart, aren't you going to come see your little brother?"

The girl almost startled in surprise as the voice sliced through her thoughts, tearing her gaze away from the baby's face to see mommy and daddy both looking at her. How long had she been standing there in the doorway? She didn't really understand the concept of an uncomfortable pause at the time, of course, but looking back on the memory it'd be clear that she had created one by accident. Even at that young age, however, the girl had already learned pretty well that it would be rude to ignore what her parents wanted. And right now they wanted her to come over and greet her brother properly. And... well, she supposed she really did too. It was all so much, all of this happening today, so much so that she couldn't really believe it, but that didn't mean she was upset. She'd been looking forward to meeting her brother for what felt like forever (and to be fair, to a three-year-old, nine months was a pretty substantial chunk of her life). She'd just been so surprised to actually see him that she didn't know how to react.

Still, the prompting was all it took to jolt her back into action and she slowly approached the bed, her eyes quickly drifting away from mommy and back to the tiny baby boy in her arms. Stopping at the edge of the hospital bed, the girl took the opportunity to get a closer look at the baby, taking in every detail she could see. His face was really red, but she remembered she'd looked like that in her baby photos too, so she didn't think about it for too long. She noticed his eyes were closed, his little mouth halfway open to breathe in and out. Almost like he was asleep. Didn't babies normally cry a lot, especially when they were first born? Had he tired himself out doing that? Not that the girl was one to talk – she'd made herself sleepy by crying a few times. But that was when she was one or two, and she was three now! She was a big girl... Or at least, that was something like how she remembered feeling then.

"We've decided to name him Sunny." Daddy spoke up to inform her, though the girl didn't look away from her brother to glance at him this time. That didn't mean she didn't hear him, though.

"...Sunny..." the girl said, the first time she'd spoken properly since reaching the hospital. Or maybe it was more like a whisper, her awed voice barely audible above the machinery in the hospital room and the sounds of doctors and nurses bustling about their business in the hallway outside. But then... it seemed like somebody unexpected heard her. The baby must not have been very deep asleep after all, because he reacted to the new voice in front of him, tiny eyes blinking open slowly. Somebody gasped – it was probably the girl, though she certainly hadn't done so on purpose.

Normally, the girl didn't like looking people in the eyes. In fact, she avoided it whenever she could, something about it making her feel... icky. Wrong. But for some reason, meeting her baby brother's gaze in that moment didn't bother her even a little. Maybe just because his eyes – so dark brown they were nearly black – were so tiny and beady that they didn't look much like an adult's right now. Either way, though, she didn't mind the two of them looking at each other. Maybe it was just her imagination (in fact, given that he was just a baby, it very likely was), but whenever she looked back on the day, she liked to think that he was just as curious about her as she was about him. Why else would a brand-new baby have such a focused stare, after all?

Before she even fully realized what she was doing, the girl had raised her hand, slowly starting to reach towards him. She stopped herself a couple inches from actually touching him, however, a wave of hesitation suddenly hitting her. Neither mommy nor daddy had said or done anything to stop her, simply watching the scene play out, so it was probably fine, but... she still felt unsure whether it'd be okay to touch him or not. You were supposed to be really careful around babies, right?

Then something happened that she'd never forget. And would never want to. As if on instinct, guided by whatever formative curiosity a baby could muster, a chubby little arm wriggled out from beneath the blanket he was wrapped in. And a set of unbelievably tiny fingers wrapped around the girl's own outstretched index finger. The grip was clumsy, barely there – he'd only just been born, after all, he didn't exactly have coordination yet – but it had still happened.

It was like time had frozen for the girl.

She had... no idea what she was feeling. She didn't know whether she wanted to smile or cry or laugh or scream. So she did none of them. From the outside, it must have looked like she'd just locked up, her face going completely blank. But on the inside was a frenzy of emotions she'd struggle to give a name to even years later, let alone when she was only three.

She'd known, basically, what siblings were. There were other kids with brothers or sisters at the daycare that mommy and daddy sometimes left her at. And of course she'd been given a basic, three-year-old friendly explanation about what it would mean for her to have a little brother when her parents decided to have another child. So she understood the concept logically, about as well as anyone her age could.

But in hindsight, she didn't think that she really fully got it. Not until that very moment.

Little baby Sunny. Not just "a little brother", but her little brother.

It was... amazing. Unbelievable. Her young brain had never had to comprehend something so incredible before. Now, only now, did she think she really understood. If other kids were to somehow look at the scene, they'd just see a tiny baby holding her finger.

But she saw the most precious thing she'd ever seen in her short life, the most precious thing in the whole entire world. More than she had ever imagined. She was almost sure that her heart would burst from the way it felt. The girl silently promised then that she wouldn't just be "a big sister" either. She'd be the very best big sister ever. Because looking at Sunny, how could anything less ever be acceptable?

.

The girl was so caught up in staring at her little brother, in fact, that she barely paid any mind to the way her parents were looking at each other, even though she was vaguely aware of it in the corner of her eye. But with the benefit of hindsight, and her unusually clear memory of the day... those expressions on their faces weren't good, were they? The way their eyebrows were furrowed as they looked at each other, having some kind of silent conversation. The girl thought nothing of it at the time, her focus entirely on Sunny, but despite the storm of emotions going on within... from the outside, her face must have still looked totally blank. Her eyes set in a flat stare, her mouth a vague line. Too overwhelmed to emote. And mommy and daddy had surely noticed.

Looking back, she couldn't help but wonder if that was the moment they'd started to get suspicious.

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.

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"Come on, where are you? Please be back here..."

The boy was talking to himself.

"Wait, is someone over...?"

A gasp.

"Is that-!? MARI!"

Footsteps pounded across the ground.

"MAMÁ! SUNNY! OVER HERE! I FOUND HER!"

Knees hit the dirt as he crouched next to her.

"Mari, are you- Oh god...! COME QUICK! SHE'S HURT!"

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.

The girl was still three when it was properly discovered that she wasn't normal. Her baby brother was a few months old, and the amazement of his existence still hadn't really worn off. The girl did her best to hold on to her promise as much as possible. Not that there was much a girl her age could do to help with a newborn, but that didn't mean she wasn't willing to try. But life went on, and as much as she'd love to spend every waking second keeping an eye on Sunny, it wasn't realistically an option. Especially as she had other concerns in her life too – and, perhaps more importantly, other people had concerns about her.

Mommy and daddy had started to notice... certain things about her behavior. Things that, by themselves, could have easily been written off as mere childish quirks at first. Everyone was different and had different personalities, after all, and very young kids in particular could be prone to being temperamental even at the best of times. So really, "odd" things here and there really weren't all that odd at all. A one-or-two-year old acting moody or erratic from time to time? Well, that was pretty much like saying it was a day ending in "y". But these small signs that nobody would have thought much of individually... they added up. More and more odd details started to show themselves with each passing month, and once her parents were really looking for them, it became increasingly difficult to merely handwave away. The girl herself wasn't really aware of any of this at the time, of course. She was simply acting in whatever way she felt was natural and had no reason to think about it further. She didn't know to consider whether her behaviors were normal or not.

She would only learn that all this was going on later, picking up the details from her parents over time, both through what they directly told her and from snippets of overheard conversations between them. It was only with the benefit of hindsight that she was able to roughly map out when they'd started to form suspicions, and what sort of things had tipped them off. But it all went back to when she was around three. And it wasn't just her parents conjuring wild theories out of nowhere, naturally. Other adults had spoken to mommy and daddy about the matter too. Neighbors remarking on how odd it was that they'd never seen the girl smile. The workers at the daycare reporting how she behaved, both by herself and around the other children. That sort of thing. It all came to form a laundry list of details that, all put together like that, required attention.

The way she would bounce her shoulders up and down when she was supposed to be sitting still.

How her face would go unsettlingly blank when she was thinking about things, or feeling a lot of feelings, or sometimes when she just wasn't paying attention.

How she would default to nodding or shaking her head to questions and need to be prompted, sometimes repeatedly, to actually speak.

Her habit of zoning out and staring off into the distance, potentially for minutes at a time if not snapped out of it.

The way her hands and legs would start shaking when she was nervous, anxious, or excited.

Her refusal to look people in the eyes when they spoke to her, letting her gaze drift anywhere else.

The constant picking and scratching at her clothing, even when the fabric would seem to feel perfectly fine and not itchy at all to anyone else's touch.

How she'd cry about bright lights or loud sounds... that weren't that bright, or weren't that loud.

The way her fingers would grip or tug at the collar of her shirt when she was upset, yet she'd always look so surprised to notice them there.

How she wouldn't play like the other children at the daycare, doing odd things like lining up blocks in rows over and over, or trying to get other kids to join her in counting bugs and spiders on the playground.

Her speaking habits, coming across as either too quiet or too talkative with very little in between, saying nothing for long periods of time or rambling endlessly about some random thought.

The way she didn't seem to read the room – other children could notice when people around them were happy or upset, but she often seemed to ignore it unless they directly said something to her.

And more. Countless little things tallied up to create the impression that her behavior... wasn't right. Wasn't normal.

Eventually, it became concerning enough for her parents to seek professional help. Harried conversations were held between mommy and daddy late at night when they assumed their children wouldn't hear them. Research was done, poring over medical articles and listings of childcare specialists. Appointments were made. And one day – a day the girl had no reason to suspect would be at all unusual when she'd awoken that morning – the girl would find herself ushered into the back seat of the car in something of a hurry. Not as frantically as the day Sunny was born, of course, but enough that even she could tell something was going on. Mommy was driving, with daddy staying home to look after Sunny (it just so happened to be his day off, saving them the need to find a babysitter). But nobody had been particularly clear to the girl about where she was going, or why it was just her and not her baby brother. She'd really rather have stayed home with him if she could.

Only after repeated asking did mommy tell her that she was going to the doctor. But that only confused the girl more, in the long run, as it wasn't the normal doctor she usually saw for checkups. In fact, the appointment wasn't even at the same office. Instead, they drove for well over an hour (which felt like forever to the young girl) to reach a specialized clinic outside the city.

Yet if the location was confusing, then what happened there was far more so. The doctors they met with didn't really seem to act like the girl's usual doctor. Really, they didn't seem to pay much attention to the girl at all at first, spending a bunch of time talking to mommy about things that went over the girl's head. In fact, it was only due to the repeated uses of her name that the girl knew they were talking about her, yet at the same time not talking to her. And there was a lot of talking. The girl wasn't exactly sure how long it took, but there was so much time spent just sitting in a boring office while mommy answered seemingly every question under the sun. Lots of going over complicated paperwork too. It was the second-most agonizing wait the young girl had ever experienced – first place being the hospital waiting room the day Sunny was born, obviously. But that wasn't even the strangest part of it, either.

Even once the doctors started paying attention to the girl, it still didn't make sense. She understood that she was going to be taking some tests. But once again, the "tests" weren't at all like the normal tests she would get at a checkup. No checking her heartbeat with the stethoscope (not that she could pronounce the word at the time) or tapping her knees with the little hammer for reflexes or anything like that. Instead, the experience was... surreal. The girl didn't know how to properly describe it at the time, but looking back, she'd say it was sort of like having a distorted and rather unsettling dream based on half-remembered recollections of the days her parents would leave her at daycare. She was aware that was a bizarrely specific description, but it felt accurate.

Like going to daycare, she was led to a room with toys and books and games. Only, rather than other kids with a few adults keeping an eye on them, it was just her there along with the doctors and mommy. And mommy herself spent most of the time just watching, having been asked by the doctors not to act unless they directly indicated her to do so. The girl herself was the constant center of attention, and she wasn't able to shake the feeling of eyes on her back the entire time, though the doctors told her not to worry about it. The presence of the toys was similarly off; rather than just playing with whatever she felt like to kill time until mommy or daddy came to pick her up, the girl was instead given occasional instructions or tasks to do – and the tasks themselves seemed to make little sense to her. She wouldn't entirely remember everything she did when trying to recall the day later. She was only three at the time, after all, and her memory had always been inconsistent.

She did remember a few, though. One particular "test" involved pointing her to a bunch of colorful blocks, along with a template to use to arrange said blocks in a particular pattern with alternating colors. A little random, perhaps, but sensible enough by itself – she certainly had no problem lining things up neatly like that... except that, once she was partway through, the girl realized that there weren't actually enough blocks to finish the pattern the way it was supposed to be. Some of them were missing. And the doctors had clearly been waiting for her to notice this problem, watching her intently the whole time. As if expecting her to do... something. But she didn't have the faintest clue what, there was obviously some sort of intended solution, but she couldn't even begin to think of what it was. And so she gave up on the task. Somehow, that was taken as an answer by itself – even though nobody bothered to tell the girl what question was even being asked.

It was all like that: being given strange scenarios, or drawn into bizarre conversations, or asked repetitive questions, and the whole time she was given absolutely zero meaningful context for any of it. It sure seemed to be making sense to the doctors, though, as notes were taken with her every answer or reaction. It made for a confusing, frustrating, and downright tiresome day for the young girl. By the end of the hour-and-a-half or so of testing, she wanted nothing more than to just go home. She was normally a bit restless at naptime, but that day, the thought of passing out in her bed next to her little brother's crib sounded like the best thing in the world. Actually, just getting to see Sunny at all would be far more enjoyable, even if he was screaming or crying as little babies tended to do. Eventually, however, after a few final questions for mommy and a couple more papers filled out, the meeting was done at last, and they were back in the car heading home. The girl would be happy to never go to that clinic again.

It was only later that she'd understand what that whole day was about. What, exactly, they'd been looking for.

And what they eventually found.

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"...Alright, I don't see any signs of a head injury or anything bleeding, beside the bruises and the marks on her arm."

The woman was focused, staying calm for the sake of the boys beside her.

"S-so what now...?"

The younger boy's voice was quiet and shaken. Nobody called him out for it.

"Now, we need to see if it's safe to move her, alright?"

"Move her? She needs to go to the hospital!"

The older boy, the woman's son, was trying to hold back his own nerves, but not entirely succeeding.

"Of course she does! I just meant, whether we could carry her to our car or if we need to call an ambulance to put her on a stretcher. We might get there faster by driving ourselves, but..."

The woman trailed off, a faint rustling as she shook her head.

"Okay, mamá. You're right... So we're looking for broken bones? Then-"

"...Her knee."

The younger boy's suggestion caused a momentary pause.

"That would explain the mud, if she had to crawl... Alright, Henry, this is the only time I'm ever going to encourage you to put your hands on a girl's skirt-"

The older boy winced in instinctive embarrassment.

"-but we need to take a look at her legs. Roll the fabric up past her knees – carefully! So you don't jostle her."

"Okay, so- Oh god. Her knee...! Sunny, look away. Mamá, make sure he doesn't-!"

"Wait...!"

The younger boy protested. But the woman moved in front of him to block his view.

"Sunny, dear... Henry's right. You don't need to see this, okay? It's not pretty. Please."

She spoke to him softly, trying not to spook him needlessly, while still being honest.

"But-! ...Okay..."

He wasn't happy, but he stopped trying to peek around her.

"Mamá, is it-?"

"It's definitely broken. I've seen something like this before, when your abuelo broke his elbow on the garage floor, remember? With it misshapen like that..."

"Mari..."

The younger boy and his older friend both spoke the word in near unison. Though perhaps for the younger in particular it was more of a whimper.

.

.

.

The girl was seven years old, and it had been a few months since they'd moved away from the city and out to the sleepy little town of Faraway. Adjusting to the new locale hadn't been easy for the girl at first. Really, everyone in her family took a little time to get used to it, but she'd had an especially rough go of it. Even now, after months of living in the new house, it still didn't feel entirely right, for reasons she wasn't sure how to explain. The room she shared with her little brother still didn't feel entirely like it was theirs – at least to her, Sunny didn't seem to mind as much – and the girl still found herself being unconsciously careful about disturbing things unless necessary. As if it was a hotel room they were staying at, where she didn't want to leave too much mess behind. At least it was a pretty nice room for what it was, a lot bigger than their room in the family's old apartment. Which was good, since she and Sunny had gotten a lot bigger themselves. Especially Sunny, it was still crazy seeing him as a four-year-old compared to how tiny he was as a baby.

There were a lot of little things she didn't like about the house, too. Like having to go down the (unfairly long) staircase any time she wanted to go to the kitchen to get a snack, or go back up if she needed to use the bathroom. Who thought two-floor houses were a good idea, honestly? Or the way the wooden floorboards would squeak and creak when she walked on them sometimes – the floor at the apartment had never done that, even though this house was supposedly a lot newer. Actually, everything in the house sounded strange; noises would echo oddly around the space, creating odd reverberations from places you wouldn't expect. Especially if someone was talking, or made a loud noise, like if they dropped something on the floor. The girl almost would've thought she was imagining it – she knew she sometimes didn't hear things like a... normal girl might... except, Sunny reacted to the weird echoes too.

But the most frustrating thing was how mom and dad wouldn't even tell her why they'd needed to move. Mom had just scolded her for asking about it over and over, so she'd learned to be quiet about it, but she still didn't actually understand. She had to get used to a whole new house, a whole new town, a whole new school... What was it for? Was she really the only one who felt overwhelmed by so many new things being thrown at her? ...Was she the problem? Was she not supposed to be having a hard time with it at all? Was it not normal? Sunny seemed to understand, at least, but... well. He was only four. A lot seemed scary at four. It was the girl's responsibility as big sister to make him feel better about things, not the other way around.

"Mari! Sunny!"

The shout snapped the girl out of her moping about their house, and she glanced around. Not that she'd forgotten where she was, but... well, she'd gotten more than a little distracted thinking, so it was good to take stock of her surroundings anyway. She was in the grassy area in the backyard of their house, over at the patch of dirt around the large tree – the one with the big strong branches that were sturdy enough to hold someone's weight, making it good for climbing. In fact, Sunny was sitting just a few feet away with his back pressed up against that very tree, relaxed in the shade of its canopy. The girl didn't spare him more than a glance at the moment, though, instead turning to face the person who'd called out to her.

If there was one good thing to come of the move, it was their neighbors. The house next door was owned by the Rodriguezes, a very nice couple who'd been eager to welcome the girl's family from day one. And in an incredible coincidence, they just so happened to have a pair of children: two boys, the older of whom was very close to the girl's age (only two months older!), while his little brother was three years younger – and thus roughly the same age as Sunny. It was amazing how that worked out. The girl had never had any direct neighbors her age to play with before; their old apartment complex had some other kids, but they were usually a few years apart and never lived right next door. Given their close proximity and their comparable ages, it was really no big surprise that the Rodriguez boys had ended up gravitating together with the girl and Sunny pretty well over the last few months.

And sure enough, there was the younger of the two bounding up to her. It'd been him who called out. Coming up behind him, a bit more slowly, was his older brother, who caught the girl's eye for a moment. (Though only a moment, as she quickly looked slightly away, instinctively not wanting to make direct eye contact with anyone right now.)

"Kel, Henry! Hi!" the girl greeted, though nowhere near as loudly, her hands clapping together once with joy at seeing them.

"Hi Mari." the older boy returned her greeting with a small nod. "Though, you know you can call me Hero..." he corrected, rubbing the back of his head even as he gave what the girl would guess was a slightly embarrassed smile.

"Hehe, only old people call him Henry!" Kel teased, sticking his tongue out. Henr-ahem, rather, Hero, visibly rolled his eyes but didn't rise to his brother's bait. It didn't take long for Kel to get distracted from that, though, looking back at Sunny. He raised his finger and pointed. "What's Sunny doing?" he asked... very loudly. Loud enough to make the girl to flinch from the volume, her eyes pinching shut in a reflexive wince for a second.

"Shh!" she hissed at him as she opened her eyes, holding one finger up over her mouth the way she saw people do in cartoons when they were signaling someone to be quiet. "Sunny's sleeping right now." she explained. True to her word, her little brother had indeed dozed off beneath the tree, his head lolling to the side with a tiny bit of drool at his mouth. (Ew.) The girl didn't blame Kel for being loud, of course, he was only four just like Sunny – and unlike herself, who was of course a very big kid since she was seven. (Even if she wasn't literally big, since she hadn't had any good growth spurts yet, though dad at least once said she might grow to be extremely tall one day.) So she wasn't upset at Kel, but still, as Sunny's big sister, she would make sure he wouldn't be disturbed when he wanted to nap.

"Aww... We can't play if he's sleeping." Kel complained, crossing his arms in a pout, though he did still noticeably reduce his volume, as the girl had wanted.

"Maybe later, Kel. Mari's right, we shouldn't wake him, we don't wanna be rude." Hero said reasonably, reaching out to pat Kel on the back in consolation as he did so. Not that this seemed to do much to mollify Kel's pouting... or at least, not much that the girl could tell. She still wasn't good with those sorts of things. Hero looked back at the girl while Kel gave an indistinct mumble of disappointment. "Anyway, we saw you out here and we wanted to know if you'd like to play with us?"

The girl practically felt herself light up, even if it might not have really shown on her face too much. "Sure, I'd-"

But she wouldn't get to finish her sentence before she was interrupted.

"Mari Takahashi! What do you think you're doing!?"

Another familiar voice, not belonging to any of the children, sliced harshly through the air. The girl whipped her head around in surprise and- Ah. There was her mom, storming up towards them from the direction of the house. Evidently the girl had been too distracted, between getting in lost in thought and then with the boys' arrival, or else she would've heard the back door open and shut. Her hearing was really strong when she was actually paying attention, so even with the fairly large space of the yard, the door should have been an audible warning of mom or dad's approach. But not this time, clearly, since she'd had no clue mom was coming until just then.

"Mom?" the girl replied in surprise, tilting her head slightly in confusion as her mother marched up to her. There was a sinking feeling in her gut, but she wasn't sure why yet. "Me and Sunny were just playing..."

Mom came to a stop and put her hands on her hips as she looked down at the girl. "Oh sweetie, what am I going to do with you two!?" she demanded, shaking her head in exasperation. The girl felt the corners of her mouth start to turn down into a frown in response.

"What do you mean?" she wondered, genuinely baffled by what was going on. Hero shifted slightly on his feet in the corner of her view, presumably in slight discomfort, but neither he nor Kel said anything to draw attention to themselves. Maybe they had no clue what her mom wanted either.

"What I mean is that we're supposed to be going out to dinner tonight, and you're out here sitting in the dirt!" Mom's voice rose a little as she spoke, not quite yelling but certainly close enough to be noticeable – and to make the girl's ears twinge in discomfort. As for the words themselves... The way mom said "going out to dinner" most likely meant at a fairly nice restaurant, not just getting something from a fast food joint. That would make sense. Except...

"...You never told me we were going-" the girl started to say. Once again, though, she'd find herself cut off by mom.

"I most certainly did! I told you the plan right after you got home from school." Mom retorted immediately, her tone somehow growing even sharper with the denial.

The girl looked down at the ground, brow furrowing in thought. Her hands picked idly at the dirt for a moment. "I don't remember that." she mumbled. It might have come out slightly petulantly, though she didn't particularly intend that.

"Well, it happened." Mom scoffed, shaking her head again. "If you can't remember, then it's your memory being wrong again, sweetheart. You know it's really not very good." she added. And the girl really couldn't argue with that. It was objectively the truth, after all, even at seven years old she'd already been aware of that. Funnily enough, the long-running nature of her spotty memory was one thing that she would recall clearly looking back. Not that she'd have long to dwell on it in the moment, as mom was already speaking again, her head turning over towards Sunny. "...And is Sunny asleep? This isn't a good place to nap, Mari, you should've let him go inside! You're his big sister, you're supposed to be responsible and look after him!"

Each word of the out-of-nowhere tangent felt like a jab to the girl's stomach. But once more, she couldn't argue. She hadn't thought Sunny dozing off in odd places was a problem, but maybe it could be? And "could" wasn't a good answer, as his sister it was her job to make sure things would be fine before he did them.

"Uh, Mrs. Takahashi-?"

"It's not Mari's fault!"

To the girl's surprise, however, Hero and Kel both attempted to speak up at the same time. No points for guessing which voice was which. As the girl's head swiveled to them, too taken aback by the interjection to do anything more than stare, Hero cringed at Kel's volume and shot his little brother a look.

"Kel!" he chided, though Kel didn't appear fazed by the scolding, looking up at the girl's mother with a heavy frown (or as heavy as a four-year-old could muster). Hero looked back at the only adult present as well. "Uh, sorry about that, he didn't mean anything bad, I swear!" he apologized quickly, nudging Kel slightly with his elbow to keep the younger boy from objecting again.

Mom raised her eyebrows slightly as she looked down at the two. "Ah yes, good afternoon, boys. Don't worry about all this too much. Mari and Sunny aren't in any serious trouble, it's just a bit of family business, alright?" It was like a switch had been flipped, her tone going from sharply scolding the girl to casually, almost pleasantly addressing Hero and Kel. The change was so jarring, in fact, that even the girl noticed it – not that she had any clue what to make of it or what it might mean, baffled enough to stay silent for the moment trying to make sense of her mom's behavior.

"...Why's she being nice now?" Kel mumbled with all the tact one could expect from an excitable four-year-old. The girl blinked in surprise at how he unknowingly echoed her own line of thought. But, wait... wouldn't that mean she was being immature? Hero, meanwhile, nudged his brother again, a little harder this time, to try to get him to take the hint. Mom's eyes flicked between the two.

"Anyway, Henry dear, does your mother know you and your brother came over here?" she asked Hero politely, though the girl had a suspicion that she was leading up to a specific point.

Hero blinked. "No ma'am." he admitted, eyebrows furrowed slightly. "But it's right next door, so I thought it'd be fine..."

"Hmm. That's what I thought." Mom agreed with a small nod. The girl simply watched the back-and-forth, still not knowing quite what to say. "You really ought to ask next time, kids your age shouldn't be running around unsupervised... But anyway, Mari and Sunny can't play today, alright? You boys ought to go back before Elena gets worried." Mom said. Despite her friendly-concerned-adult sort of tone, it was obviously more than a suggestion. Kel opened his mouth as if to attempt to argue anyway, but Hero, taking the hint, reached out to grab his little brother's hand, silencing him. Kel looked away with a pout.

"...Okay, sorry Mrs. Takahashi. We didn't mean to bother you." Hero apologized, dipping his head slightly. Mom hummed, presumably in acknowledgment, and Hero turned to the girl. He gave her a small smile. "We'll be back to play tomorrow, okay Mari?" he offered her. The girl stared at him for a moment, needing a second to work through everything that had just happened, but then she glanced up at her mother. Mom shrugged uncaringly – and that wasn't a no, so the girl took it.

"Okay." the girl agreed. Her voice might have come out a little flat, even though she genuinely would be happy to play with them. It just sounded that way sometimes. She tried to give Hero a smile, though she was still a little shaky with those, to show that she appreciated the offer. "Maybe Sunny will actually be awake by then." she added, trying to lighten things up with a little joke. Hero and Kel both snickered – Kel a little more loudly – so the girl would call that a success for now.

"Sounds like a plan." Hero agreed, nodding his head happily as he started to walk away, pulling Kel with him. "See you tomorrow, Mari! Hope you have a good time with dinner tonight!" he added brightly, looking at her one more time before he went.

"Yeah, see you!" Kel echoed just as cheerfully, any annoyance with Hero for silencing him apparently forgotten already. The girl raised her hand in a small wave goodbye to the two before they headed on their way.

.

"...They seem like nice boys." Mom observed. The girl looked at her curiously. She didn't disagree, of course, but why was mom saying it? "You're lucky you've found a few friends who don't seem to mind you too much, you know that, sweetie?" Mom wondered, looking up towards the sky for a moment. The girl felt a strange sort of tension start to bubble in her stomach, though she didn't know why. Was she supposed to answer that? Before she could think of anything, though, mom kept talking. "When I was your age, a girl sitting away playing in the dirt would've been seen as the weird kid who all the boys wanted to avoid." she mused.

Ah. There it was. Mom had been saying odd things like that more and more. The girl wasn't unfamiliar with such comments, but they'd definitely become more frequent since the move. For some reason, even though mom was surely just giving her general advice or something, it never failed to make the girl's gut squirm uncomfortably.

"You're fortunate they don't know about your... difficulties, honestly. That might be too much." Mom kept going, her voice deceptively mild for the way the words hit the girl in the heart. Once the girl had started to figure out what it meant to not be... normal, it didn't take long to realize the real meaning of the word "difficulties" when mom used it that way.

She didn't get to think over the implications of the words right then, though, as mom promptly clapped her hands, snapping the girl out of her train of thought before it could even fully leave the station.

"But that's enough of that!" Mom declared. "Come on now, up you get, sweetheart." she commanded, reaching out to grab the girl's forearm and pull her up into a standing position. The girl didn't try to resist or pull out of her mother's grip, dutifully standing up as indicated... even if the feeling of mom's hand suddenly around her arm made her skin feel like it was prickling with needles. That must've just been her imagination. Mom let out a "tsk" sound to herself. "Now look at you, this is just what I was worried about! The back of your dress is completely covered in dirt!" she scolded. The girl tried to look back at herself. There was a little dirt clinging to her dress, particularly around the backside of the skirt where she'd been sitting, but still...

"It's not that bad..." she mumbled in protest. It really wasn't. Unless someone was standing right next to her like mom, they probably wouldn't even be able to see it much. The patch of dirt in question was a dry sandy brown, not some kind of thick muddy black gardening soil, a little dusting of it on the girl's light dress was barely visible.

"Don't talk back, sweetie, you know better." Mom corrected her immediately, her grip on the girl's arm giving a small squeeze in warning before she let go. "Now come on, you need to go inside to change, and Sunny probably does as well, our reservation at the restaurant's in less than an hour..." Mom paused for a moment and glanced over at Sunny. "...And speaking of Sunny, be sure to wake him up, would you? I can't believe he slept through all of this... Or that you let him." she added, waving one hand towards the sleeping four-year-old in question. The girl nodded her head obediently and marched over to try to rouse her little brother.

.

.

.

"She's asleep, right? ...So why won't she wake up?"

The younger boy's voice was small, teetering on the edge of denial.

"Sunny, dear... Don't shake her. The ambulance will be here soon."

The woman's tone was firm, but kind. Like she knows this isn't easy for him, but someone needs to try to keep him grounded.

"No, he's got a point. You said... it didn't seem like her head was injured except the bruises and the black eye, right? ...So what knocked her out?"

The older boy's voice was slow, like he's working through the realization as he speaks.

"She might have passed out from the stress, or the pain from her leg. She's a strong girl, but sometimes you can only take so much at once."

The woman answered thoughtfully, looking down at the girl.

"No, but I mean, why is she still out cold? It's been awhile, if it were just a brief faint, shouldn't she at least stir by now?"

The older boy pressed on, barely keeping his worry contained. The younger boy next to him shifted uncomfortably, but didn't disagree.

A pause.

"Out cold... Cold! Mierda! That's what we missed!"

The woman's exclamation, and the sudden shift in her behavior, startled both boys.

"Mamá-"

"Henry, check her pulse! Now!"

The woman's voice spiked with urgency.

"Her pulse? But we can see her breathing, why would we-"

"Do it! I'll explain why later, but don't waste any more time!"

The snapped reply was enough to jolt the older boy into action, moving forward to check the girl's arm. The younger boy sat frozen on the grass beside him, unable to do anything but stare at the scene unfolding.

.

"It's... It's there, but it feels... faint."

The older boy sounded almost uncharacteristically uncertain as he felt the girl's wrist.

"Faint? How faint?"

The woman's tone was still demanding, but given the circumstances, it was clearly worry rather than rudeness.

"It's like- I can feel it, but I'm having to press my finger hard to do it, and it seems... slow."

The woman jumped to her feet abruptly.

"...Damnit, this is what I was afraid of! Henry, take off your coat, and- Here, take mine as well! Wrap them around her but do not try to move her! I'm going to get emergency services back on the phone!"

Her commands rattle off quickly, sparing almost no time for them to be understood before she was practically throwing her raincoat at the older boy.

"What- Mamá, what do you mean, what's going on!?"

The older boy fumbled with the coat, even as he started to move his arms to take off his own as well.

"I think she's been out here long enough to catch hypothermia, that's why she isn't stirring."

"What!? That's- But that- It's chilly, but it's not freezing, how could she...?"

"Yes, but the rain, Henry! Being soaking wet saps your heat, and we don't know how long she's been out here! Now don't argue and use the coats like blankets! We need to try to warm her as much as we can until the ambulance gets here!"

Not wanting to protest any further as the direness of the situation sank in, the older boy did as instructed, moving to start enshrouding the girl in a makeshift bundle of jackets – though carefully, so as not to jostle her broken leg.

The woman pulled out a flip phone, hastily dialing and speaking rapidly into the receiver.

Frantic in their urgency, neither immediately noticed the way the younger boy's breathing had started to grow panicked.

.

.

.

The girl was eight years old, and today was Easter Sunday. She and her little brother had been woken up early by their parents so that they could have time to grab breakfast and get all dressed up for the church service. While they always needed to look fairly nice for attending church on Sundays, today in particular required an extra level of formality. Given that it was one of the most major religious holidays celebrated in Faraway, they'd be expected to look their very best. Or so mom had said, anyway, but it wasn't like the girl had any reason to doubt her. She wouldn't particularly recall most of the details of the morning when looking back on it later – if you asked her what she'd had for breakfast, or anything her parents had talked about on the way to church, or even anything she said to her little brother, she wouldn't be able to tell you. Those sorts of things had become fuzzy and indistinct with time, victims of her questionable memory.

What she did remember, however, were the clothes. The siblings' mother had pulled Sunny aside to get him all dressed up about as smartly as a five-year-old could be, with a crisp white button-up shirt, black dress pants, and even an absolutely adorable matching black bowtie. He'd been embarrassed by it, his face set in a barely restrained scowl for much of the morning, but his older sister couldn't stop herself from cooing over the sight all the same. It was simply too cute, and really, his pouting only made it even more endearing. While she normally wasn't overly fond of standing around having her picture taken – having ruined a few school photos by fidgeting with her hands in boredom – the girl didn't object to her parents' desire for a photo of the siblings in their outfits, as it meant immortalizing Sunny's precious look forever.

It almost made her own fancy wear worth it. Almost. Now, visually speaking, the girl could admit that the dress mom had bought for her was very pretty, a lovely white number with a flowing skirt and faux-pearl decorations around the collar, which matched with mom's own pearl necklace. And it wasn't overly frilly, no overdone bows or lace, that was a big plus. While the girl liked skirts and dresses, she preferred them to be simple rather than overdecorated. Unfortunately, however, no amount of aesthetic qualities would make her actually want to wear the dress in question. It was itchy and uncomfortable. She'd been able to tell just from running her hands over the fabric that it would feel scratchy against her skin. She'd been dreading having to actually put it on. But mom had been quite insistent, and given that the girl didn't own any other similarly fancy clothes (that still fit, anyway), she didn't have much room to argue.

And so, by the time the family had piled into the car to head to church, the girl had already scratched at her shoulders what felt like a thousand times, to no avail. The constant rough prickling sensation from the dress simply wouldn't go away, no matter how hard she tried to ignore it. That would wind up being the first problem of the day among several.

The second problem was the crowd. The girl had never seen so many people attending a Sunday service before. In fact, she didn't think she'd ever seen that many people gathered together in Faraway at all. It was more like visiting a crowded shopping mall back in the city than a small-town church. Perhaps the religious roots of the town went deeper than expected, resulting in a lot of residents feeling obligated to attend for the holiday even when they otherwise wouldn't bother. That was the theory the girl would come up with later, anyway, she wasn't particularly thinking about the "why" at the time. Only that there were a lot more people than expected. A lot more. Of course, some of this may have been her child brain exaggerating things with later recollections – she was only eight, after all, and still quite short. A looming crowd of adults would certainly look intimidating. The fact remained, however, that the place was packed.

Which led to problem number three: the space available within the church, or rather, lack thereof. The building clearly wasn't meant to accommodate such a turnout. (In fact, the gathering may have been breaking some sort of fire code, not that anyone was bothering to enforce it.) There wasn't nearly enough room on the pews to fit everyone who'd shown up – and even those who were seated were packed like sardines – leaving stragglers to simply stand lined up around the walls. This was the situation the girl and her family ended up in, as they weren't in time to snag enough of the valuable seating for a group of four. And so the girl ended up with her legs growing sore from standing around, hard wall to her back, sandwiched between her mother and Sunny – and desperately trying not to shuffle around lest she step on their toes.

Problem number four, while comparatively lesser, was the smell. A large group of people in too small a space, all decked out in varying amounts of fancy clothes, including a good few men in dark suits, on what was a fairly hot spring day? Turns out that leads to a lot of sweating. And that scent, combined with the fragrant floral arrangements set up around the church for Easter? Well, at least from how it seemed to the girl, the result was something like a gym locker room meets a department store perfume section. And she could barely stand either of those things separately, so it wasn't a pleasant time.

And finally, there was problem number five, perhaps the worst of them all. The noise. While other fine details of the day blurred in the girl's mind, the noise level still stuck out sharply in her memory years later. Perhaps it was just her imagination, her oversensitive ears producing a sensation that didn't match the reality for anyone else. But that difference was really rather academic, wasn't it? It didn't particularly matter to her in the moment if it wasn't "really" that loud, if it still felt like her ears were being bombarded from every direction. And bombarded they were. Between the conversation among the arriving attendees, the church choir singing hymns, the booming voice the preacher used when beginning the sermon so everyone could hear him, the shuffling of feet and rustling of clothing as people moved around, birds chirping outside the windows, the girl's own heartbeat pounding in her ears... it was like, with every passing minute, she somehow found new sounds to chip away at her until they all started to seem to swirl together, like a rising storm.

She was never able to remember the exact breaking point any time she looked back on that day. There were simply too many things to possibly single out just one. But the precise nature of the last straw was less important than the fact that there was a last straw. One moment she was shifting and shuffling with discomfort, trying to deal with all the sensations she was experiencing at once, and the next... her eyes were burning with tears. The noise was barreling down on her, everything blended together into a deafening, incoherent cacophony. Her throat was choking, her body wracked with shuddering sobs. Too much. Too much. Too much. It was simply too much. There was no other way to describe it. Others in the church noticed – she wasn't sure how loud she was crying, the maelstrom in her ears deafening her to her own sounds. She could feel eyes piercing her. Adults in the crowd in front of her turning, looking down at her with glares that made her feel sick to her stomach.

Sunny, beside her, was startled and distressed by the outburst, his confusion and worry were obvious as he looked at her. His hand gripped hers, trying to offer some form of stability or comfort. But there was nothing he could do for her now. He was only five. Soothing someone having a breakdown was way beyond any skill he had, or that could be expected of him. If the eight-year-old girl couldn't even calm herself, how could her younger brother hope to know what to do? He didn't even understand what exactly was happening, much less what to do about it. Any words he may have tried for, be they questions or reassurances, would have gone unheard anyway. The girl couldn't comprehend words then, in that moment. So, it wasn't remotely his fault, and she would never think of blaming him for it... but he simply couldn't help to make it better either. If anything, knowing that she was worrying him only made her feel worse, horrible guilt mingling its way into the storm of feelings in her gut.

She pulled her hand away from him, bringing her arms up to clamp her palms over her ears in a desperate attempt to block out the noise. But the cascade was in her head now, her imagination running rampant with the sound, leaving her skull still pounding, her heartbeats in her ears still screaming... a wildfire that continued to burn even without fuel from the outside. She all but doubled over, hunching in on herself, her eyes clamped shut – though even then, she could feel the blazing gazes of the adults around her.

Too much.

Too much.

Too much.

Too much.

.

And then a hand was grabbing her, one much larger than Sunny's, wrenching her arms away from her ears and forcing her into motion. Before the girl could even fully grasp what was happening, mom was marching away with a furious set in her stride unlike any the girl had ever seen before. With her mother's hand around her arm, she had no choice but to follow along. Or perhaps it was more like being dragged. The girl's steps were stumbling and uncertain, the hammering in her head turning into a cloud of dizziness that made the corners of the room spin in her vision as she moved. But mom wouldn't let her be hesitant, determinedly pulling her along all the same. Leaving Sunny and dad behind. She didn't want to be yanked away from her little brother's side – even if he couldn't help, she would still much rather keep him near than not – but it wasn't really her choice at that point.

Tears still trickled down the girl's cheeks, unable to even take a moment to try to stifle them – not that it likely would've worked anyway – and through her distorted vision, she only saw more and more glaring adults looming around her as she passed. She couldn't understand a word that was said, her ears still howling in distress, but she knew, somehow she could just instinctively tell, they were muttering angrily. About her. And who could blame them?

Then she was outside, the church doors swinging shut behind her. Her mother's undaunted advance continued, tugging the girl away from the building and out to the family car. Only then did they come to a halt, her mom's hands shifting to her shoulders to spin her around, pushing her so that her back bumped up against the door of the car. She was vaguely aware of mom standing in front of her, arms crossed and looking down, but the haze of dizziness shrouding her vision hadn't faded. The overwhelming barrage of sound against her eardrums had barely faltered from moving outside either. It was simply different noises now; cars rumbling by on the street, dogs barking in the distance, somebody running a lawnmower... It was all still so loud. Mom was trying to say something, clearly, her mouth moving. Her posture grew visibly more agitated as the girl failed to respond, still hiccuping with tears she could only barely choke back.

"-ri... -ou listening to..."

The girl's head was still swimming even as she tried to force back the tide that felt like it was dragging her under... when all of a sudden mom was moving, and then a hand gripped the underside of her chin. Somehow, the tight grasp around her jaw was distracting enough that it sliced through the storm raging around her for an instant, all but forcing her to focus on the moment. The nameless overwhelming sensations battering her seemed to dim. Perhaps it was an unintended mercy... But a mercy she'd take all the same. With the small amount of clarity, the girl didn't try to fight it as mom tilted her head up to meet her gaze.

"I said, Mari, are you listening to me, sweetie?" Mom repeated expectantly, her dark eyes narrow. The girl couldn't help but squirm instinctively beneath the gaze. She didn't want to look into those eyes. It felt wrong. She couldn't see feelings or guess people's thoughts in their eyes, the way others seemed to. Mom's eyes were just... dark. Black pits that might as well have been like the girl running headfirst into a brick wall for all they had to offer her. It was just... off. An icky feeling in her gut that threatened to unleash the maelstrom of thoughts that was only barely held at bay for the moment... but she couldn't look away either. Slowly, she nodded her head – she was listening, she didn't feel like there was really a choice.

A small scoff.

"Use your words, sweetheart." Mom reminded her pointedly.

"Y-yeah." the girl croaked, her throat sore from sobbing. "I'm- I can hear you, mom." she stumbled. Normally she would've tried to be more confident in her speech – being bright and direct was a habit she'd encouraged in herself for her little brother's sake – but everything still felt so... hazy.

"Good." Mom replied shortly, but despite the word, she was still bristling with agitation. It didn't seem like she actually thought anything about this was good. "So, care to explain yourself, young lady? What exactly was that? One moment you were doing fine, and the next..."

That was the question of the century, wasn't it? If the girl knew how to properly explain it, well, she probably wouldn't even be here, now would she? Because if she understood what that was, she might've been able to prevent it. It wasn't like she wanted that to happen, why in the world would she? It felt horrible! It wasn't the first time she'd been overwhelmed enough to freak out, but she'd been younger before. She was eight now, far too old for tantrums, so why was it still happening?

"I don't know, mom..." the girl admitted. Her face burned in shame, and her first instinct was to hang her head and stare at the ground – but the hand holding her chin up wouldn't let her.

It was the wrong thing to say.

"'I don't know' isn't good enough, Mari!" Mom snapped, her fingers on her daughter's jaw tightening a little. Not enough to actively hurt, but enough to make it noticeably uncomfortable. "Do you have any idea what you've just done!?" she demanded sharply.

"I-" the girl started to say. But it was clearly a rhetorical question, as mom cut her off to talk right over her.

"You embarrassed me." Mom hissed, dark eyes narrowing even further, if that were possible. "You embarrassed me in front of everyone!"

She finally let go of the girl's chin, bringing her hand up to run it through her hair in clear frustration instead. The girl was too taken aback by the sheer venom in her mother's voice, instantly perceptible even to someone like her, to respond. Not that she'd really have a chance to anyway, as mom was still talking.

"Is this because of your difficulties? You know you need to do better about that, sweetie! How many times do I have to tell you?" she ranted, looking up to the sky for a moment as if the heavens would hold the answers she was looking for. "This is exactly what I was worried about! Do you have any idea how much trouble you might've caused me? Do you want to make our family look bad? This is a small town, Mari! People talk! Your little episode could be a scandal for months now!"

Every word was like a needle to the girl's heart, a stabbing ache growing in her chest, a thousand times worse than the pins she felt on her skin from this itchy dress.

Mom looked back at her, a deep frown set on her face. "Is it really so much to ask for you to just be a normal daughter, for me?" she asked, almost plaintively. Again, though, it seemed to be a rhetorical question. "People won't be patient forever, Mari. If you keep up acting like this, if you can't even deal with simple things right without making yourself a burden, sooner or later nobody will ever want you around." she concluded.

If the previous words had been needles, then this was a dagger.

The girl's chest burned. For a moment she thought for sure that her heart would shatter. She didn't want this. She didn't. She didn't. She didn't.

Somehow, mom had cut right to the one thing she was afraid of most. The thing that her darkest nightmares were about, the secret ones that she'd never talk about to anyone, not even to Sunny.

She couldn't stand to be alone.

.

.

When dad and Sunny left the church to join them a few minutes later, the girl couldn't bring herself to say anything. She could barely look at her little brother as they all loaded into the car to head home.

Was she a burden to him, too?

Would she be a burden to their friends?

It wasn't the first time she'd had these thoughts, deep down. The nightmares had to come from somewhere. But having it spoken aloud made it clearer. More real. She was... different. Difficult. Wrong. It was all wrong.

Again, that wasn't news to her, even at the age of eight. But it was still true. It still hurt.

Even though she hadn't spoken a word of it to Sunny – she couldn't even imagine trying to lay all that on his shoulders, he of all people deserved better than to suffer the weight of her problems – he still seemed to be able to tell that his big sister was distressed even though she'd stopped crying, as once they were in the back seat of the car together, he took her hand and shifted in his seat to lean into her side, resting his head on her shoulder.

They stayed like that all the way home.

.

.

.

"Mari. Mari! Come on, wake up... You have to wake up...!"

The younger boy's voice was strained, almost pleading. He wanted to shake her, but knew he couldn't.

"You promised. Promised we'd... do stuff together. Promised you wouldn't leave me behind... You promised!"

His breaths were gasping, the words forced out, hands clutching at his own shirt.

"Sunny...? Hey, Sunny!"

The older boy finally noticed, rushing to his younger friend's side.

"You can't... You can't-!"

The younger boy was still trying to talk even as he devolved into desperate wheezing.

"Whoa, Sunny! What's going on!?"

"Hero-! Hero, I c... Can't- She won't... wake-!"

"Sunny, Sunny, hold on! This isn't- How does Mari do this again...?"

The older boy's last comment was muttered to himself as he crouched down in front of the younger boy.

"...Breathe, Sunny, alright? Just... listen to my voice and breathe."

"..."

The younger boy was still gasping, his body quivering where he sat.

"Come on, take a deep breath with me. Slowly... In through the nose and out through the mouth."

"..."

"There you go. Now again, in... and out."

"..."

"Yeah, yeah, you're doing great, Sunny. Take a deep breath... and calm down. Remember what Mari says, it's not as scary as you think."

The older boy's voice was a little shaky, but he was trying to keep cool for the sake of his friend.

The younger boy continued to breathe in and out, still heavy, but a little slower. A little steadier.

"Okay now, what next...? Right, do you think you can tell me five things you see?"

"...F-five... Okay... You. The sky. M-Mari. Trees. The lake."

"Now... four things you hear?"

"Uh... You again... My heart. Rain, in the trees. Your m-mom on the phone..."

"Three things you feel?"

"Mud. My c-clothes. Raindrops on my head."

"That's it, Sunny, just a few more... Two things you can smell?"

"Wet air, and... grass."

"Alright, and is there one thing you taste?"

"...Yeah, rain. On my lips."

"Awesome, Sunny. Did that... did that help?"

"..."

"...I think. I feel... It doesn't hurt. My chest."

"Good, that's good! Just... keep breathing for me, alright?"

"Yeah... Thanks, Hero..."

"You don't need to thank me, I'm just glad you're okay."

The two boys lapsed into silence for a moment. Tension was still thick in the air. It was impossible to ignore the elephant in the room that was the unconscious girl before them, after all.

"...So listen, Sunny. Mari's gonna be okay, alright? She's tough, so... she'll make it through this."

The older boy spoke up with confidence, though it wouldn't immediately be clear how much of it was genuine and how much was still for his friend's sake. The younger boy hugged his knees, still focusing on breathing deeply, and didn't reply.

"...I mean it. Hypothermia is... It's bad, but... I read that people usually make it if they get help in time, you know? And we made it here. She's still breathing, she's not gonna quit on us, and... Mamá's on the phone with the paramedics right now and they should be here any minute."

"..."

"So what I'm saying is, you did the right thing. Coming to get us to help find her, I mean."

"..."

"And I know that when Mari wakes up, she's going to be really proud of how strong you've been."

The younger boy lifted his head. It didn't escape his notice that his older friend had very deliberately said when and not if.

Any reply the boy may have had, however, never left his throat... as the sound of sirens pierced the air not far in the distance, from the direction of the entrance to the park. The ambulance was here.

Chapter Text

Mari hated the way hospitals smelled.

If there was one thing she would recall from her hospitalization after the softball accident... Well, it would obviously be the constant sense of grinding pain from her knee that would become a fixture of her day-to-day life. It was rather hard to supersede that. But the second thing to come to mind was the smell. Perhaps it was just another result of Mari's overactive senses blowing things out of proportion again – it wouldn't exactly surprise her at this point – but that didn't change the way it seemed. It was like there was this whiff of... sterility to everything. Which made a certain amount of sense, of course, but what was bothersome was how omnipresent it was. No matter where she looked, she'd be picking up hints of the distinct scent of disinfectant. It wasn't particularly concentrated,not like the painfully acrid scent of smelling a bottle of peroxide or anything of the sort. But what it lacked in quality, it more than made up for in quantity.

The smell was simply everywhere,and it clung to everything, absolutely everything. Mari couldn't overstate just how pervasive it was. The bedsheets, the hospital gowns, the hands of the doctors and nurses, the TV remotes, the plastic food trays, the food itself... The faint hint of disinfectant scent was always there, a haze that seemed to float around her twenty-four/seven. And it didn't just stop with the surroundings, of course. The smell clung to her too, sticking to her skin like an invisible film and threading its way through her hair. And perhaps the worst part was that it didn't go away. Even after she'd been discharged, the scent seemed to linger. Though mom insisted that it was just her imagination the one time she brought it up, Mari would swear that the disinfectant smell continued to stick to her for weeks after. It was a small thing, but all the more irritating for it. Like a constant itch at the back of her mind. It wouldn't be until her cast was removed, and she was finally able to thoroughly scrub herself down in the shower, that she was mostly able to rid herself of it.

Even though it, objectively speaking, wasn't even close to the worst thing she'd ever smelled; there were much, much stronger and fouler things she could imagine, scents that made her want to retch from the very thought of them... But that distinct hospital aroma, with its horrid pervading quality and the memories she associated with it... she might very well say it was her least favorite scent out of any she could recall, or at least a strong contender, simply because of that.

Which was precisely why said smell was the first thing her mind latched onto as she slowly became aware of her surroundings.

.

.

Not that there was initially much to be aware of. Everything around her was dark.

Mari didn't really understand. She couldn't see anything, she couldn't hear anything... It was just darkness, pressing in on her from all sides. In fact, "pressing" was a very apt word here, wasn't it? Because now that she was thinking about it, there was a strange feeling against her skin, a constant sort of pressure enveloping her... It wasn't crushing, it wasn't like she was at the bottom of the sea or anything – though given how dark everything was, she could've been forgiven for thinking that, couldn't she? In fact, she wouldn't even go so far as to call the odd sensation particularly unpleasant, because it wasn't. But it was there. For a moment, that was one of the only things she knew for sure.

Mari's head felt... hazy. It was so hard to make sense of anything, she didn't understand what was happening... Was anything happening right now? It was all just so... nothing, just darkness and blurry feelings, like a dense bank of fog had settled around her and no matter which way she stumbled, she couldn't seem to find a way out, or even see anything among the gloom.

Was any of this even real? Mari didn't often remember her dreams in anything more than the vaguest of details, not at all like her dear little brother, who always seemed to be able to describe some vivid and fantastical scenes whenever he talked about it... Truthfully, she'd always been a little jealous of his creativity, she could admit that to herself. Mari couldn't really imagine herself ever coming up with something as unique and brilliant as the fragments of adventures he described, even if she tried, and Sunny could do it all unconsciously. He didn't seem to realize how impressive that really was.

The point was, though, that Mari's dreams were often hazy and unclear, just like this – or at least, the normal dreams were. Nightmares were an entirely different story, those if anything tended to stick out a little too clearly in her mind. Those tended to be far more lifelike, too, enough that she couldn't immediately tell they weren't real in the moment. That was what made them nightmarish in the first place. More surreal imagery, even of the sort that would typically be considered "frightening", usually didn't bother her that much. That was why Mari was able to handle things like horror movies so much better than Sunny or Basil could. But convincingly realistic scenes, things she thought could actually happen to her – whether they be based on real memories (such as that day with Sunny at the lake) or simply things she was afraid might happen (like ultimately being left alone)... Those were the things that were truly terrifying. Not that she had any intention of admitting that when Sunny was around to hear, of course. Burdening him unfairly with her issues was the last thing she wanted.

Whereas as this... whatever was happening... She was pretty sure it wasn't a nightmare, but it could very well have been a normal dream. It was certainly strange enough. Just darkness and that strange vague sense of pressure, with everything feeling so foggy that she was sure she wouldn't be able to describe it coherently if someone were to ask her later. Actually, she very well might not have been able to describe it coherently now. That tended to require understanding what was even happening right now, and Mari was at least aware enough to know that she really didn't. So it could easily all be a dream, vague and hazy and likely to be forgotten by the time morning rolled around.

Actually, now that she was thinking about it, she definitely knew that she'd been dreaming immediately before this, at least, albeit dreams of a different sort. Images seemed to flash across her vision for a moment... Memories of times long gone. Yet some of the feelings that accompanied them were still so vivid that they felt like they were only yesterday, even despite the toll her rotten memory had taken upon them. The day Sunny was born, her first time being evaluated for autism, her early friendship with Hero and Kel, and that Easter at church...

She wondered why her mind had gone to those moments, of all things. They were each far apart, and she wasn't quite sure why her subconscious would want to connect them. Or why it was dredging up old memories like that at all.

.

.

...Focus. She needed to focus. That wasn't the point. Either way, though, she wouldn't have normally been able to rule out the possibility that she was still dreaming...

Except.

That smell. That smell. She'd recognize it in a heartbeat. It was a sensation far too distinct to just be her imagination. Even the clearest and most vivid of dreams, scenes that would otherwise seem almost perfectly lifelike, weren't truly perfect. Mari didn't think her brain was capable of conjuring such a thing. There would always be something just a little bit off, details that wouldn't be entirely clear or consistent, nuances that didn't fully translate when simply trying to imagine them. They might be convincing enough for her foggy, sleeping mind to accept in the moment, but it would never be enough to actually recreate reality in full detail. Even Sunny's imagination wouldn't be that good, much less Mari's.

Which was precisely why the smell stuck out to her so much. As strange as it seemed to say, the fact that she hated it was actually helpful here. Because a mere dream wouldn't be able to recreate it so perfectly that it would stir such a visceral feeling of displeasure in her gut. The moment that she picked up a hint of that sterile scent and felt her nose wrinkle with instinctive distaste, her imagination dredging up memories of the smell haunting her after the softball accident... In its own bizarre way, it proved that all this was real. She still didn't understand what was going on, or where the hospital smell could even be coming from or why, but she couldn't deny the feeling. It gave her something to ground herself, something she could focus on – unpleasant as it was – to fight back this odd sense of hazy darkness that shrouded her. To pull her thoughts a little and rouse herself from her halfway... sleeping, or unconscious, or whatever this state could be called. If she was trudging through a thick bank of fog, then it gave her a lantern shining in the distance to march towards.

With that simple thought guiding her, helping her to keep focused, the darkness swirling around her seemed to become a little less oppressive, a little less absolute, and Mari found herself able to concentrate enough that she could finally start to make out sensations around her besides just the vague pressing blackness.

Warm. She felt warm... That was strange, for a moment she'd entirely expected to feel cold. Cold and wet. That was one of the last things she could remember feeling – though the exact reason why was seeming just out of her grasp. Now wasn't the time to go chasing after that tangent though. Focus. She was warm, though, and dry... Actually, it was almost hot, the kind of humid heat that would make your head start to swim if you were immersed in it too long. Not an active burning from exertion, but more just passively sweating her out. The first thing she'd compare it to was like, if she'd for some reason decided to go out wearing a sweater on a summer day. Even the air in her lungs was noticeably warm, now that she was paying attention to it, each breath puffing out hotly around her mouth.

But, far more worrying than that, now that she was starting to pierce the sense of haziness veiling everything... something was starting to hurt.

Or, perhaps it'd be more accurate to say it had been hurting this whole time and she just hadn't recognized it before now. But she could no longer ignore the pain emanating from what she knew must have been her knee. That ache had been such an ever-present companion over the last few years that she could recognize its source practically on instinct, even in this hazy state of... whatever was going on right now... The point was, Mari knew pain in her knee when she felt it. Sometimes she even suspected she was aware of it in her dreams – though given that unlike the way Sunny described his, most of her dreams faded completely from memory by morning, she had no way to prove this. She'd definitely woken up more than enough times with her leg protesting due to her having rolled over into a slightly off position or something of the sort during the night, though.

Yet at the same time, despite her intimate familiarity with the source, now that she was aware of it, this pain felt... different somehow. Wrong. Now obviously, pretty much all her leg pains could be considered "wrong" in a sense. Normal girls weren't supposed to have bad knees at her age, that was the sort of thing that was supposed to happen when you were quite old, or in the case of severe disasters. That she had one as a teenager from something as simple as a sports accident was just another testament to her mistakes. Another sign setting her apart from what she knew a regular kid's life was supposed to be like – as if there weren't already enough of such signs to begin with. (...Was it really so surprising, then, that she'd wish to close that gap rather than to widen it? To be perfectly able to stand with everyone around her, to do things right rather than limping along until their patience finally ran out and she was left behind?)

.

...Focus. She was supposed to be focusing. The pain in her leg was different this time. It wasn't the needle-like jabs she was used to, with how they would flare up or fade away depending on whatever she was doing at the time. This feeling now was more... constant. It wasn't a distinct spike of pain in response to any particular movement, or even the "incinerated by a blazing thunderbolt" feeling that struck when her leg would buckle. It was just there. A ceaseless ache that seemed to throb in time with her heartbeats, but now that she was consciously aware of it, appeared to have no inclination to ebb any time soon.

That probably wasn't – no, definitely couldn't be – good, but... There wasn't really anything she could do about it. The fog was clearing up some, little by little, but it was still there. It was still so much harder than normal to concentrate (and she didn't always have an easy time of it to begin with). Mari still didn't really understand what was going on. And you couldn't fix a problem when you didn't even know what it was.

...For now she needed to just... try to focus on something else. Fortunately, her ever-growing awareness of her surroundings provided the perfect distraction. It was a true testament to just how muffled her brain was that it took her this long to notice it, but... Mari was moving. Or perhaps it'd be more accurate to say that things around her were moving? It wasn't like she was actually moving herself, she didn't sleepwalk or anything like that. But she could tell, even though she she was lying still, not shifting a muscle, she wasn't still. Wherever she was, it wasn't... stationary. It was hard to describe, as unclear as everything still felt, but she could just tell. It was sort of like... Like how trying to read a book while riding in the car would give her a headache. That was it. Because even though she would be sitting still, her brain could still sense the motion of the vehicle, and so combining that feeling with trying to focus on the stationary words on the page, rather than the world moving by out the window, caused a sort of... dissonance that would leave her head throbbing and unsteady if she ignored it for too long.

This feeling wasn't quite the same as that, but it was certainly close enough to be familiar nonetheless. In fact, the more she thought about it, the closer it seemed. An impression that certainly wasn't helped by her suddenly noticing the faint rumbling noise running in time with the sense of movement. It didn't seem to be coming from anywhere in particular, just sort of a constant lowkey background noise – which was probably why it had blended into her foggy brain until now. She almost would've wondered if there were an earthquake going on, except that Faraway wasn't even remotely close to any significant faultlines or prone to any other exceptional geologic activity as far as she knew. So that left the most likely possibility that... she really was in a vehicle, somehow.

Not that that idea seemed to make much sense either. Why would she have been asleep in a moving vehicle? It was true that Mari had, on a few rare occasions, been tired enough from staying up late with homework (particularly after she'd begun her college prep courses) that she dozed off on the school bus. But that was always a much, much lighter snooze than this, only just barely nodding off to rest her eyes, still alert enough that she was able to rouse herself relatively easily once the bus arrived at school. Not at all like this all-encompassing sheet of darkness and fog she was only just managing to fight through... And perhaps more pertinently, it was also the weekend, wasn't it? She was at least ninety-five percent sure. So that ruled out the "bus" theory pretty handily, but she couldn't really take much satisfaction in that conclusion that when it only made the overarching question more confusing.

.

But then-

Before Mari could delve into that any further.

Another sound managed to pierce through the haze.

One that immediately shoved all else aside to become top priority in a way nothing else could.

"Mari, please wake up..."

It was just a whisper, but one Mari knew all too well. Better than perhaps anyone in the world, with only Basil or Aubrey possibly coming close.

"Hero said you would, but... Wish you'd hurry up."

Each word was a knife in the dark, cutting ribbons through the fog to reach her.

"The- the paramedic says you're stable. I know that... I know..."

All Mari could do was listen in rapt attention, every other thought or question or possible plan of action thrown to the wayside in that moment.

"But I still... Want you to..."

"..."

"I'm not stupid... Being out in the cold like that... It can... It could've ki-"

Out in the cold? What did that mean? It was rather chilly today, she'd already remembered that earlier, but why talk about it like... like that? The voice hitched and cut itself off on the last word, but Mari still had a sinking feeling what it meant. But that didn't make sense, did it...?

"What happened? ...What did mom do...?"

Mom?

Mari felt like the darkness around her grew colder with the word. Something in her chest... her chest really hurt...

Something was wrong. Something had happened, like the voice said. Something she wasn't quite remembering, or... The pain spiked again.

(Something she was avoiding trying to remember?)

.

.

.

"..."

"Please... Please wake up, sis..."

"Please tell me why this is..."

"..."

"..."

"...I'm sorry..."

.

.

.

The darkness seemed to crack. Light spilling in from everywhere and nowhere.

The fog... didn't vanish, not completely. Her head still felt heavy. But by now it had alleviated just enough for that final stab of clarity.

Mari opened her eyes.

Chapter Text

The ceiling that greeted Mari overhead was white. In fact, it was probably just about the most nondescript ceiling she could’ve imagined, little more than a smooth white metallic surface. It wasn’t even made up of multiple tiles or anything of the sort, however little visual interest that might have added. No, just a single white rectangle, only broken up a couple flat fluorescent lights.... that were also white and rectangular. It was so purely utilitarian in concept that it was almost impressive, its sheer lack of notable features becoming a notable feature in and of itself. The first conscious thought Mari managed to pull together was that, wherever she was, it had clearly been designed with solely practical concerns in mind, no thought given to style or comfort whatsoever. Function over form, to the extreme.

Her second conscious thought was about those lights. They really were awfully bright, weren’t they? Or perhaps that was just her imagination blowing things out of proportion as usual – she knew other people weren’t bothered by things like that nearly as much as she was. But at least from where she was sitting (or, laying....?) it certainly seemed like a considerable glare. The sleek glowing panels were so bright, in fact, that it made her vision seem to blur after a few moments of staring up at them, leaving her blinking furiously to try to clear it. It probably didn’t help that she could only fully see from one of her eyes, specifically the left. Her right eye could only seem to squint. She wasn’t even sure why, it just felt oddly heavy and.... puffy, somehow, such that trying to open it wider was met with a dull throbbing resistance. That was.... probably a warning sign, wasn’t it? Right now it was only mildly uncomfortable, but she had a sneaking suspicion that if she tried to force it open wider, then it’d really start to ache. Though Mari couldn’t quite put her finger on what this oddly swollen feeling-

.

Oh. Right. That. Now she remembered.... she’d gotten a real nuisance of a black eye, hadn’t she? There was something almost fascinating, in a morbid way, about how Mari’s memory was so unreliable that even something like that could slip her mind. ....Well, at least the swelling seemed to have gone down a little. Before, she hadn’t been able to open it at all without pain, so while squinting may not have been much of an improvement.... it was still an improvement nonetheless. She’d take just about anything she could get right now.

But there was a much more immediate concern. Now that Mari had grasped consciousness enough to start to regain feeling in her face (or at least, to actually notice said feelings again).... She suddenly became aware of something on her face. Something was pressed against her skin, enveloping her mouth and nose, her breaths puffing out hot and muffled, like breathing into a hand cupped over one’s face. Only, it wasn’t a hand – if anything, she’d say the outline of it felt more like.... some sort of mask? What in the world....? A wave of confusion crashed over her with that realization, and she immediately tore her eyes away from the ceiling to instead stare down her own nose. Insomuch as she could while laying with her head back like she was, anyway. That was surprisingly more difficult than it seemed, especially with how sluggish her, well, everything still felt.

Still, as her eyes trailed down, she immediately spotted the object – honestly, it was almost a little worrying that it had taken her this long to notice it. Was she really that out of it? ....Actually, that was probably a stupid question. With how much effort it had taken just to collect herself enough to merely open her eyes.... of course she was. Mari’s head still felt so cloudy, it was incredibly easy for her mind to drift away on every tangential thought that occurred to her. Easier than it usually was for her on a normal day, that is, which was really saying something.

Focus. She needed to focus. The thing clamped around her face.... It was a mask, alright: shaped roughly like a dome, with a slight indent to make room for her nose. It was mostly made of clear plastic, fogged up from her humid breath, with a thin ring of pale blue rubber forming a seal around the rim. In the center of the dome was a small circular opening, attached to which was a ridged plastic tube. She couldn’t tell what the tube connected to from this awkward angle she was glancing at, as it ran down past her chin and out of sight off to the side somewhere. But she didn’t particularly need to see it. She already knew exactly what this was, anyone who’d ever seen a medical drama, let alone needed medical attention themselves, would recognize it – and it finally explained why her nose was filled with that pervasive hospital smell she so desperately wished she could be free of.

An oxygen mask.

But why would she....?

Mari pushed herself upright. Or rather, she tried to push herself upright, only to barely move an inch, managing little more than jostling herself vaguely where she lay. A jolt of alarm shot through Mari’s body, her heartbeat pounding faster in her ears. The puffs of fog from her breath against the plastic mask began to appear faster. Something was holding her down, a pressure across her chest and legs resisting her as she tried to move. Straps? And on top of that, her arms were pinned to her sides.... No, not pinned, more like.... wrapped up. That impression she’d noticed before, of something enveloping her from all sides, cocooning her in heat.... It wasn’t just her imagination, it was real. She was literally wrapped up, ensconced in some kind of heavy blanket or cloth. Now that she had noticed it, it felt a little scratchy against her skin. More like a thick insulating curtain than anything made for comfort. If she were thinking more clearly right then, perhaps it would’ve neatly explained why she felt so hot, almost bordering on sweaty.

But she wasn’t thinking clearly. She’d woken up somewhere strange, she was strapped down and wrapped in blankets that kept her from moving, and she was breathing through an oxygen mask. Why was she wearing an oxygen mask!?

.

Mari wouldn’t have considered herself someone overly prone to panic. Oh, she got overwhelmed and freaked out from time to time – it had been happening with an alarmingly growing frequency lately, something that still made her burn with embarrassment – but that wasn’t the same thing. Actual, legitimate panic from sheer confusion and fear was different, wasn’t it? And she thought she was usually pretty good at keeping that sort of reaction under control. She’d had a lot of practice, after all. Despite what her friends seemed to believe, Mari’s ability to keep calm was a learned skill, not an intrinsic part of her. If she wanted to be the ideal big sister to Sunny, as she’d sworn to be so long ago, it had seemed rather important that she keep her cool so she could offer a composed and comforting front whenever he needed a shoulder to lean on. And for a boy who often frightened easily, he tended to need it quite a bit, especially when he was younger. So it had only made sense for his sister to teach herself to stave off panic for both their sakes.

None of that practice seemed to be doing much to help her right now.

It was the strangest feeling. She knew, logically, that she needed to try to stay calm. That it was important to stay focused and try to figure out the meaning her current situation and what – if anything – she could do about it. Part of her mind was fully cognizant of that fact and actively reminding her of it. Yet for all her reasoning, none of it was actually working. Her heartbeat only seemed to speed up, blood pounding fervently through her veins. She couldn’t tell if it was cold or hot. Her breathing behind the mask hitched upwards, her body trembling within the restraints binding her down. Not quite struggling, exactly, but close to it, trying to pull or push here and there to get a little bit of leeway, to get a little room to breathe....! It was like a disconnect between her mind and her body, an odd sense of.... duality, almost. Like she was fully aware, watching her control start to give way to panic even as she sat there rationally telling herself not to do precisely that.

The end result was that Mari was somehow completely deadlocked with herself, torn between trying to reason through her situation, and rising fear as she realized just how terrifying said situation really was! There was probably a clever word, some proper term that perfectly encapsulated the feeling, but Mari had no clue what it was. She couldn’t think about or focus on anything, she just kept spiraling around the same thoughts over and over, when-

.

“....Mari....?”

For the second time that day, a certain voice sliced clean through her train of thought. Cutting it to ribbons so neatly that it put the samurai from those old movies her dad used to watch to shame.

That voice.... She’d thought it was just her imagination, just another indistinct feeling dredged up by her delirious half-awake mind, familiar thoughts and sensations from the depths of her subconsciousness pieced together into a figment that could pass as realistic as long as it wasn’t scrutinized too much. Her brain’s way of telling her to get it together and wake up, perhaps. After all, it was a voice she was very familiar with, so her imagination had a lot to work with. It wouldn’t have been that surprising if she could envision it speaking to her about pretty much anything, given the right state of mind....

But no. No, the voice was here, it was real, it had clearly sounded from next to her, and that meant-

As if snapped back to reality in an instant, the surge of panic shoved aside so quickly it amazed even Mari, she found herself blinking a few times to clear her head. She didn’t- She didn’t have time to panic right now. Instead, she shook herself slightly and strained to turn her head as much as she could from this position, trying to catch sight of the source of the voice.

And sure enough, her eyes (or at least, the eye not stuck in a perpetual squint at the moment) locked momentarily with a very familiar face staring back at her from where he sat in a small seat against the nearby white wall, having been just outside her peripheral vision until now. From the way he was looking up at her, visibly hunched over, she imagined he’d been curled in on himself until a few moments ago, his head presumably bowed.... Was that why it’d taken him so long to notice that she was awake? Not that he could be blamed for that, of course, when she hadn’t even noticed he was present until he spoke.

(“Were you really so caught up in your problems that you wouldn’t register someone sitting a few feet away? That’s self-absorbed even for you....”)

“S-suhh....” Mari tried to speak, but her voice was weak from having only just awoken after being unconscious for the last who-knew-how-long, and on top of that, she still had the oxygen mask over her face obscuring whatever sound she did manage to muster up.... so the end result came out as nothing more than a vague, muffled rasp.

Sunny, however, seemed to understand her.... Or at least, he’d caught her gaze a moment ago and heard her (pathetic) attempt to speak, and that was enough to get his undivided attention by itself.

“Mari, you’re awake....!” he said, voice barely above a stunned murmur. He leaned towards her quickly, not quite getting up in her space, but definitely trying to get closer to her, pushing himself to the edge of his seat. Mari saw that his eyes had grown wider as he stared at her. She couldn’t be entirely sure, but she almost wanted to call the expression slightly.... disbelieving. Like he was, on some level, actually surprised to see her wake up.

But that couldn’t be right, could it? Why would he be thinking otherwise? Mari knew that something was wrong – no, that a lot of things were wrong about this situation, she was acutely aware of that. That much was blatantly obvious, she wouldn’t be strapped down and breathing through an oxygen mask if everything were perfectly fine, that really went without saying. But Sunny was here with her, and at least from her initial glance he appeared to be fine (physically speaking, anyway), so it couldn’t be all bad. Just seeing him had helped to push back her own rising fear in her mind. And as for herself, she was slower to wake and collect herself than normal, but it hadn’t seemed like a question that she would eventually pull herself together, it was just tedious.... so what was it that had him so worried? What was she missing here?

....Well, evidently, she was missing a lot since she still had no real clue how she’d even gotten here. But she had to start somewhere. And it seemed natural that s he would, as always, be far more concerned with his condition than anything, she was used to swallowing her complaints when it came to dealing with her own problems, and this should be no different.

“What’s going on?”

....Is what Mari tried to ask. But she was once again forcefully reminded of the oxygen mask’s obtrusive presence. What came out was more stifled mumbling along the lines of “Wu h s guh-hmm?” Despite herself, Mari felt her brow starting to furrow in a slight scowl, sending a small throb of warning across her bruised eye. She’d only been aware of it for about a minute, but she was already fully fed-up with this mask. Maybe it was the circumstances she’d woken up in making her less patient than usual. Or maybe it was just the way it reeked of hospital smell leaving her predisposed to dislike it from the start. But on some level, she had a feeling that she might well have instinctively torn the thing from her face and chucked it across the room if her arms weren’t currently pinned. It was an irrational thought, she knew, such a petty act wasn’t how she should behave.... but it’d make her feel a little better.

Hearing her efforts to speak once more, Sunny leaned forward a little further, and Mari saw him just starting to raise his arms before he hesitated, making some sort of aborted motion. Like he had been about to reach out to touch her, perhaps to give her a hug, or maybe to grab her hand, Mari couldn’t be entirely certain.... But whatever it was, he’d visibly stopped himself, crossing his arms over his chest instead. Perhaps he was too worried to know what to do with his hands.... or perhaps he’d just realized that, with Mari cocooned as she was in the shroud of blankets, she wasn’t really in any position to reach back. She couldn’t really tell at the moment, his face was difficult to read. He was obviously worried – about her, presumably – but he also seemed like he didn’t know entirely what to say or do? He certainly fell silent for a moment. Overwhelmed, maybe. The thought jabbed a splinter of guilt through Mari’s heart, as she was in no position to reassure him (or really do much at all, if she was being honest).

.

As she tried to think of something, anything, she could do to reach out to him, however-

“Miss?”

Another voice spoke up, rending clear through her train of thought again, this time for an entirely different reason; while Sunny’s voice had seized Mari’s focus because of how painfully familiar it was.... this voice demanded attention because of how it wasn’t familiar at all. There was another, unknown person here – and they’d probably been here the whole time, as Sunny didn’t appear at all startled by it, unlike Mari herself, his eyes simply flicking over for a moment before resuming his awkward vigil over her.

(“Again, how were you managing to completely tune out an entire person’s existence from your mind?”)

....Well, at least this time Mari had the excuse of her concern for Sunny taking up all her of attention – a priority which she, as his big sister, would argue was justified pretty much always. Not that this stopped her heartbeat from momentarily spiking with a surge of alarm at being taken by surprise like that, tearing her eyes away from Sunny to snap them over to the direction of the stranger’s voice – Sunny didn’t look worried about them, but Mari still didn’t understand what was going on, so she couldn’t take that for granted, and.... Oh.

That made a surprising amount of sense. The bud of worry withered away as quickly as it had come, replaced by the slightest burn of something almost like.... embarrassment. She really was slow on the uptake right now, wasn’t she? (More so than usual, that is.)

Rising up from being seated not too far away, on the opposite end of the room from where Sunny sat, was a woman. She was clearly an adult, though not too old, maybe mid-30s if Mari had to guess from a glance. Appearance wise, she was fairly unremarkable – Mari had to resist cringing slightly upon realizing how rude that sounded even in her head, but she didn’t mean it in a bad way. The woman just didn’t have any particular stand-out features, neither especially beautiful nor especially ugly. Medium height, lightly tanned skin, brown hair in a plain ponytail. If Mari had passed by her on the street, it wouldn’t stick out in her memory.

But it was the woman’s clothing that had really gotten her attention. It was obviously some manner of professional uniform, but more than that, it was a uniform Mari recognized easily. Fairly rugged navy blue work pants, clearly meant for practical wear rather than looks. Accompanying that was a lighter blue button-up shirt with a stiff collar, lined with several large pockets along the front. Worn over said shirt was a thick navy jacket with reflective silver stripes around the hem and the ends of the sleeves. Yet it was the image emblazoned over the breast of said jacket that was really the smoking gun: a solid blue asterisk shape surrounding an image of a white rod with a snake coiling around it. The symbol of a first-response team.

And Mari happened to know that specific variant of the uniform well enough. The stranger was a paramedic. That.... put a lot of things into perspective, didn’t it? It was like several of the pieces she knew she was missing about this whole thing had just slotted themselves into place. Actually.... Now that she was thinking about it, Mari had heard the word “paramedic” among Sunny’s whispers before, hadn’t she? She’d thought for a moment that was just her imagination conjuring nonsense, but no, Sunny really was here, so everything she’d thought she heard was.... probably accurate, wasn’t it?

“Alright, miss, I see you’re awake....” the paramedic remarked, coming to stand in front of where Mari was laying, looking down at her with a small frown. Not one of displeasure, Mari assumed, but more like simple seriousness. The woman was a professional, after all, so that sort of focused look wasn’t unexpected. “Do you understand what I’m saying?” she asked.

Mari was about to open her mouth to reply.... when she remembered the oxygen mask obscuring her voice once more. Feeling her lips starting to drop into a frown, she glanced down at the clear plastic again, her distaste for it growing with each passing second. The more she thought about it, the more she wanted that thing off her face. She hadn’t been this easily annoyed by something since.... Well, probably since that horribly scratchy sweater earlier this week, but that wasn’t for quite the same reasons.

The paramedic must have followed her gaze down, as she quickly realized the problem. “Just nod your head for now if you understand.” she corrected herself.

That sting of embarrassment flared up in Mari’s cheeks again. She really should’ve thought of that without needing to be told, shouldn’t she? ....Although, at the same time, now that she was thinking about it.... it was a little surreal, too. How often in her life had she actually been encouraged to answer with nods or shakes of her head in lieu of verbal answers, rather than the other way around? ....This may very well have been the first time, ever. Certainly the first that she could remember at the moment, at the very least, no matter how she wracked her brain. Realizing that she was starting to let herself drift off on another mental tangent, however, she envisioned herself physically shoving that line of thought aside and quickly nodded.

“Alright.” the medic agreed crisply, her own head bobbing in a small nod of acknowledgment in return. “Now, I know you’re probably confused about what’s going on, but first I have some questions I need to ask. Are you alright answering?” she asked, her tone to-the-point, but not unkind.

Truthfully, deep down, some tiny part of Mari wanted to protest. “Confused about what’s going on” was a colossal understatement. She was starting to piece things together – a paramedic overseeing her while Sunny worried at her side certainly painted a very specific image in her mind – but there were enough facts she was still missing to make it rather frustrating when she tried to think about it. She knew it was a petty and unreasonable thought, an almost childishly selfish impulse, but she couldn’t deny that on some level she really just wanted answers now. Shouldn’t she be the one asking the questions, not the one receiving them? Wasn’t that only fair after all this? Not that she even had a way to actually convey that in the first place, of course, since she still couldn’t really move or speak, but....

.

A faint shuffling sound caught Mari’s attention, and her eyes drifted back over towards her other side, where Sunny had leaned a bit closer to her again. He was still tense, dark eyes still fixed on her as he watched the whole thing. He still seemed to be at a loss for words – he certainly hadn’t tried to say anything – but Mari couldn’t particularly blame him. Sunny had never been the most talkative person around anyone who wasn’t her to begin with, so the paramedic’s presence may have something to do with it.... and on top of that, this situation had to be incredibly stressful for him. No, from the whispering she’d caught earlier as she dragged herself out of her mental fog, Mari knew it was. He’d probably clammed up because he was too anxious to speak. It wouldn’t be the first time, and probably not the last.

And the only thing she could possibly do to make him feel better right now was to reassure him that she’d be okay. Which meant getting over that stupid toddler-like petulant impulse and just doing what the medic needed. Mari tried to give Sunny a small, somewhat wobbly smile beneath the oxygen mask, and was gratified when she saw his eyes widen ever-so-slightly – he must’ve seen it. But there was no time for any more than that, as she tore her eyes away to look back at the paramedic again. The woman was looking down at her with eyebrows raised slightly, which Mari interpreted as almost expectant, so she once again tilted her head in a quick nod.

“Excellent. Do you feel any sort of disorientation? Dizziness, lightheadedness? A feeling like you might pass out?”

The situation was still incredibly disorienting, in Mari’s opinion.... But that wasn’t quite what the woman meant, she knew that. The confusion she was feeling wasn’t really a physical sensation. And the thick, foggy feelings swimming around her head had been gradually abating with every second she’d been awake, so.... Mari slowly shook her head side-to-side.

“Do you feel any unusual temperature? Overly cold or hot?” the paramedic followed up. Her tone of voice was fully clinical now, apparently completely focused on her job. If she had any other opinions on the situation, she certainly wasn’t showing them, or at least not in any way that Mari could tell. Which wasn’t surprising, of course, first-responders had to deal with stressful circumstances on a daily basis, maintaining a professional demeanor was essentially necessary to get through the job. That fact certainly didn’t do much to ease Mari’s nerves, though, only adding to the slightly surreal feeling generated by the sterile surroundings. Once again, she really wished she could move her arms to reach over to Sunny.... this time, she had to admit, for her own sake. It was a selfish impulse, but even just being able to hold his hand in that moment would’ve gone a long way in helping her feel grounded.

But there was still nothing she could do about that right now. Mari considered the question for a moment. She was rather warm, but that probably wasn’t what the woman mean by unusual, was it? After all, with all the blankets she was layered in, she could easily identify the source of this warmth. It wasn’t excessively warm for the circumstances. She assumed the paramedic was asking if it felt cloying or feverish, which it didn’t. Mari shook her head again.

Accepting the answer once more, the paramedic glanced over Mari again. She looked like she was about to say something, perhaps to ask another routine question.... only for a thought to seem to occur to her, as she abruptly turned away, facing something off to the side instead. Mari craned her head as much as she could given her extremely limited ability to move around, trying to see what the woman was looking at. She just managed to catch sight of what looked like some kind of small, blocky plastic machine set up against the white metal wall. On the front was what looked like a dark green screen with.... some kind of lighter green lines scrolling across it? That was all Mari could make out from here, but.... Oh. She had a suspicion for what that was.

A heartrate monitor. There were probably wires running from it and reaching up under the swathe of blankets – in fact, yes.... Now that Mari knew to look for it, she could just barely feel an itchy feeling at roughly the points on her skin the electrodes aught to be attached to. She hadn’t noticed it before among the general scratchiness of the blankets, but.... She had been in the hospital before. She knew the feeling, now that she was actually aware she should be paying attention to it. It was no wonder she hadn’t realized the machine was there before, though – it made perfect sense for it to be here in hindsight, but she hadn’t been thinking about that, and with it both out of her view and completely silent.... it simply hadn’t occurred to her. Of course it was silent, though. Heart monitors didn’t really make constant beeping noises like you’d see in movies and TV shows, that’d drive the doctors and nurses crazy, never mind the patients.... They only made noise when something went wrong, and the fact that Mari was fairly sure she wasn’t dead ruled that out.

.

.

(“Wow, you thought that so confidently.... But you sure did a good job terrifying Sunny with that , didn’t you?”)

A lance of guilt crashed into Mari’s heart then, sending a wave of cold radiating out across her body. She shivered, almost unconsciously, beneath the cocoon of blankets, the hot air from the mask on her face seeming to burn as it entered her throat. That was.... that was true, wasn’t it? She hadn’t fully considered it until just this second. But if everything that she’d thought she had heard Sunny whispering to her had all been one-hundred percent real and not just a figment of her imagination, and she’d already determined it was, then....

(“I'm not stupid... Being out in the cold like that... It can... It could've ki- “)

He’d said that, hadn’t he? His throat had hitched, cutting himself off on the last word, but from the context, Mari knew exactly what he had been meaning to say. “It could’ve killed you”. Whatever.... whatever was happening right now, it wasn’t just a bit of pain or a fainting spell. It was an actual emergency, in the most serious sense of the word. Mari had been so reckless, done something so stupid, that it genuinely made Sunny afraid that she could die.

No wonder he was constantly staring at her with barely-restrained fear.

No wonder he could barely bring himself to speak upon seeing her awake.

He was terrified.

He was terrified because of her.

(“Again.” her treacherous brain reminded her, an image of a razor blade on the bathroom floor flitting through her mind.)

She was....

She was a horrible sister, wasn’t she....?

.

.

But the worst part was that Mari didn’t get the chance to try to think it over any further than that, she wasn’t given the time or the space she needed to actually process that realization. That realization hit her, a spike of ice jabbing its way through the heat surrounding her.... and then that was it. She was forced back to reality, unable to do anything more than just.... shove that thought to the back of her mind. To fester. Because the real world would just keep moving regardless of her problems. Time wouldn’t stop, the planet wouldn’t halt its rotation just because some selfish girl in a tiny town somewhere was upset. Rain would fall, and birds would fly, and animals would scamper across the ground.... and people had lives, and obligations, and jobs, and none of that could be expected to stop simply because Mari was upset. Even if, at moments like this, she really wished otherwise. It’d be so much easier to breathe if the universe would just give her a second to!

It wouldn’t, of course. Because one of those people with a job to do was the paramedic currently overseeing her. While Mari had gotten caught up in the spiral of her thoughts upon seeing the heart monitor.... in reality, the woman had only paused to check the screen for a moment before turning back to her. They’d been in the middle of something fairly important, after all, so in hindsight it made perfect sense that the medic wouldn’t randomly get distracted. She was just verifying something quickly before proceeding.

“-iss, your vitals seem stable enough that-”

Mari reeled at the voice cutting into her train of thought. Metaphorically reeled, that is, seeing as she was still restrained to (what she now assumed to be) a stretcher or gurney of some sort for transportation.

“....Miss?” the paramedic’s voice grew.... sharper wasn’t quite the right word, it didn’t seem aggressive, but she was definitely speaking a little more directly and deliberately, as if to draw attention. “Nod if you can still understand me.” she instructed, clear and to-the-point, yet somehow seeming almost wary of something.

Part of Mari didn’t want to be doing this. Maybe it was the same petty impulse from before rearing its head. But she wanted to take a moment for herself. To think, to breathe. To focus on what was going on, to be able to worry about Sunny, about what she could possibly do to try to make this better.... And, shamefully, part of her wanted to just run again, to get somewhere far from all of this noise and stress and foul scents and just curl up in a ball, just bury her head in the darkness so that maybe the constant pounding in her ears would stop-

But she couldn’t. She wasn’t allowed to have space right now, was she? There were things to do and- A glance over at Sunny, still silently hunched in on himself where he sat, yet still eyeing her and the paramedic with rapt attention, as if the exchange between them was the most critical moment in the history of the world. Which, to him, it may well have seemed like. So- If Mari didn’t do what was being asked of her, it’d only make him feel worse, wouldn’t it?

She nodded her head again.

The paramedic eyed her intently, but seemed to accept it. “Alright, I was saying that you seem stable enough that I should be able to take off that mask for the moment and-”

“What?” Sunny all-but-yelped. Mari’s gaze snapped to him in time to see him abruptly sitting up straight. One of his hands reached out, perhaps on some instinct, to grip the edge of one of the blankets covering Mari. “Doesn’t she.... need that to breathe?” he gasped out his protest, his voice shaking. Mari could practically see the flare of terror behind his expression. It reminded her so much of the way his face would twist and fret whenever he’d had a terrible nightmare, clearly shaken even as he asked to climb into her bed instead. Her heart ached to reach out to him, to pull him into a hug and tell him everything would be alright. If only she could.

The paramedic’s gaze snapped to Sunny, expression appearing almost surprised – though Mari naturally didn’t know the woman well enough to tell anything more specific than that.

“Huh? No.” the medic denied quickly, shaking her head once. “Her breathing was stable when we arrived, and it’s stayed that way. She didn’t need urgent aid for respiration.... We would’ve more likely intubated if that were the case.” she corrected matter-of-factly. Mari felt herself frown on instinct. It was only due to being subjected to one too many hospital dramas via the horror that was daytime television that she knew “intubated” would mean having a breathing tube shoved down her throat. She was.... really glad that hadn’t been needed, the very thought made her gag.... but then, why- 

“No, this is to supply her with heated, humidified oxygen.” the paramedic continued, cutting off her train of thought. “It allows us to rewarm the airways, which helps to steadily raise her core body temperature and counteract the onset of hypothermia, without risking thermal shock from external heating. I didn’t realize we hadn’t explained that properly before.” the woman elaborated to a wide-eyed Sunny, who looked like he was only barely keeping up with the explanation.

There was one word that had seized Mari’s attention, though. Hypothermia. She’d.... already pretty much figured that out, from the way Sunny had talked about her being out in the cold. It’d explain the layers of blankets, too – that was what you were supposed to do with somebody hypothermic, right? She remembered once reading about how, if you were in danger of cold, you should warm yourself gradually with thick clothes and blankets. Doing something sudden like diving into a hot bath could kill you, as crazy and counter-intuitive as that sounded. She hadn’t actually been sure if that advice was true, or if it was just an urban legend, but.... Well. Here she was.

Having an actual trained medic outright say they were fending off hypothermia.... It made it feel so much more real than just some nebulous idea of the cold. Part of Mari almost wanted to protest that it couldn’t be right, that it didn’t even make sense.... But the sickening thing was that it did. It made perfect sense when she actually thought it through. Today had been awfully rainy, hadn’t it? And she, in all her wisdom, had run outside into that without an umbrella or a raincoat or, indeed, anything beyond a simple (and decidedly not waterproof) blouse and skirt for protection. A blouse and skirt that had ended up thoroughly fouled with slimy mud, at that. She knew full well how dangerous leaving someone soaking wet for too long could be. It wasn’t a coincidence that after the incident with Sunny at the lake, she’d rushed him home to dry off as soon as she’d confirmed that he was alright (and hugged the life out of him for scaring her like that).

But now it was her who’d ended up laying in the grass at the hangout spot, soaked to her bones, vital body heat sapping away by the second. It was almost funny, except that it wasn’t funny at all.

.

“....Alright. S-sorry....” Sunny mumbled, pulling Mari out of her thoughts and back to reality once more. It was almost alarming how much that was happening today, wasn’t it? Sunny slowly uncurled his fist from where he’d clenched onto the blankets covering her in alarm, retracting his arms and wrapping them around himself as he curled up in his seat once more.

The paramedic said nothing in response, briskly turning her attention right back to Mari instead. Mari felt a flash of irritation shoot through her. She knew logically that she was the patient here, and thus the paramedic’s priority – and emergency responders didn’t tend to like being distracted when trying to do their jobs – but did the woman really have to dismiss Sunny so abruptly like that the second she’d made her point? Mari was aware that it was probably just her bias as his sister, but it annoyed her a little nonetheless. Her non-bruised eye narrowed a little on instinct as she looked up at the woman, even though it was an irrational response.

If the medic noticed this, however, she didn’t react. “Anyway-” she continued on her previous point. “-as I was saying, it should be alright to take the mask off so you can speak again. You’d probably appreciate that, right?” she asked, looking down at Mari expectantly once more.

The offer was enough to make Mari stop and think, her brief glare lessening as easily as it had formed, her frown shifting to one more thoughtful. The medic had hit the nail on the head, of course, she really wasn’t enjoying having this mask on one bit. Had her frustration with it really been that obvious from the outside? Or was it just an educated guess on the woman’s part due to her experience with other patients? ....Actually, those things weren’t even mutually exclusive, were they? Regardless of the reason, though, it was true. There was no point overthinking this, and certainly no reason to be petty and disagree, that would be counterproductive at best. The choice was obvious. If the mask really wasn’t critical for her survival at this point – and she had no reason to doubt the medic’s word on that – then there was really no question. Mari nodded her head.

The woman returned the nod and then strode over to the side of the gurney, approaching Mari’s head. She brushed past where Sunny was sitting in the process, causing him to quickly pull back into his seat so as not to be in the way, but the paramedic didn’t seem to spare him a look. Instead she was visibly focused completely on her work. She reached down underneath where Mari was laying, and though Mari couldn’t see exactly what she was doing, the action was quickly followed by a mechanical “click!”, like some sort of switch. As if on cue, the faint pressure of the hot air surrounding Mari’s nose and mouth seemed to shift a little, starting to fade, and the slight tension in the plastic tube running from the mask went slack. Then the paramedic reached up, slipping her hand under Mari’s resting head, unhooking a small elastic band that had been wrapped around behind the curtain of black hair. The band securing the mask to her face. And then finally – finally – the paramedic’s fingers carefully took hold of the front of the mask and lifted it up and away from Mari’s face.

The chill of the air that rushed to meet Mari stung at her nose, leaving her gasping in a sharp breath through her mouth instead. It wasn’t even actually that cold – in fact, compared to what the weather had been like outside, it should be downright cozy in here. But the contrast between the more normal room temperature and the hot, swimmingly humid air that Mari had been been breathing through the mask? The sudden switch was harsh, much more than she expected, so those first few breaths felt like she’d been thrown out into a frigid winter night, her nose wrinkling and a few coughs sputtering from the back of her throat. Fortunately, it didn’t take long for her to adjust. For her brain to catch up and realize that the absence of the excess heat did not actually mean she was freezing, and the fresh source of air was in fact a perfectly reasonable temperature.

And once it did, the next thing she felt was.... relief.

With the mask taken away from her face, the awful sterile hospital smell alleviated. It wasn’t gone; she was still surrounded by medical equipment, so the scent had naturally seeped into everything. But Mari was pretty much just forced to accept that at this point. She could gripe about that part later. At the moment, she would take any small mercy she could get, and having the mask removed – and therefore, no longer having an object suffused with the smell shoved directly in front of her nose – was more than a small mercy. It genuinely felt like a massive improvement, the smell passively lingering in the surroundings was still unpleasant, but it was vastly more tolerable in comparison. She could live with just “unpleasant” feelings, she was used to powering through that sort of thing all the time.

“Th-thank you....” Mari managed to speak for the first time since waking up, looking up at the paramedic setting the oxygen mask aside. Her voice came out rasping, little more than a strained whisper. Certainly not the sort of confidence she’d prefer to present herself with. It wasn’t overly surprising in hindsight, obviously her voice would be weak with everything that had happened, she didn’t need anyone to explain that to her. But all the same, the strain in the back of her throat still made her want to wince. From the corner of her eye – the one that wasn’t squinting through bruises, of course – she saw that Sunny actually did wince. His mouth twisted, looking to Mari almost like he was warring over wanting to say something, before he stopped himself and slumped back, curling in on himself as much as his seat would allow. Though Mari caught a glimpse of his worried eyes still peering at her from between his knees.

Something about his attitude sent another needle into Mari’s heart. He looked so hesitant.... What was it that set him off? He obviously hadn’t been comfortable seeing her state before now, which made sense. Obviously he wouldn’t be happy with hearing her strained speech either, it must’ve sounded just as bad to him as it did to her, she got that part. But what was about all this that was making him withdraw like that? From what she was able to parse from his behavior, and what she knew from years of trying to learn to read him, she almost wanted to say he’d looked guilty.... But that couldn’t be right, could it? There was nothing she could think of that he could’ve done.... So she must have been reading him wrong. Regardless, though, he was clearly upset by something.

She wanted to say something, to try to reach out to him (metaphorically, of course, seeing as her arms were still ensnared in the binding blankets). However-

“Miss?”

-Mari wouldn’t get the chance right then. Tearing her gaze away from Sunny again, and fighting to keep a frown off her face for as much as she hated being continually forced to put off comforting him, she looked up at the paramedic once more.

“Now that’s taken care of, and this is important, I need you to tell me if you’re in any pain, alright?” the woman asked her seriously, arms crossed over her chest as she kept her eyes on Mari.

....Pain?

.

Mari was about to reply in the negative, only to pause. No, that wasn’t true, was it? She was in pain: the constant ache radiating up from her leg was still there, still thrumming dutifully in time with her heartbeat, just the same as she’d noticed before. It hadn’t eased at all in the few minutes since then (or.... however long it had really been), she’d just been dutifully ignoring it. In a way, Mari honestly felt like her ability to outright ignore that kind of pain ought to be considered almost admirable. (One of the few admirable skills she had.) But now that she was thinking about it again.... she winced. No wonder she’d been having such a difficult time focusing with that grinding away at the back of her mind the whole time. It was like the sort of aches and pains she used to have when she was on the softball team, and the coach would push everyone through a tortuously long practice.... Except if you took that burn and multiplied it a dozen times over and concentrated it entirely in her knee.

“Yeah....” she admitted. The word came out as a rasp once more, and Mari swallowed instinctively, trying to alleviate the crusty feeling in the back of her throat so she could hopefully speak a bit more clearly. Sunny shuffled audibly next to her, letting out a sharp breath, and guilt bubbled in Mari’s stomach yet again. She should’ve figured that admission would worry him even more, but.... there was still nothing for it, was there? She’d just have to hope he could keep a strong face until she was actually in a position where she could help soothe his fears properly.

The paramedic didn’t seem to have much visible reaction – she’d been serious and focused on her job the whole time, after all (though perhaps there were some nuanced shifts in her expression going on that Mari simply hadn’t been able to notice) – but her next words came out with an even stronger no-nonsense impression, Mari almost wanted to call it clipped. Not in an unpleasant way, exactly, more just.... very to-the-point.

“Is it a sharp pain, or dull?”

Mari considered the question for a second. The pain was definitely there, it was undeniable when she gave it even the slightest bit of attention – and honestly she was sort of impressed with herself for even being able to shove it aside and ignore it for this long. But it was more of just a continual thrumming ache, not a defined stabbing burn like the molten feelings she usually thought of when her knee buckled.

“More dull.” she decided. Still barely above a whisper, but at least the words felt less like sandpaper this time.

“Alright. If you start to feel any sort of sharp, intense pain, you need to speak up right away.” the paramedic instructed her briskly. Mari felt herself frown a little, but nodded her assent. She.... supposed that made sense, didn’t it? The pain suddenly spiking out of nowhere would probably mean things had gotten worse somehow, so that’d be something the medic would want to know about. Though Mari normally tried to keep her aches and pains to herself, no need to burden anyone else unless it was an emergency, she figured it was literally the woman’s job to be informed about those sorts of things, so she had no real cause to argue.

Then Mari blinked, suddenly realizing that she’d spaced out for a moment while the medic continued speaking.

“-ou tell where the pain originates? Is it all over, or centralized somewhere in particular?”

“S-somewhere particular.” Mari replied. This time she hadn’t needed to think about it at all, the answer was very obvious. Not that it stopped her from stumbling over the longer words slightly, mentally cursing her exhausted throat for the effort every word was taking. She hadn’t realized just how much she had taken the ability to talk freely for granted, until she was too strained and worn-out to do it. Was this what Sunny felt like sometimes, when he’d had a long day and didn’t speak much – if at all? ....She was getting distracted again. “It’s.... f-from my bad knee.” she hastened to clarify.

The paramedic frowned, yet.... at the same time, her tense posture seemed to ease slightly? Mari couldn’t be sure, that might’ve been her imagination. “....Ah. That isn’t unexpected.” the woman admitted, rather bluntly. “We felt it wouldn’t be safe to administer painkillers in your condition. NSAIDs can cause constriction of the blood vessels. That can be extremely dangerous for a hypothermic patient, and our priority was minimizing risks until we could be sure your temperature had stabilized.” she explained. Mari nodded along slowly, having no reason not to accept that at face value; she certainly wouldn’t claim to know more about hypothermia than the actual trained emergency responder.

“So between that and the new fracture in your knee....” the paramedic continued, oblivious to her thoughts.

.

.

(“Wait, what?”)

“W-what....?” Mari croaked in surprise. Or maybe it was more like a gasp. The paramedic’s frown deepened, looking down at her curiously, and from the corner of her vision she saw Sunny’s wide-eyed gaze peeking out over his knees. Mari tried to swallow again. “What.... are you talking about? My knee isn’t broken.” she managed to rasp out in denial, feeling her brow twisting, reflecting her total confusion. That made no sense.

Sunny pulled in a sharp, hissing breath next to her.

“....It definitely is, miss.” the paramedic replied frankly, shaking her head a little, her eyebrows hiked up just a bit on her forehead, as if in disbelief. “Did you.... not notice?” she asked slowly. Before Mari could attempt to reply, however, another voice cut in.

“Hero and his mom said it was.... really obvious.” Sunny mumbled, barely above a whisper yet reaching Mari’s ears as clear as day. “Wouldn’t let me look, but.... they said it was.... misshapen.” As he said that, he seemed to be trying to hug his knees even tighter around himself. If that were possible.

Mari felt her frown deepen. Slivers of icy cold started to work their way into her skin. Like the sort of unsettling feeling you’d get from droplets of frigid water rolling down your spine. Misshapen....?

.

“N-no.... No, that doesn’t make sense!” she insisted, giving a sharp shake of her head – and immediately regretting it, as a surge of dizziness roiled across her skull. She tried to shove it down. Though she didn’t fully realize it at at time, her voice hitched louder, forcing its way past the strained feeling as her bafflement grew more frantic. “I, I know it hurt bad enough that it buckled, but- That’s happened before, it’s normal!” she tried to explain. Why didn’t either of them look like they believed her? “You know that, Sunny!”

“Miss.... That is definitely not normal.” If the paramedic had been blunt before, then her voice was practically a sledgehammer now. It didn’t seem malicious, Mari didn’t notice anything that sounded deliberately unkind, but there was absolutely no sugarcoating here either. The woman put her hands on her hips. “If you’re suffering chronic pains severe enough to repeatedly cause a limb to buckle, that’s a sign that something is very wrong. I was informed that you had a prior injury, but even so. Something like that happening would generally be an indicator that the injury healed incorrectly, or that you weren’t receiving the necessary care or support for it.” the medic explained, more deathly serious than ever, her brow furrowing deeply as she spoke.

Mari blinked. “O-oh....” she stumbled, feeling her frown deepen. Her head felt like it was spinning from the sudden rant, her train of thought neatly slashed apart before she could even really get it together. 

And then there were the words themselves. Her bad knee.... hadn’t received proper care....? That.... that couldn’t be right.

(Could it?)

“But that-” she started to say. Even though she didn’t really know what, exactly, she was going to protest. Sunny’s eyes swung back and forth between her and the paramedic, not seeming to know if he should interject – or who to agree with if he did. But Mari’s half-baked attempt at a rebuttal would be interrupted regardless, as the woman clearly wasn’t finished.

“But more to the point, miss. The patella, the primary bone in your kneecap, can be strained and even fractured by intense muscular spasms.... like those caused by fits of severe chronic pain. Especially in recurrent cases, where it’s already been weakened by a previous injury.” the paramedic pointed out. Mari wondered if the woman knew that every word she was saying was hitting like a punch to the gut.

“....Oh....” Was all Mari managed to say, her voice blank.

She hadn’t been aware of that. Obviously her bad knee had been a problem, she wasn’t stupid. It wasn’t like the aches and pains and, on some days, the struggle to even stand up out of her bed without wanting to scream would ever let her forget that. But she’d been under the impression that it was a problem she could deal with – that she’d just have to deal with. It was unpleasant, sure, and it went way beyond that on the occasions when it actually buckled on itself, but she could power through. What else had she been supposed to think? It wasn’t like she could magically tell the difference between a “tolerable” pain and one that threatened to shatter her knee like a hammer. This hadn’t exactly come with an instruction manual!

.

.

....Why hadn’t the doctors warned her about that back then....?

.

.

“Mari....” Sunny murmured quietly. His voice was heavy with an undercurrent of.... sympathy? Pity? Mari couldn’t tell, but it made her chest hurt and her stomach ache to hear it. She didn’t know what to say back to him. What she even could say. If he and the medic were both telling her that her knee was broken again, and with it hurting like that constantly in the back of her mind, and they even had a reason for it – a reason she should’ve known, apparently, but didn’t – then.... what room would she have to argue? None, obviously.

The paramedic sighed. “....Miss, I know this must be harsh to hear.” she said, and at last the absolute bluntness was gone from her voice, her tone dropping to something.... almost soft, for the first time since Mari had woken up.

(It didn’t do much of anything to make her feel better.)

“I’m not saying all this to be cruel. I just need to make sure you understand what’s happening, alright?” the woman explained. Mari nodded her head, her expression still blank. She did understand that, she wasn’t angry at the woman at all. She was just doing her job, and Mari hadn’t questioned that fact at any point in all this. She got it, she really did. That was just the facts of the situation, it wasn’t like the woman was to blame for any of them.

(That didn’t make her feel better either.)

“....What happens now?” Mari asked. Her voice came out completely flat. Almost alarmingly flat, even to her. She saw Sunny wince, just a little, from the corner of her eye, and felt yet another surge of guilt. She wasn’t mad at him either, because if it wasn’t the medic’s fault, then it definitely wasn’t even remotely close to being Sunny’s fault either. There was no universe where that would make sense.

But Mari was.... tired. All of a sudden, it felt like all the feelings swirling around in her mind had just been.... sanded down. It was like this whole thing with her knee was the last straw, and she was officially past the point where she could bring herself to actually react.

She didn’t have the energy. That was it. She didn’t have the energy to.... act like a person right now. It was an incredibly strange and blunt way to phrase it, even in her head it sounded almost cruel, but it felt accurate. Like the moment the thought occurred to her, she just felt like it was fitting.

“Now....” the paramedic began slowly, looking at Mari with another small frown. “....We should be reaching the hospital any minute here. They’ll want to run a bunch of tests, make sure you’re recovering properly from being hypothermic. You seem to have stabilized well enough, but they’ll want to be certain. Then.... you’ll need x-rays taken to assess the severity of the damage to your knee. That part should be familiar. Once they get the results, well....” She paused for a moment to shake her head. “It depends. Based on how it’s broken, they might need to operate. But I can’t say beyond that.”

“....I see.” Mari replied, still flat, as she parsed all that. It all basically made sense, logically. And the paramedic was right, of course, the whole process of getting dragged around for x-rays and examinations was familiar from when she’d broken her leg. Or.... the first time she’d broken it. That was.... that was going to take some getting used to. She didn’t particularly want to go through all that ever again, but....

(“You’re way past the point of that now.”)

.

.

A small sound caught Mari’s attention. She looked over, and.... oh. Just Sunny shuffling around in his seat a little. Clearly still anxious.

The sight reminded her of something. She’d been telling herself this whole time that she’d comfort him once she actually had a moment to, right?

Well, here it was.

Mari really wished that her thoughts weren’t feeling so drained, so.... dull right now. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment. Trying to focus. She needed to dredge up something, even just a little bit of the warmth she normally tried to put into being Sunny’s sister. Some “best big sister ever” she was turning out to be, huh....?

Well, she was still going to try.

Opening her eyes again, she exhaled a small sigh, just loud enough to get Sunny’s attention.

“Hey, Sunny?” she said, making the effort to drop her voice from its flat affect to something a little softer. A little more soothing. “....This isn’t as scary as it seems, you know.” she said slowly. On some level, the words twinged as a lie. She definitely wouldn’t have believed that right now, if she were the one hearing it. But she carried on anyway – this wasn’t for her sake. Even at a time like this, there was something, someone more important than her.

The paramedic could clearly hear them, but said nothing, turning to make herself look busy staring at the heartrate monitor instead. Good, Mari didn’t want to be interrupted.

“You’ve been really brave through all this.... I mean it.” she continued, voice softening further until it was barely more than a whisper. “I know it looks bad, but.... just hold out a while longer for me, okay? It’ll be alright....” Again, another thing she didn’t think she would have believed. But Sunny’s eyes weren’t as wide now as they’d been before, so she was on the right track.

“And.... Thanks for coming to find me, little brother.”

.

.

“....Welcome, sis....”

Chapter Text

Arriving at the hospital was a hectic affair. True to the paramedic's prediction, almost as soon as the ambulance had pulled up to the building, Mari was being carted out and rushed off to be given one test after another. The hospital staff worked with an almost frightening sort of efficiency, descending on her like a swarm of scrub-wearing piranhas within minutes of having arrived... Alright, perhaps that was something of an exaggeration, but it was the image Mari's mind conjured as she was thrown right into the fray of seemingly every remotely relevant examination they could think of. She knew it was a melodramatic thought, but from her perspective it was like time had accelerated to double speed, her head spinning trying to keep up with it all. Checking her heartrate, her breathing, her blood pressure, core temperature, blood sugar levels... Evaluating her reflexes and responses, examining her all over for possible injuries or infections, taking blood tests to make sure there weren't any internal issues...

It was so much. It was so much.

Logically, Mari understood it. Not necessarily the full significance of every individual test, obviously, she'd be the first to admit she only had a surface-level knowledge of these things. But she got why there was so much happening. Of course she did. People died from hypothermia every year – and not just in the most extreme conditions, during the coldest months or the snowiest parts of the country. No, it could happen under completely mundane circumstances... like a stormy autumn day just like this one. Fortunately, Mari's case wasn't nearly as severe, the fact that she was fully conscious and aware enough to think about this was plenty proof of that... But it easily could have been. The doctors' paranoia was entirely justifiable when she thought of it like that. It made perfect sense that a potential emergency would be given the kind of intense scrutiny as if it were, well, a potential emergency. Even if she obviously wasn't in imminent danger at this point, they needed to be sure of that. While a lot of jargon went over her head, she gathered that there were a lot of possible complications that needed to be checked for. Just in case.

None of that reasoning made the experience any less overwhelming in the moment, though. In a way, it was almost a blessing that today had been such a rollercoaster of emotion and mental effort... as twisted as that statement sounded even in Mari's head. On a normal day, being thrown into all these medical examinations one after the other with little reprieve, all the tedious poking and prodding, would've been... agitating, to say the least. No, downright stressful. Mari tried hard to be as patient as she could, she really did, but this was exactly the sort of thing that would grind away at her. It was all just... unpleasant. In the way that would probably lead to her having another ugly, embarrassing freak-out if it kept up for too long. But today had already been stressful, for so many reasons. Reasons she didn't want to think about right now. All this on top of everything else barely felt notable, if she were being honest.

It was a strange feeling. Like she'd been so overwhelmed earlier, with dragging herself back to consciousness, and everything at the park before that, and then even before with- Don't think about it. The point was that adding another overwhelming situation to the list wasn't... special. It just felt like how today was going. It wasn't nearly enough to make her lose control. (Or maybe she'd lost control so badly that this wasn't even a drop in the bucket in comparison.) It was like... It was like that kind of glitch in some video games, where if you tried to stack more than 99 items or raise a stat above 255 or whatever, it would just stop counting up and wrap around to zero. That was where Mari was at, she'd "wrapped around" to just kind of quietly accepting each new test and procedure without complaint, even as she reeled trying to keep up with it all. Because what else could she do? Nothing felt right, and nothing felt like it would be right, so she just... had to deal with it.

.

One thing that did bother her, though, was the fact that she'd been separated from Sunny on arrival. Again, she understood the logic behind it; there was a lot going on and the doctors and nurses needed to be able to actually do their jobs without worrying about tripping over their patients' family members who didn't need treatment. As harsh as it sounded, Sunny would pretty much be in the way at the moment. Not to mention the fact that there were some things Mari would want a degree of privacy for. It was already humiliating enough needing a nurse's help to put on her hospital gown, since she obviously couldn't stand with her leg as it was... So it was a relief Sunny wasn't hovering around to see that, it would've been supremely uncomfortable. For both of them, really.

So yes, she understood the reasoning and even essentially agreed with it. Even still, though, with the prospect of him being separated from her when he was obviously already having a terrible, terrible day... Well, the feeling in Mari's chest that normally urged her to keep him safe found itself plunging heavy like a rock in her stomach at the thought.

At least she could take solace in the fact that he wasn't waiting alone. When they'd arrived, before he'd been ushered off to the waiting room and Mari had been wheeled to the first of her examinations, she'd managed to coax a bit of information out of him: namely that Hero and Mrs. Rodriguez were apparently headed to the hospital in Mrs. Rodriguez's car, following a little ways behind the ambulance. Mari had put together from Sunny's mutterings that the two of them had both been there to find her in the first place, before Sunny had split off from them to ride alongside her in the ambulance, so that made sense when she thought about it. Still, since they couldn't have been more than a few minutes behind, accounting for traffic and such, they would be able to meet up with Sunny at the waiting room and keep an eye on him. So at least there was that. He wouldn't be left sitting out there alone, curled up on some cold plastic chair.

While Mari would obviously have much rather been with Sunny herself, she couldn't really think of anyone else she'd trust with his wellbeing more than Hero. Which was good, because while none of this situation was even close to what she'd call desirable (for obvious reasons)... she would simply have to make do with it for the moment. There was really no other choice, and thus no reason to waste everyone's time sitting around complaining about it. Not that this made Mari any happier. Still, the fact remained that there was still a lot to get through before she was presumably going to be moved to a hospital room and, hopefully, be given at least a few minutes to breathe – and, of course, a chance for Sunny to be allowed to come in to see her.

First though, there was more rushing around the hospital to be done. Eventually the doctors had seemingly exhausted every possible exam they could think of and accepted that she was not, in fact, in imminent danger of death by hypothermia – which Mari was sure should have been been a relief to her as well, but for some reason that whole thing still didn't feel real enough to be relieved about, leaving her just feeling an odd sort of nothing. Just that kind of matter-of-fact acceptance again. But even once that part was through, they weren't finished. Instead, there was just another thing to do instead.

Namely, being wheeled off to the radiology lab to take x-rays of her leg (again, just as the paramedic had predicted they would). For what felt like the hundredth time that day, Mari reminded herself that the reasoning made sense. Obviously they would need to be able to properly evaluate the severity of her latest knee injury. Mari herself had finally had a chance to look at it, once freed from the prison of thermal blankets so that the nurse could help her change into the hospital gown. But in truth, she hadn't been able to stomach more than a glance, with even that much sending her guts squirming and bile threatening to rise in her throat. It had been covered by her skirt earlier, when she'd been sitting under the tree at the park. She hadn't thought to check then, assuming it was just a normal collapse.

("...Except that paramedic said it collapsing on you at all was never 'normal' to begin with, didn't she?")

But Mari couldn't have thought that at the time, she'd have no reason to... Yet still, if she'd known her knee had been left looking like that... It wouldn't have been such a shock to hear it was broken again. She wouldn't have wasted time trying to deny it. "Misshapen" had been a very appropriate word indeed. It wasn't like anything had broken the skin, there was no blood (and for some reason even she didn't understand, that thought felt like a relief), but it was obvious just from a glance that it... wasn't shaped quite how a knee should be anymore. It was almost... lumpy, parts of what was presumably bone under the skin pushed in a way they definitely shouldn't have been... Mari was suddenly very glad Sunny had said Mrs. Rodriguez and Hero wouldn't let him look. It was nauseating even for her to think about, and she'd already been through breaking that knee once before. If anyone should've been able to handle it, it'd be her, and it was still too much. That was something Sunny didn't need to deal with. This was clearly hard enough on him already.

So yes, x-rays made perfect sense. This was pretty much the exact situation they were made for. But it also just meant even more things to be done, and that was the part that was bothering her. She may have felt too worn out by everything else to freak out about this, but... the longer it went on, the more apparent it became that this wasn't actually a good thing. Perhaps it was obvious in hindsight, but feeling completely overwhelmed to the point of wrapping around to this sense of detachment... was actually a bad feeling. Mari didn't like feeling detached – but she didn't like being caught up in a constant downward spiral either. It was a lose-lose situation! Was it really so much to ask to just be given a chance to feel normal? To not have to constantly be worried and confused, to not have new things thrown at her every few minutes before she'd even had time to adjust to the last new thing? Just for a few minutes? Was that actually such an unreasonable thing for her to want?

("Of course it is. If you didn't want to deal with it, you shouldn't have put yourself in this situation to begin with.")

That was just the truth, of course. She'd just have to grit her teeth and deal with it for awhile longer. And so that's exactly what she did.

.

.

At long last, the examinations were done. It felt like it had been forever (though in reality, of course, it couldn't have been more than an hour or two). But finally it was done – for the moment, at least. Perhaps it'd be more accurate to say it was a temporary reprieve. It would take time to process the images from the x-ray, especially since Faraway General was an out-of-the-way small town hospital and didn't exactly have the kind of up to date cutting edge technology you might see at a medical center in the big city. They were still using x-ray machines from the seventies, none of those fancy instant digital displays here. Mari's doctor, who had introduced himself as Dr. Astora, had told her that depending on how many other cases the radiologists had to deal with, it could be several hours before they had the results available.

Only once that was done would they be able to know for sure the extent of the damage to her knee (though it was obviously quite bad) and thus able to determine what sort of treatment it required. Which Mari interpreted as needing to decide whether the fracture required surgery or not, and if so, how invasive the operation would need to be. She had been through that particular song and dance before, after all, so some of the jargon was starting to feel a little familiar. The doctor didn't stay for long or say much more than that, though, being fairly quick to make his exit after introducing himself and giving that brief overview of the situation. Mari couldn't really hold the brusqueness against him, though, he probably had other patients... and besides, it wasn't like there was much more to say until they got those x-rays back anyway. That was sort of the whole issue here. She was essentially in limbo right now, left with very little to be done until that one key thing was dealt with... and it was a key thing entirely out of her control.

Which was what led Mari to where she was right now: laying in a hospital bed doing... pretty much nothing, really. She would generally have called it rather boring, to be quite honest. But with all that had happened today, it was actually... kind of a relief to finally, finally have that moment to breathe she had been longing for. The surroundings being mind-numbing didn't really matter, now did it, when her mind was already feeling so numbed by everything to begin with? At least she had been assigned to one of the single-unit hospital rooms rather than a conjoined one. She didn't really want to be sharing space with a stranger right now. It was a selfish thought, she knew, and it wasn't like she would've raised a fuss over it or anything ridiculous like that. But still, the fact remained that having a room to herself was just... more comfortable right now. Even if she never talked to or interacted with said hypothetical person, she'd always know they were there, in the back of her mind. She'd hear them breathing, moving around, being tended to by doctors and nurses... A privacy curtain could only go so far, after all, it was no substitute for four solid walls.

("How funny that the girl who cries about how she despises being alone is now extolling the virtues of exactly that.")

But this wasn't quite the same thing. Mari just felt so worn out that it was sort of nice to be able to lay down by herself for a few minutes without the feeling of eyes on her back, real or imagined. It wasn't like she was asking to be isolated in here forever, obviously not! That suffocating feeling of loneliness would certainly return with a vengeance if that were to happen. She'd go crazy like that. Not that it was a realistic possibility anyway, since obviously there were the occasional nurses coming in to check on her and such, plus the inevitable return of the doctor once the x-ray results were finally in. But, at least for this brief time, it was alright.

(As long as she didn't think about certain things too hard.)

.

This room really was boring though, wasn't it? Looking around, the only thing Mari could see that she'd consider remarkable was... just how unremarkable it was. The hospital room was just drab, almost unbelievably so. It almost looked like a shot from an old black-and-white movie or something with how monochrome it was. The walls were pure white, and both the tile floor and the paneled ceiling were light gray. The frames of the door and windows were gray, as were the decorative baseboards of the walls. The various bits of hospital equipment set up around the bed, along with the plastic bedside table, were all gray too. Even the single chair set beside the bed, presumably for the sake of any potential visitor, was merely a faded beige sort of color.

The only things even slightly breaking up the monotony were the pastel blue bedsheets, and Mari's similarly-pastel pink hospital gown. Her... very itchy hospital gown. She really didn't like these things, she'd thought her memory had just been exaggerating how bad it had been the last time she'd been in the hospital, but no. It really was as uncomfortable as she remembered. Not quite as uncomfortable as that horrible sweater from earlier in the week, admittedly, but that was setting the bar so low that it was practically underground. It made sense, of course, that a cheap mass-produced garment meant for purely practical purposes wouldn't be especially comfortable, and she was probably being selfish complaining about it (even if just in her head), but... would it really be too bad to wish for a kind of fabric that felt a little less scratchy? Like the clothes she'd been wearing before, those weren't anything fancy or expensive either, but they still felt nice enough. It was a shame they were so thoroughly stained with rain and mud that there was no saving them. Mari hadn't asked about it, but it wouldn't surprise her if the hospital staff just tossed them in the incinerator and called it a day.

...Mari shook her head to herself. She had gotten distracted for a moment there (not that she hadn't been distracted all day, it felt like). What had she been thinking about...? Oh, right, the visual appeal – or more accurately, the near-total lack thereof – of her hospital room. It made sense, of course, for a hospital to favor a pale palette. Obviously it needed to be a sanitary environment for the sake of patients' health, and light colors would show messes and stains better. Mari got that part. But did everything need to be some shade of white or gray with nothing to break it up? With the pale flooring and the paler walls, she could imagine that enough sunlight from the windows would make the place practically incandescent. Like some sort of blank void of white space... it honestly seemed like it'd be more unnerving than comforting. (Not that this was an issue today, of course, as the stormy sky outside had, if anything, only darkened even further in the time since she'd arrived.)

.

.

...Maybe Mari'd been a bit too generous to herself before, when she thought that she'd go crazy if she were left alone in here forever. She was starting to wonder if she was going crazy in here right now. She was seriously analyzing the wall and floor colors now! There was boredom, and then there was just an absolutely insane level of nitpicking. And she was pretty sure she had to be at that line by now. But what else was there to even do at the moment? It seemed so strange that she'd spent so long wishing to just have a moment to breathe and feeling too worn-out to think... only, as soon as she was actually given that space she'd been internally begging for, she immediately found herself casting around for something to demand her attention again. But here she was. The awareness that she was basically contradicting herself, and her line of thought wasn't making any logical sense, didn't actually do anything to make the accompanying feelings go away.

But the nasty part was that, deep down, she felt like she had to do something to keep herself occupied. Going off on meaningless mental rants about the décor or whatever else her brain could conjure was... It was better than the alternative. At least it gave her something else to think about, no matter how inane. And she hadn't realized just how valuable that was, in its own twisted way. Because if she didn't have that, then she'd just be left alone with only her memories for company. And if that happened, then she'd- she would inevitably-

("-have to stop running away from thinking about everything that's happened today?")

...That. She had been trying to avoid exactly that.

But it was really a futile effort, wasn't it? It had only been a few hours ago, after all. It was hard to believe it had been so little time, that today was still that same rainy Saturday. It felt like so much had happened... yet at the same time it had all seemed to rush by, hazy and blurring together at the edges. Mari genuinely wasn't sure whether she wanted to call it the longest day of her life, or the shortest. A thousand hours packed into a day. A day passed by in the blink of an eye. It was just... nonsense, like a piece was missing from her mind, a gap in her train of thought where it couldn't quite make the proper connections. But that wasn't it, it wasn't her memory that was the problem here, she remembered it all about as clearly as she could, given that she'd spent part of the time fighting unconsciousness. She knew what had happened today. It just didn't feel... entirely real.

Of course, however, it obviously was. Maybe it'd be more accurate to say that part of Mari wished it didn't feel real. It would be so much easier if today didn't feel so... she didn't even know the word to describe it. Vivid? Pointed? ...Painful? The point was, there was a certain appeal to the idea of it all turning out to be a dream, even if it were to be a nightmare, it'd just be so much simpler to handle all this being thrown at her if she could just pinch herself and wake up safe at home in her nice warm bed, none of today having ever happened... But it wasn't even the first time she'd made the dream comparison today, and just as it was the previous times, the inexorable truth remained that she knew very well it was real. It was undeniable, for numerous different reasons. Almost a waste of breath to even wish for it, honestly.

Yet there was one big reason she did. The elephant in the room. She'd done an admirable job, she felt, in averting her eyes from it ever since waking up in the back of the ambulance. There was always something else more urgent to think about, to pay attention to, to try to figure out... she had plenty of excuses to pull herself out of the spiral with everything that was being thrown at her. It was almost convenient, really... if it didn't feel like ash on her tongue calling anything about this situation "convenient". But just avoiding looking at the elephant wouldn't make it go away, and they weren't always calm creatures... Elephants could be quite territorial and capable of stunning displays of brutality when agitated. So if you ignored one too long while keeping it cooped up inside, it may just decide to put its massive size to use in crushing you into paste. ...She was so desperate to distract herself that she was torturing metaphors again. That was usually a bad sign, wasn't it?

.

...Mom. The thing she was avoiding thinking about was mom.

Even just biting the bullet and admitting that to herself made Mari shiver, leaning forward and pressing her hands against her eyes – pointedly ignoring the flare of aches it sent across her bruised face – to block out the sight of the room around her. All that white and gray had suddenly become overwhelming, or rather, even more overwhelming than it already was, seeming to swirl and flare with the painful admission.

There was no point in trying to deny it or pretend that she had forgotten anymore, was there? ...But what else could she even do? What happened earlier with mom in the kitchen... The feeling of pain from the blows striking her face, from the nails gouging into her arm, still felt disgustingly vivid even now. More real than even the most disturbing of her nightmares, those terrifying isolated feelings that left her shaking all through the night, trying desperately to tamp down her dread enough to not wake Sunny. This was a thousand times worse than that, because there was no getting away from it. What was she going to do, wake herself up? Too bad she was already wide awake when it happened!

Even that wasn't the worst of it, though. Even the memory of the horror in the kitchen – as much as it made her want to just... to just curl up in a ball and pretend none of this was real – still wasn't as bad as the feeling of jagged emptiness in her chest. It coiled around her heart, twisted and poisonous, like a whip lined with corroded nails lashed around her innards, the wretched feeling digging in deeper with every pulse of blood through her veins. And she knew the source of it all too well; she'd already realized it quite decisively earlier at the park, after all. As convenient as it may have been to convince herself otherwise for awhile, Mari hadn't really forgotten that revelation, not even with everything else going on. Not deep down, in the way that truly mattered.

("Mom hates you.")

Mari's hands over her eyes clenched, fingernails pressing into her skin above her eyebrows. She ignored the way the throbbing of her black eye grew more insistent.

.

.

("She hates you... And it's worse than that.")

("You look back on all those memories you can dredge up, every little moment you can think of... One thing always stays the same.")

("There wasn't a point in time where her behavior really changed, was there?")

("She never used to hit you before the recital, sure, but you know why she started doing that. She was angry for the exact same reasons she'd always get frustrated at you before. It just escalated a little further.")

("Which means... it wasn't one specific thing you did. It wasn't some load-bearing problem you could figure out how to make right, not like your argument with Sunny.")

("Mom always hated you.")

("Or maybe not always, but at least for the last twelve years or so. Ever since she found who you really are.")

("She said it herself. She wanted a normal daughter.")

("And you never were that. You can't be that.")

("So... you never had a chance.")

("She was never going to really lo-")

*click-shunk*

-Mari tore her hands away from her face, head whipping up almost a little too frantically to stare at the hospital room's door across from her, the distinct sound of it sliding open having pierced through her train of thought like a gunshot. She was sure it was just her imagination, but sitting alone in the room like this, even such a lowkey noise sounded almost deafening. Not that there would be any opportunity to reel from that right now, as the ones who had opened the door naturally wasted no time in entering. When she heard the sound, Mari's first expectation was that she'd look up to see a nurse bringing her a meal or something – she had no idea how close it was to dinnertime, actually – or perhaps Dr. Astora returning with the x-ray results earlier than expected.

But no. She wasn't sure why she was even surprised by what she saw, honestly. It was blatantly obvious in hindsight.

Hero and Mrs. Rodriguez stepped into the room, and as soon as they were through the doorway, it revealed the somewhat smaller figure of Sunny trailing right behind them – Mari first spotting him as a hint of black hair peaking out from behind Hero before he was fully in-view.

"Mari!" Hero exclaimed, briefly locking eyes with her – though only briefly, as she averted her gaze slightly to not have to hold eye contact. She wasn't feeling at all up for that, not wanting to deal with the sensation of anyone's gaze trying to bore into her. "You're awake!" Hero sounded relieved as he spoke, steadily approaching her bed with his mother right behind him. He rubbed the back of his head with one hand, ruffling his spiky hair slightly. "I mean, Sunny mentioned you woke up, but... It's good to see you anyway." he corrected himself.

Of course it'd be them, she'd known they would be out in a waiting room, presumably eager for all the necessary exams to be done so that they could come to see her. What else could Mari possibly have expected? She'd do the exact same thing if it were Sunny or one of their friends being hospitalized in her place, after all... That didn't mean she was entirely comfortable with it, though. The thought left a thorn of guilt jabbing at her in its wake, as Mari knew that she should be happy to see them. And on some level, she was! Of course she would never object to getting to see Hero or spending time with Sunny, especially in a situation as bizarre and overwhelming as this one. They ought to provide a degree of familiarity that would make it so much easier to handle. She was sure she'd actually lose her mind if she'd had to deal with... all this completely by herself, with no one even coming to visit. That was a nightmare scenario right there.

("But their timing couldn't have been worse.")

Mari had been right in the middle of... she didn't even know. She didn't know exactly what she was doing, what to call what had been going on in her head then. Overthinking? Spiraling? On the verge of freaking out? ...She couldn't say any of those descriptors were wrong, but none of them felt entirely right either. Regardless of what you wanted to call it, though, one fact was clear: there was a storm of thoughts raging in her head... But, unlike the usual chaotic maelstrom that she could barely make sense of, let alone get a handle on, this time it was more... focused, somehow. There was an actual point to it, all the chaos coalescing towards a coherent train of thought, one she'd been avoiding for too long now. For good or for ill (and it certainly felt more ill right now), Mari felt like she had actually been making some kind of progress. The cutting words in the back of her head had been harsh as ever, but it had seemed important somehow, like she knew that following that thread would lead her to an honest conclusion... no matter how much she might wish otherwise.

But with the interruption... If she had to compare the sensation to anything, it was like the mental equivalent of walking face-first into a sliding glass door thinking it was open. Just this sudden, jarring "wham" that would completely throw you off balance, that you'd hope nobody else saw. It was one thing for Mari to get lost in thought when she was alone, but with people she cared about around? She couldn't afford to get caught up spiraling like that, no matter how "important" she wanted to convince herself it was. The people who were actually important were out there in reality. Whatever feelings she was trying to sort through with... mom and... everything else... It wouldn't be fair to burden anyone else with that when she didn't even really know what "that" was!

And so she'd had no choice but to awkwardly, jarringly, try to shove that train of thought aside midway through and just... hope she could coherently piece it back together later. (Whenever "later" even was.) She had to focus on the present right now, it was more important. To that end, she nodded her head at Hero's words, at least trying to return his smile – though she couldn't be entirely sure if she succeeded. Regardless of anything else, it really was good to see him, as always. She wasn't faking that part.

While Hero was speaking, Sunny darted around from behind him, making a beeline to seize the drab armchair at Mari's bedside. Neither Hero nor Mrs. Rodriguez made any move to stop him, clearly conceding to let him take up the spot closest to Mari's side while they simply stood around the bed instead. Mari herself certainly had no objections either – of course Sunny would want to stick close to her. Anybody who'd known him at all would not be surprised by that in the slightest. She briefly turned her (attempted) smile towards her little brother as well, seeing a slightly wide-eyed look on his face not too far from the one he'd had when seeing her awaken in the ambulance earlier. Though he didn't seem to be able bring himself to say anything at the moment, keeping silent as he looked at her. Which was fine. Mari had no intention of trying to pressure him for a verbal greeting or anything like that, it'd just be uncalled-for.

Instead, she looked at Sunny and silently held her arms out in an open gesture, an offering. Sunny, recognizing it for what it was, didn't hesitate, leaning forward in his chair so quickly that he nearly launched himself out of it, scooting close enough for Mari to wrap her arms around him in a hug. She gave him a bone-crushingly tight squeeze for just a moment, trying to put every bit of reassurance she hadn't been able to offer earlier into the embrace, before slackening her grip and letting him hug her back in turn. Sunny's movements were slow and hesitant, arms just barely wrapping around Mari's waist, gentler than a whisper as he leaned against her. Like she was made of glass and would shatter if he so much as jostled her a little. Normally, Mari might have said something about that, but... well, she was the one sitting in a hospital bed right now, one of her legs broken and secured by straps to keep it from shifting and being damaged further. Sunny's caution, while not really needed (it wasn't like he was touching her knee, after all), was not unjustified either.

While Sunny nestled into her side, seemingly not caring how awkward it was to lean over the bedside from his chair, Mari looked back up at Hero and Mrs. Rodriguez, who were both watching them patiently, seemingly letting the siblings have their little moment before proceeding. Mari stared at the two of them for a moment, trying to think of something to say. A simple "hello" sounded too blunt and awkward; if she was going to greet them verbally then she should've done it when they walked in instead of waiting a minute. But she wasn't sure what else to say either. She could thank them for their part in calling the ambulance and looking after Sunny in her stead, but... it seemed uncomfortable to just lead with that out of nowhere. Or maybe she could-

Mari's internal debate, however, would be cut short when Mrs. Rodriguez spoke up first. "Mari, dear, are you alright?" the older woman asked, her eyebrows knitting (presumably in concern, judging from the words) as she looked down at Mari. "You looked... distracted by something when we came in." she probed, her voice gentle.

Stilling at the question, Mari felt her mouth start to dip into a small frown. They'd noticed that? ...She supposed she shouldn't have been surprised in hindsight, she had no real idea what her face would have looked like in that moment. It was probably written across her expression quite obviously – or at least, obvious to anybody who wasn't her, anyway. She had hoped that she'd managed to force the cascade of thoughts aside well enough to not be noticeable, but clearly that had been overly optimistic to expect. Mari was only barely able to subdue her distraction and force herself to focus on the present at all, of course she wouldn't manage to do it well enough that nobody would notice her acting off. Or, more off than usual. While she tried to think of how to reply, however, Sunny – still leaning against her side and clearly having noticed the way she momentarily froze – looked up at her, a frown on his face and a hint of something she interpreted as concern behind his eyes. That was the exact opposite of what she wanted, she'd already worried everyone enough...

"I'm fine." Mari said, looking back up at Mrs. Rodriguez, though from the way the woman's brow furrowed, they both knew that wasn't particularly convincing. "I was just lost in thought for a minute." she hedged vaguely. It wasn't technically a lie, so that counted for something, right?

("...That isn't even worth dignifying with a response.")

"Mari-" Hero started, but cut himself off. Perhaps he was simply too considerate to push her on it right now, though even she could see that he obviously wanted to. Mari's frown deepened a little as her eyes flicked over to him, being met with a worried expression not dissimilar to Sunny's. Yet more guilt coiled in her stomach at the sight. She'd been concerned for how distressed Sunny was with this whole situation, but she hadn't really put much thought into how it would upset Hero too. But of course it would. She mentally added him near the top of the list of people she ought to apologize to once this was all over. (Whatever "over" even meant in that context...)

A small sigh came from Mrs. Rodriguez's direction, and Mari looked back over to see her shaking her head slowly.

"You're not fine, dear." Mrs. Rodriguez said, firmly but not unkindly. "We wouldn't be here if you were." she pointed out, waving one hand to indicate the hospital room around them as she spoke. Mari had to pause again at that, finding herself unable to really refute the statement. From the way Sunny's arms wrapped around her squeezed a little tighter, he seemed to agree with that sentiment too. It was objectively the truth, after all. You didn't end up in the hospital when everything was alright. Obvious. A statement so obvious that Mari almost felt stupid just for having to think about it. So she didn't know who she thought she was fooling. If anything, she should probably feel bad for insulting their intelligence like that, because that's what it was: she should've known there was absolutely no way anybody would actually believe there was nothing else going on with her behind all this...

But she didn't want to talk about it. She wasn't particularly eager to lie to them, but she didn't want to have to explain what had actually been going through her head either. It wasn't that she didn't trust them, because of course she trusted Sunny and Hero – more than maybe anyone in the world – and Mrs. Rodriguez had always been kind enough to her too, in a "good neighbor" sort of way. It was just that... it had hurt to think about. She didn't want to go into everything that had been running through her mind, when she hadn't even made sense of it herself! It just felt... wrong. Like so much else today. It was all wrong. It was... easier to shove it aside for the moment and focus on "now".

.

She wasn't... she wasn't ready.

She wasn't ready-

.

"...Mari?"

Sunny's voice was soft, small even, yet it cut right through her train of thought like a knife through a curtain. Mari's eyes snapped down to see him once again looking at her with a deep, worried frown on his face. "You're shaking." he pointed out quietly, if not a little bluntly, his hug around her waist tightening again for just a moment, as if to emphasize the statement (perhaps unconsciously).

At his words, Mari's eyes snapped down towards her own arms around Sunny's shoulders... and he was right. There was a faint, but noticeable, quivering to her hands, a tremble that ran up her arms to her shoulders, reverberating across her torso. The slight shaking and shuffling of her hospital gown could almost have been mistaken for shivering. But, while the hospital room was a bit on the chilly side – as hospitals always seemed to be – it wasn't that cold. No, this could only be the result of her nerves getting out of her control. Again. It was... almost frustrating that she still hadn't managed to learn how to get a handle on that by now. And perhaps even moreso that she wasn't even able to notice it happening until it was pointed out to her. What, was she so unbalanced that she couldn't even manage to control her body, something even little children could do, just because she'd had a bad day? There was no good way to explain that without making herself sound crazy.

Even so, she tried to take a deep breath, hoping to steady herself enough to make it stop. She couldn't really tell if it was working or not, as Sunny's worried looks weren't inspiring much confidence.

While Mari focused on that, Hero had turned to his mother. "Mamá, don't you think we should wait a bit before questioning her?" he asked, though his voice sounded earnest and non-accusatory, seemingly more concerned than actually bothered by his mom's approach.

"This is important, Henry." Mrs. Rodriguez replied, meeting her son's gaze with a slight frown. "We need to hear her side of the story about all this, because if it's what I think..." she trailed off. Mari felt a wave of confusion sweep over her... No, not just confusion, it was an almost anxious feeling. What was Mrs. Rodriguez thinking? The way she'd said that, before leaving the sentence hanging, something about it felt almost... ominous, somehow. Like she was hinting at something very, very important, but didn't want to say what. It put Mari's teeth on edge. Hero, however, seemed to understand what she meant, as he matched his mom's frown with one of his own.

"I know, but... Just look at her. You were clearly upsetting her, trying to press her the second we walked in." Hero protested, shooting a brief glance at Mari as he said it. Mrs. Rodriguez followed his gaze, and Mari caught her expression visibly softening as it went. "She's probably still confused about what's going on herself, too." Hero added, the thought seeming to occur to him as he said it.

"...She can also hear you talking about her." Mari herself spoke up, her voice quiet yet seeming to ring across the hospital room anyway. She looked back and forth between Hero and Mrs. Rodriguez, seeing the way both of them snapped their attention to her fully at the sound. Normally, she would've tried to be a little more gentle about making that point – maybe phrased it in a more lighthearted, teasing sort of way, lightly ribbing to show that she wasn't really offended or anything like that. She felt a little guilty that it came out so blunt this time. She wasn't mad at them, not even close, she honestly wouldn't even say she was mildly annoyed, it'd hardly be fair when she knew they meant well. But after the last few hours of being hurried around the hospital with doctors talking circles over her head... she just, on some level, felt like she wanted to be included in the conversation when she was right there.

A shuffling from her side caused her to spare an eye for Sunny for a moment, revealing that he was giving Hero a somewhat unimpressed look as well. So at least he agreed with her.

Hero winced. "Sorry, Mari..." he apologized as he turned to look at her properly, his face visibly flushing from what was presumably embarrassment. It was times like these when one could really tell he and Kel were brothers, his sheepish tone was almost uncannily like the one Kel tended to use when he was called out for bickering with Aubrey (often by Hero himself). Mari shook her head slightly to clear away that particular mental tangent (though she did have to admit she found it more endearing than anything) and glanced over at Mrs. Rodriguez. The older woman had an apologetic smile on her face – or at least Mari assumed it was meant to be apologetic, she couldn't interpret Mrs. Rodriguez's expressions as well as she could with Sunny or her friends. But now wasn't the time to get too sidetracked trying to analyze every little look anyway.

"It's fine, Hero." Mari conceded as she looked back over at Hero, trying to give him a small smile to show she really meant it. It really was fine. After all... "You're right anyway. I really... don't understand everything that's happened today." she admitted. There was an instinctive squirming of discomfort in her gut that she had to try to force down – though she wasn't sure if that was from bringing up the events of earlier, or just a general kneejerk feeling of shame from admitting that she didn't perfectly understand what was happening. It could even have been both. She looked up at both Hero and Mrs. Rodriguez, feeling a frown start to form on her face.

"When I woke up in the back of the ambulance, I couldn't think of how I got there. It didn't really... make a lot of sense." she said slowly, finally putting voice to a thought that had been nagging at the back of her mind for hours. Mari shook her head again. "I'm glad you found me-" And that was the truth, she hadn't been lying when she thanked Sunny earlier. "-but... How did you?"

.

The question hung in the air for a moment that seemed to stretch on tortuously... Or maybe that was just how Mari imagined it. She hadn't realized just how much that missing piece had actually been bugging her until she said it out loud.

Hero and his mother shared a look that Mari couldn't discern.

"You... should probably ask Sunny for his part first?" Hero replied slowly, looking down at Sunny as he said it. Even without needing to look herself, Mari felt Sunny go still for a moment against her side, probably from being suddenly put on the spot like that, and her frown deepened a little. Not that Hero would have been trying to make him uncomfortable on purpose, he must've had a good reason for asking, but even so. Mari couldn't entirely stifle the momentary flare of protective instinct in her chest. She swallowed it down, however, instead forcing her attention back to the issue at hand.

Looking at Sunny, she saw that his brow had furrowed, as if deep in thought. Slowly, he nodded, pulling away from where he was leaning against Mari's side so that he could straighten himself up in his chair. Presumably it was to be better able to speak to her face-to-face, but... privately there was a part of Mari that immediately missed the warmth from the side-hug...

("Did you think I don't notice the way you cling to him? Honestly. It was cute when you were five, but when you're still dragging him around as a teenager... normal girls don't do that, Mari! You need to grow up!")

...She hoped nobody noticed the way she flinched slightly.

If they did, though, at the very least none of them saw fit to comment on it.

"It started... a bit after lunch time." Sunny began, speaking slowly, as if he was picking his words very carefully. Or maybe more like trying to piece together how to explain his story as he went. Mari waited patiently for him to get his thoughts in line – she knew how stressful today had been for him, so she understood not knowing how to word things. Oh yes, she understood that all too well. Sunny averted his eyes slightly as he continued, though whether this was because he was uncomfortable, or just to help gather his thoughts, Mari didn't know. Not that she'd begrudge him for it either way, as she didn't feel like trying to make eye contact herself regardless.

"Don't know what happened, but. Mom was... yelling a lot. At you."

"You heard that?" Mari gasped out before she was able to stop herself, having to all but physically restrain the urge to clap a hand over her mouth in embarrassment. She didn't miss the way Mrs. Rodriguez suddenly seemed to be looking at her a little more intently than before. Whatever the woman might have been thinking, though, she didn't say anything, so Mari had no choice but to try to focus back on the matter at hand. "I thought you were still in bed." she admitted to Sunny, her brow furrowing a little in confusion as she looked at him. "I was going to let you sleep in, since I promised no more early practice sessions." she explained. (It still felt so stupid in hindsight that she'd ever thought those were a good idea, or that Sunny wouldn't be bothered by them. No kid his age would want to spend their weekend doing that...)

Sunny, however, shook his head. "No, I was up. I was just reading old Spaceboy comics." he said. Mari gave it a roughly fifty-fifty chance that "reading comics" was code for "getting lost in daydreams", as that was often what it translated to for Sunny, but she opted not to voice those thoughts aloud. It was rather beside the point anyway. "I was... thinking of getting lunch, but then the... shouting started. And I could hear the sound from upstairs, because. You know." Sunny glanced at Mari as he said that.

Mari did know. In fact, she almost wanted to smack herself for not having thought of it. Of course, of course the weird acoustics of their house would strike again. The fact that she was still being surprised by that at this point, eight years after moving in, was almost stunning. A suitably loud sound downstairs, like an object crashing to the floor or a person yelling, echoing in such a way that it reached her and Sunny's bedroom would not be even close to the strangest thing to be heard in their house. There was a very good reason the room with her favorite window had been chosen as the music room; it was the only spot that wasn't (usually) plagued by echoes from other parts of the building.

Exhaling a breath to try to square away her slight frustration with herself, Mari nodded, both to show that she understood and to prompt Sunny to continue.

"I didn't... know what to do, so I just. Stayed quiet and waited." he admitted slowly, biting his bottom lip. Mari recognized his nerves for what they were, but she wasn't sure if she should interrupt to reassure him or not. Before she'd be able to decide, however, he steeled himself to continue. "After the noise stopped, I went downstairs, but. You weren't there, and mom was acting... weird."

Mari felt her heart skip a beat. "Weird? What do you mean weird? What did she do?" The words burst out more urgently than even she had really expected, not realizing that her voice had picked up until she heard it echo around the hospital room. Her arm, the one that had since been bandaged to shield the cuts on it from becoming infected, suddenly felt inexplicably itchy. Mari genuinely wasn't sure if that was her imagination or not.

The weighty feeling of eyes on her seemed to intensify, and a surreptitious glance at Mrs. Rodriguez reveal that the woman was staring at her and Sunny even more blatantly than she had been a minute ago. Not only that, but while Mari had them in her line of sight, she clearly saw Hero give his mother some kind of look, the two locking eyes for a moment. Mari didn't have the faintest idea what they were thinking, but it was clearly a very serious look. Mrs. Rodriguez's lips were pursed and Hero had a heavy set to his brow – Mari almost wanted to call their expressions grim. Not that either of them seemed to be in any hurry to elaborate on whatever silent agreement they were making. Or that Mari would even have much time to ponder over it, as she suddenly realized Sunny hadn't responded to her hurried questioning. Fixing her attention back on him revealed that he, too, was glancing towards the other two in the room, presumably having caught their odd behavior himself.

Noticing Mari's attention, however, Sunny shook his head, perhaps to recenter himself. "Mom didn't do anything." he corrected quickly, perhaps in an attempt to reassure her. (And, in fairness, the words did feel like a wave of immediate relief to Mari.) "But that was... the weird part." he added, worried frown forming on his face once more. "She didn't do anything. She was just. Sitting in the kitchen. And she wouldn't tell me anything." he elaborated, shifting in the chair to pull his knees up to his chest as he spoke.

Mari tried to envision the scene he must have witnessed; coming downstairs immediately after overhearing a heated argument, to see the strange sight of mom sitting completely still at the kitchen table, not even occupying herself with paperwork from her job or anything she usually did, pouring rain beating down behind her, while Mari herself was conspicuously absent and he wouldn't know why... Yes, she could see it. It was no wonder something like that would send a chill up Sunny's spine. Even just her vague imaginary approximation left Mari with an acute feeling that something, somehow, was very wrong... How much more vividly uncomfortable must it have been for Sunny to actually have to deal with that in person? ...She immediately felt the urge to reach over and pull him into another hug, only refraining from it to give him space to finish his retelling.

"She wouldn't tell me what the noise was about... Kept saying not to worry about it, mind my own business. And when I tried to ask where you went, she got annoyed..." Sunny continued, his voice dropping, not quite into a mumbling range but definitely growing quieter. "I was worried, 'cause it was raining so hard. And your umbrella was still there... But mom just yelled at me to quit bothering her." he explained. Again, Mari could see it – her being mysteriously gone was one thing, but even she would never forget her umbrella on a day like today. Not unless she really wasn't thinking... and she hadn't been. No wonder Sunny, ever observant, would realize that too.

"By then I just had a... feeling. In my stomach. That... I don't know, just that something really bad was going on." Sunny said, unknowingly confirming Mari's own thoughts on the matter. "So I slipped outside and ran next door. I thought maybe Hero or Kel'd know, or if they didn't, they'd still... help."

Despite the seriousness of the topic, Mari tried to give Sunny a small smile. "That was really brave, little brother." she praised him. It might have sounded a little corny, almost inappropriate for such a real situation, but she meant every word of it nonetheless. Sunny seemed like he deserved some cheering up by now... Or, really, he'd deserved it this whole time, she just hadn't exactly been in a good position to do it. And besides, she understood his reasoning perfectly, and agreed with it. He'd done the right thing – the fact she was even sitting here to think about it proved that indisputably – and she felt he ought to know that straight from her mouth.

"...Mm." Sunny hummed noncommittally, pulling his knees in a little tighter. "I didn't do much..." he mumbled into his legs.

"But you did enough."

That was Hero cutting into the conversation at last, drawing both Mari and Sunny's eyes to him. If Mari had to guess, he'd probably figured that Sunny had explained his part well enough, so now he was ready to take over. Sunny seemed to have reached a similar conclusion, as his head bobbed in a slow nod, as if conceding the discussion. Hero graced Sunny with one of his signature smiles for a moment – the ones that Mari privately always thought made Hero look incredibly charming – before turning to Mari herself. Mrs. Rodriguez, meanwhile, despite almost certainly being involved with this part of the story as well, seemed content to maintain her silence and let Hero take the lead. (Perhaps because of Hero's earlier chiding her for badgering Mari? She didn't know for sure.)

"Sunny told us what was going on, and obviously you weren't at our house, so..." Hero trailed off for a moment, rubbing the back of his head with one hand. Mari recognized it as an attempt to gather his thoughts. "We called Basil and his grandma, and they got in touch with Aubrey, and none of them'd seen you either. We even tried asking other people on our street like the twins, just in case." Hero visibly swallowed, any attempts at maintaining an easy demeanor obviously faltering as he spoke, a frown forming on his face as he too remembered the events of the day.

"But... how did you find out where I was?" Mari couldn't help but ask, the question had been nagging at her more and more as the picture of what had happened from their perspective became clearer. "It's not like I told anyone." she pointed out honestly. She hadn't even known where she was running herself at the time, she wouldn't have been able to let anyone else in on it even if she had been in any state to (which she, obviously, wasn't).

"We didn't." Hero said, shaking his head for emphasis. "By that point it was obvious you were missing, so... We split into search parties. Basil, his grandma, and Aubrey. Kel and papá. And me, Sunny, and mamá. We were all going to go out and scour places we thought you might be, or that you went to often." he explained. That did seem to mostly make sense, Mari could follow along with the logic there just fine, but...

"...I was in our secret hangout spot, though." she said quietly, looking up at Hero with her brow furrowed. "I'm the one who made everyone promise not to sneak out there anymore, why would you think of that as a place I'd go back to?" she asked, a deep frown settling on her face. The needle of guilt that always flared up when she thought of how she'd bossed her friends into agreeing to abandon the spot was still there even now. If anything, it was even worse now that she'd proven herself to be a hypocrite, the first one to break the promise she herself had imposed.

"Well, we had gone to check the park anyway, and..." Hero hedged for a moment, averting his eyes slightly for just a second. "We knew it was a longshot, but we also know you had a lot of happy memories there too. We all did." he admitted softly, holding his hands together in front of himself. If Mari hadn't already thought she felt guilty before, she most certainly would now. Hero's tone seemed almost wistful, like he was reminiscing about those peaceful days they'd spent throughout summer, playing games or having picnics or even just lazing about under the trees. And who would be able to blame him? He was right, they had been happy.

"When someone is scared or upset, they'll go somewhere that feels safe. It's only natural." Mrs. Rodriguez finally saw fit to give her own input, looking at Mari with an expression she couldn't get a read on. It didn't appear at all judgmental or unkind, though. "Even if you were just going where your legs took you, there was a reason... People don't just forget feelings like that so easily, dear."

.

Mari wasn't going to apologize for worrying about Sunny. She wasn't.

But maybe...

Maybe she had been too harsh.

.

Silence lapsed over the hospital room for a few long moments. Maybe the others were deliberately giving Mari space to make sense of it all in her head. Or maybe they just didn't have anything to say. Regardless, though, she appreciated the silence, finding it more calming than uncomfortable right then. Today really had been just. So much. But it finally felt like it was starting to make at least a bit of sense. A shuffling noise from her side caught Mari's attention, and she glanced over to see Sunny unfurling himself from the balled-up seating position he'd adopted while speaking his piece. He leaned forwards and tentatively outstretched his arms, silently requesting to embrace her once more.

Just like the first time, Mari didn't hesitate, pulling him close and letting him rest against her side, head nestled against her shoulder. Just like she would do when he'd had a nightmare and needed her company – or at least, as close of an approximation as they could manage while she was sitting up in this ridiculous pastel void of a hospital bed.

.

.

The silence continued... until another question suddenly occurred to Mari. Another obvious question that she probably should have thought of more quickly than this.

"Hold on." she spoke up suddenly, sitting up a little as she glanced around the room. Both Hero and Mrs. Rodriguez's eyes snapped to her, and she felt Sunny's hair rustling against her shoulder, presumably looking at her curiously as well. "If everyone knows what... happened with me, then why's it just you here? Not even Kel?" she wondered, glancing between Hero and his mother as she spoke. Now that she was thinking about it, the absence of their other friends seemed oddly conspicuous – and Kel in particular not being with Hero and their mom especially so. "I mean, I'm glad you're here!" she amended herself quickly, realizing how that might have sounded. "And I know you're the ones who found me, but... you did tell everyone you did, right?" It seemed like a ridiculous thing to even suggest, but Mari felt the need to ask anyway. She didn't think Hero or his mom would be that thoughtless, but... none of the others were here and she didn't know what to make of it.

"Huh?" Mrs. Rodriguez blinked, seeming genuinely taken aback at the question. She swiftly shook her head back and forth. "Oh, no, dear! Of course we did." she denied just as quickly.

Hero nodded his head beside his mother. "Yeah, we called up everyone as soon as you were safe in the ambulance to let 'em know what was going on." he explained. He shot Mari a smile that looked rather rueful to her. "They all wanted to come with us out here too. I'm not sure who was louder, Kel or Aubrey..." he chuckled slightly with that comment, clearly intending it as a joke to lighten the mood. Mari couldn't quite fight her own small smile at the thought either. Imagining Aubrey and Kel bickering over coming to visit her... almost made her feel something warm deep in her chest.

"But, unfortunately the kids couldn't all come today." Mrs. Rodriguez picked back up, with that look that Mari wanted to call apologetic on her face again. "The hospital only permits so many visitors at once, and of course Sunny already rode along in the ambulance with you. Piling in five or six more people into this room at once would be too many, they'd never allow it." she said, her tone apparently apologetic to match her expression.

Mari nodded her head silently, processing the information. She hadn't been aware of that particular hospital policy, she didn't think, but considering it, it made perfect sense. Obviously you wouldn't want huge groups like entire sports teams or rowdy parties all crowding into a patient's room. Besides just generally getting in the way of doctors and nurses who needed to do their jobs, overly large gatherings would be disruptive to other patients in neighboring rooms and such. Yes, the reasoning seemed completely sound to her... But it was, she had to admit, still a little sad that she wouldn't get to see everyone. Having all her friends around would make any day – even this one – just that little bit better. Just that little bit easier to bear.

Mrs. Rodriguez must've seen something in her expression (not that Mari even thought she was making an expression), as she spoke up again. "If all goes well, we'll be bringing Kel around tomorrow, of course. And I'm sure your other friends would love a chance to stop by as soon as possible too." she said, smiling slightly at Mari, presumably meant to be encouraging. And, to the woman's credit, it was an encouraging thought, so Mari tried to return the expression.

"If they don't let Aubrey in... She might smash through a window or something." Sunny mumbled suddenly from Mari's side. She legitimately couldn't tell if he meant it sarcastically or not, which only served to make the mental image conjured by the remark even funnier, startling a laugh out of Mari, sending a jolt through her body that made the base of the hospital bed creak.

"I hope-I hope not!" Mari said, finding her sentence broken up by another surprise laugh. "She and Kel would turn it into some kind of... property damage competition." she joked, bringing her hand up to rustle Sunny's hair idly. He let out a low huff, though she couldn't tell if it was from the gesture or from her quip. Maybe both. Meanwhile, a noise that sounded suspiciously like a wheeze came from Hero's direction, though he was trying to school his face when Mari glanced at him. Even Mrs. Rodriguez smiled a bit wider.

.

Mari wasn't even sure where that surge of lighter feelings had come from. One little joke from Sunny shouldn't have been nearly enough to block out everything else that had happened today. It was an almost absurd thought, comparing the scale of that to the constant maelstrom that had been the inside of her mind today. But maybe that was exactly why she clung to it, just for that one moment. Even if there were a lot of things, so many things, that still weren't... weren't okay... Just for a second, Mari could forget it and laugh, light and honest. That meant something, didn't it? It felt like it did... Or maybe just that she wanted to pretend it did. But she'd take anything she could get right now, imaginary or not.

.

.

It was about another minute of comfortable silence later when Mrs. Rodriguez cleared her throat, straightening up a little where she stood, drawing all eyes in the room to her.

"...Anyway, Mari, Sunny." she began, looking between the two siblings as she addressed them. "There's still... some very important things we need to talk about, dears." she said, her tone growing serious. It was like the whole atmosphere of the room shifted with that simple proclamation – or at least, that was how it seemed to Mari.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Hero stiffen, his eyes momentarily widening before he glanced at his mother, matching her focused expression with one of his own. So... whatever this was about, he knew where it was going. Or at least he thought he did. That was the only conclusion that seemed to make sense. Yet it didn't do anything to help Mari actually figure out what "this" was.

But it seemed she wouldn't get to find out right away, as Mrs. Rodriguez shook her head once more, appearing as if a thought had suddenly occurred to her.

"...But first, I think we could all use a moment to breathe." she suggested, glancing between the three other occupants in the room. She was met by confused looks, even from Hero. (Mari was assuming Sunny was confused, anyway, she didn't look at his face, but she could feel him tensed up next to her.)

"I don't know about anyone else, but I'm feeling a little thirsty. How about I go find a vending machine to grab us some drinks, clear our heads before all the serious talk?" Mrs. Rodriguez elaborated on her idea, tilting her head slightly towards the door as she did so.

Mari paused at that – and from the feeling at her shoulder, Sunny did as well. Drinks? ...She supposed she was actually pretty thirsty, now that she thought about it. The nurses had given her a cup of water to sip not too long after she'd arrived, while some of the tests were being done, but that was awhile ago now. And she wasn't sure when they'd be along with a dinner tray and another cup. So it didn't sound like a terrible suggestion to her. Hero appeared to be thinking along similar lines, as he'd nodded his head in agreement.

Shuffling a bit, Sunny looked up, meeting Mari's gaze for a moment, and she gave him a look intended to be questioning in return. He shrugged slightly, saying nothing. Amazingly, Mari was actually able to understand the intent behind the unspoken conversation for once (probably just because it was Sunny, if she was being honest), so she looked back up at Mrs. Rodriguez.

"That's fine. I think we could all use one." she agreed.

.

.

It had been a few minutes since Mrs. Rodriguez had departed on her apparent quest to find a drink vending machine. Not that it was too much of a surprise that it might take her a little while; Mari didn't remember passing any machines in the hallways she'd been wheeled through to get to her designated room. She remembered the hospital definitely had them, from her previous trip when she'd broken her knee the first time... She wasn't even sure why she remembered that specific detail, but there it was. But that didn't mean there were necessarily any vending machines on this particular floor. Faraway General was an oddly tall building for a small town hospital, almost a skyscraper. Maybe so it could be easily seen from all around when approaching from the countryside (though Mari didn't have any actual hard evidence for that being the reason, it was just aimless theorizing on her part). Either way, they probably didn't keep every single floor stocked with vending machines and other such conveniences, it'd be expensive to keep up and inconvenient for maintenance.

The point was that it was no big shock that Mrs. Rodriguez might take several minutes to procure her prize and return. Mari could wait. But... In her absence, silence had fallen over the remaining three once again.

This silence, unlike the last few, was decidedly less comfortable, though. In fact, it seemed downright awkward, an air of tension hanging in the air that nobody seemed to want to be the one to breach. (Or maybe just didn't know how to breach.) That was how it seemed to Mari, at least – Sunny being quiet wasn't really all that uncharacteristic of him, and especially with the day he'd had, nobody would begrudge him for not contributing much in the way of conversation. And of course Mari was acutely aware of her own tendency to get caught up in her own head and fall silent for much longer than she really should. Oh yes, she was aware of that habit more than perhaps anyone else even realized. She certainly felt like she was being embarrassed by zoning out far more often than she'd like.

But the odd one out was Hero.

Hero may not have been quite as excitable or prone to filling space with whatever chatter he could think of like Kel did (and this wasn't a criticism of Kel, mind, if anything Mari would say she envied his infectious sort of energy). But even if he didn't match his brother's pace, nobody would call Hero a wallflower either. He could usually maintain at least a casual, friendly sort of conversation most of the time. It was part of what made him such a dependable presence, at least in Mari's eyes, and she was pretty sure Sunny would agree with that statement too. Even if it was just smalltalk, Hero could usually get into a good comfortable flow, even with somebody prone to more subdued responses like Sunny. Mari admired that about him.

Which made the total absence of that conversational flow at the moment all the more conspicuous. He seemed, if anything, just as quietly discomfited as Mari herself, the silence around him tense and stagnant.

And Mari thought she knew why.

Hero knew something. Whatever was going on now, whatever serious topic Mrs. Rodriguez was planning to pivot to upon her return, Hero definitely knew at least some of what it was. That much was obvious, Mari had already observed that before... But whatever it was, it was clearly really bugging him now that it had been brought up. It had to be something of pretty dire importance indeed to warrant that kind of reaction from Hero, his concern was obvious now that Mari knew to look for it. His eyebrows gave away his worry, his whole body clearly tense and uncomfortable, as if dreading the prospect of the conversation to come.

Which made it all the more frustrating that Mari still didn't know what was going on. It wasn't that she mistrusted Hero – no, never mistrust. Even putting aside the fact that he'd literally helped save her today (as unbelievable of a thought as that still was), he was also someone she- He was one of her best friends in the world. So of course she trusted him implicitly, she knew he'd never string her along on anything bad or meaningless. Whatever was going on, he wouldn't be acting like this if he didn't think it was really that serious and that important... But still.

But still.

She couldn't quite stop that feeling of frustration starting to bubble anyway. Hero knew something of apparently severe implications, something about both herself and Sunny, the single person whose wellbeing meant more to her than anyone else on the planet, and whatever it was... he hadn't told her.

She trusted him completely. It would be important, and there would be a good reason for it. Of that, there could be no doubt.

But... was she wrong to still feel a little mad about it, even knowing that...?

The silence offered no answers.

.

.

.

*click-shunk*

Mari's eyes snapped up at the sound of the door sliding open again, the sound of a woman's shoes clicking on the tile floor.

It seemed like Mrs. Rodriguez was-

Mari froze.

Still leaning on her shoulder, Sunny seemed to freeze at the same instant.

They had both gone completely stock still.

Hero practically looked like a statue where he stood, his face ashen.

The woman in the doorway wasn't Mrs. Rodriguez.

It wasn't a nurse either.

"Mari."

Mom was standing there.

Chapter Text

"Mari."

.

.

Mari couldn't move. For one terrifyingly long moment, she barely even felt like she could breathe, all the air swept from her lungs with a single word from the woman standing in the doorway. It was only through feeling the subtle rise and fall of Sunny's chest leaning against her that she was able to remind herself that she, too, needed oxygen to live, pulling in a whispering breath that came out more like a soft shudder than anything. It was only a single moment, probably not even a couple seconds in reality, but to Mari's mind, it may as well have been a decade. Everything around her seemed to slow to a crawl, every heartbeat in her ears stretched out into a drone, slowly fading away like the last note at the end of one of her piano pieces... It was almost like a scene from a corny action movie of the sort Mari and Kel shared a fondness for (much to Hero's dismay), only rather than a splashy overdone fight scene with diving from explosions and dodging bullets, the slow motion simply highlighted... Nothing. All Mari could think to do was just sit there.

She understood, logically, that this made sense. Of course the hospital would contact her mom and dad about this. Given that they were her legal guardians, obviously her being brought in as a patient was something they'd need to be informed of. It would have been much stranger if they weren't, wouldn't it? And given that dad would have still been at work (or only just have gotten off, maybe? Mari still didn't know what time it was now, but it couldn't be later than evening)... It only followed that mom would be the first to arrive. According to Sunny, she hadn't been doing anything pressing – or anything at all – before he'd gone next door for help, so it wasn't like the call would've interrupted her while she was busy or anything. Nothing to stop her from hopping in the car to drive out to Faraway General.

Really, it was likely the only reason Hero and Mrs. Rodriguez got here so far ahead of mom was because they had a huge lead by directly following after the ambulance from the park. Had they not been right there at the time, mom probably would've been the first to get the news. So yes, in theory it made perfect sense. But in practice... right now, that voice of logic felt so small and far away. Like a figure in the distance on a foggy night, or whispers from behind a locked door. It was there, and with a bit of focus Mari could probably just manage to make sense of it. But that required her to be able to focus. And in that moment, all her attention was being demanded by only one thing. It didn't particularly matter if it "shouldn't" have blindsided her, did it? The fact remained that she was blindsided all the same.

Mom's gaze bore into her, that single word of greeting – just Mari's name – ripping the air apart like a gunshot. All Mari could do was stare. Stare, and try to resist the urge to just curl up and quake like Mewo when spooked. Something about mom's face didn't... didn't look right. As far as Mari could tell, it was an outwardly neutral expression, neither overtly happy nor overtly upset. But something about mom's eyes was just... she didn't know the word. There was probably some fancy term that perfectly encapsulated the air mom was giving off, all its nuances neatly condensed to a single phrase. But if so, it wasn't one Mari was familiar with. But she could still tell, on some sort of instinctual level, as vague and unhelpful as it was, that something was off. It wasn't like-

("I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU WANT!")

-It wasn't like that. There was no sign of the burning rage from before, roaring outwards to consume everything and reduce Mari's feeble defenses to ash. But there was something there, something behind mom's eyes that wasn't... pleasant. It felt like she was pinning Mari with her gaze somehow, piercing right through any layers Mari might have tried to surround herself in... and whatever mom was seeing beneath, it didn't impress her. Part of Mari clung to the hope that it was just her imagination – she'd always been terrible at reading peoples' eyes, after all, and mom's were especially opaque to her. But even as she thought that, she knew deep down it was little more than wishful thinking, her gut squirming as the poisonous truth made its thorny tendrils known. There was no putting that genie back in the bottle, no just ignoring what had happened earlier. Even Mari's obliviousness had limits. She knew, now, that mom hated her. That mom had always hated her... or at least for a very long time.

And with that knowledge came context. Context that made it impossible to characterize mom's expression in a charitable light, even if she'd been able to think of one. No, it was subtle, but Mari couldn't shake the impression of... disgust behind mom's eyes. She'd read books, before, where characters had been described as looking down at someone with the kind of regard you'd give a cockroach, or a moldy stain on the wall. Mari'd had a bit of trouble visualizing the expressions in question at the time, not quite understanding how that would be communicated through a mere glance... But she thought she could see it now. If she ever read such a descriptor again, she was sure it'd be mom's eyes here and now that she would imagine.

The room felt cold.

.

.

It was only when mom moved that Mari fully realized that she had been doing nothing but sitting there staring, wide-eyed, for who-knew-how-many long, agonizing seconds. Not that she was the only one: Sunny, at her side, seemed to be handling this about as well as Mari herself, his eyes locked on mom with an odd look, like something halfway between wide-eyed shock and intense severity. She didn't really know what to make of it. Regardless, though, he was obviously tense, just as tense as she was, his arm that he'd hugged around her waist having – seemingly instinctively – gripped her side, scratchy hospital gown fabric balled up in his fist. Mari tried to give Sunny a small squeeze to signal that it would be okay to relax a little (hypocritical as it might have been, with how on edge she was herself, she just wanted him to feel safer). But if he registered the attempted comfort, he didn't show it. His gaze just stayed locked on mom.

Hero, too, appeared to be doing his best impression of a statue from where he stood between the bedside and the wall. Mari couldn't get a read on him, though. As he'd turned fully towards the doorway, she couldn't get a view of his face from where she sat. And trying to parse complex expressions from the side of somebody's head was practically an exercise in futility. Though... she wouldn't have been surprised if it was a similar look to Sunny's (or her own), considering the circumstances.

But now wasn't the time to puzzle over their reactions. Mom clearly had no interest in waiting any longer for a response, stepping further into the room, her frown appearing to deepen as she approached.

With mom's entrance into the hospital room proper, something became clearer beneath the bright white ceiling lights. Something that Mari... well, if she hadn't been practically petrified already, definitely would've made her freeze in realization. She'd been so focused on mom's eyes, at first, that she missed her nose. While mom naturally had a very small nose, it appeared noticeably swollen now, nostrils inflamed in a way that clearly wasn't normal. It almost looked like she'd come down with a particularly horrible flu or something... except that the redness wasn't just flushed in the way it would be from sickness. No, the skin carried a splotchier red, just starting to be tinged with purple. Mari recognized the sight in an instant – it was one she'd had to become very familiar with, especially lately. A newly-forming bruise. And Mari, of course, knew exactly what had caused it. How could she not, when the cause in question was none other than herself? It wasn't like anybody else had gone around smashing their skull against mom's face recently.

Guilt squirmed in her gut, her skin prickling and bursting into goosebumps, the chill in the air seeming to intensify a hundredfold for a moment. It was like she'd been suddenly doused with a torrent of cold water – and given her exposure to the rain earlier, Mari did not make that comparison carelessly. She knew exactly how that felt relative to now. But the feeling was justified. She hadn't... she hadn't wanted to hurt mom. Even in the moment, she'd just wanted the grip on her arm to let go-! ...Mari didn't want to hurt anyone. But through impulsiveness- No, she should call it what it was. Through sheer thoughtless stupidity, she'd hurt mom anyway.

.

("...But she also hurt you, didn't she...?")

.

The treacherous voice seemed to slither through the back of Mari's skull. It made her feel sick. A shudder ran up her spine – or was it a shiver from the cold? She couldn't even tell anymore. With each step closer mom took, chill and nausea seeped into her bones, twisting and flowing around each other such that Mari couldn't tell if the feelings were merging or warring against one another... But no matter what was battling with what, she herself was bound to be the loser.

.

.

"...Are you not even going to greet me now, Mari?" Mom's voice rent through the air again, the words seeming to kick Mari in the chest just as hard as when she'd announced her presence a few moments ago (had it really been so short a time in reality? It felt like hours had been packed into under a minute.) Mari didn't know how to respond. Was she supposed to say hello? To apologize? To simply nod or shake her head? She honestly, truly, had no clue what she was supposed to think or feel here, or what mom was even expecting of her... or whether she'd want to meet mom's expectations at all. So she could only think to do... nothing. She just stared at mom, barely even remembering to blink – from the outside, she was sure her expression must have appeared unsettlingly flat.

Sunny, however, was not quite as subdued in his reactions. He noticeably stiffened where he sat – even more than he already had been, if that were possible – and Mari heard him exhale a sharp breath. His shoulders seemed to have hitched upwards ever-so-slightly, at the same time subtly leaning his head forward a bit. It was an absurd thought, but it... almost reminded Mari of the way Mewo would arch her back to try to make herself look larger than she really was when something sparked her displeasure. The mental image of comparing Sunny to a defensive cat should have been amusing, honestly, in any other circumstance it might've gotten a giggle out of her. But considering the situation, Mari really couldn't bring herself to laugh, so she just... didn't know what to make of it instead.

If mom noticed their reactions, however, she appeared to pay it little mind. "...Whatever." she muttered, apparently to herself, though Mari heard it loud and clear nonetheless. A huffing sound rather like a scoff came from the back of mom's throat, and she crossed her arms, coming to a stop at the foot of Mari's bed. She looked down at Mari and Sunny for another long moment, that same hard edge to her gaze, before she spoke again. "...So, do you care to explain what all this is?" she asked, her tone pointed and expectant. Her fingers tapped against her other arm. "You'd better have a very good reason why I had to drive all the way out here just to find you laid up like this." she said – or maybe more like demanded, given the steely tone.

Before Mari could even try to muster any sort of response, however, mom's eyes drifted over towards Sunny instead. "And you, Sunny. I should've known I'd find you wherever she ended up, but what do you think you were doing running off, young man? ...Well?" If mom's voice hadn't been sharp enough already, it seemed to grow even moreso with every word.

Before either Mari or Sunny could answer, however-

"Mrs. Takahashi?" Hero's voice cut across the hospital room, and Mari's gaze snapped over to him on instinct, so quickly she almost worried she'd give herself whiplash. Hero still had his gaze fixed on mom, but since she was now standing much closer to the bed and he'd turned to account for that, Mari could finally get a good look at his face again. His expression was... hard to read, though. For the most part, it could pass as a typical calm, mild sort of look, to the point where Mari almost wondered if he was trying to keep it neutral on purpose. But she knew him well enough that she could spot the tension in his posture. It wasn't an overly common occurrence, but she'd glimpsed that sort of strain before, like when he was stressed about an upcoming test or something of the sort, but didn't want to let their younger friends know it. (Mari certainly sympathized.) But even more than that... she wasn't sure if she was imagining it, but there also seemed to be... something else. There was something off in his gaze towards mom, but she couldn't put her finger on what was bothering her about it.

Not that there'd be much time to puzzle over it.

"Oh, Henry!" Mom's voice sounded... surprised? A bolt of confusion thrummed through Mari's chest as mom spun to face Hero. Why was she surprised? There was no possible way she hadn't seen him standing there, right? He was positioned right near the bedside, dressed in mostly darker colors that couldn't conceivably camouflage with the blindingly white hospital décor, and Hero was a respectably tall guy – not a giant, but not somebody you'd typically overlook. But with that being the case... wouldn't the only other option be that mom was faking it? That she'd been ignoring him on purpose? It was the only thought that made sense, except that it didn't make sense...

The bizarre moment just added to Mari's creeping sense that something here was very wrong, something that she was failing to see... Or at least, failing to understand if she did see it.

("Something wrong beyond the multiple very obvious things wrong, you mean.")

"I didn't see you there, I'm sorry." Mom continued, oblivious to Mari's thoughts. The words made Mari's frown deepen, her eyes narrowing unconsciously. Yes, that was definitely a lie alright, it was a claim so blatantly false even Mari picked up on it. And from the way Hero's eyebrows twitched downwards, he clearly had too. Sunny's chest shuddered in a short breath that Mari almost wanted to call a scoff, though he still said nothing. (Not that she could blame him for his silence when she couldn't seem to bring herself to do much more than quietly watch... whatever this was play out either.)

Mom shook her head to herself before fixing her gaze back on Hero. "...But forgive me, I've just gotten here and I need to talk to my children, so if you wouldn't-"

"-Actually, ma'am." Hero, garnering Mari's jolt of shock, actually interrupted mom, speaking up just loudly enough to trod right through her sentence. Mari couldn't remember the last time she'd seen Hero do something like that with an adult – he was usually the one chiding Kel about not being rude by talking over people! (Well, assuming Aubrey wasn't around to get on Kel's case in less tactful fashion, that is.) While Mari reeled, however, Hero kept talking. "I was just going to say, I can tell you anything you need to know, if you like. That way we can let Mari rest, she's had a pretty long day, you know?" he suggested, his tone suddenly earnest and helpful, without the undercurrent of tension from before. He gave mom one of his small smiles, the ones the Mari had always thought looked so charming.

But his eyes... Mari realized with a start that the hints of strain were still there. Hero was acting. His offer wasn't just out of legitimate helpfulness, he was forcing it for... some reason Mari couldn't begin to imagine. But what she was even more alarmed to realize was that she might very well have been the only one to notice... Well, Sunny might have, he was always pretty observant, but he was keeping his face neutral enough that she couldn't tell either way. But mom? It seemed really unlikely that mom would notice the act – Mari could only start to identify his tells because he'd been her best friend for the last eight years, an advantage mom most certainly didn't have. It wasn't like she and Hero tended to talk for any significant length of time even when he came over to their house. It was hard to get a read on mom's behavior, but from her perspective it must have genuinely looked like a completely sincere offer with nothing else behind it other than what he claimed, right?

Not that Mari even had any idea what he was really thinking at the moment. Why was Hero acting so odd around mom? ...It was sort of a hypocritical thought, since Mari hadn't exactly been acting at all normal since mom walked in either, she had enough self awareness to realize that. But at least she had a clear reason. No matter how she tried, it was impossible to get it out of her head, she couldn't look at mom without her mind dredging up images of... what had happened earlier. It was pathetic, but every time it flooded her thoughts, she just... couldn't seem to muster up the ability to say anything or do anything. Like a wall she kept slamming into over and over. But Hero? None of what was locking Mari in place was even remotely his fault, so where was his tension coming from...?

There it was again. That jabbing feeling that she was missing something, that there was some connection she couldn't quite make, something critically important...

.

Mom, meanwhile, appeared almost taken aback by the offer, actually seeming to hesitate for a moment. Somehow Mari got the impression that she really hadn't been expecting Hero's polite tone, and didn't quite know what to make of it. Mom looked at Hero for a couple seconds before shaking her head once more.

"Well, I appreciate the offer, Henry..." she began slowly, tactfully. Mari couldn't help but find it... more than a little jarring how mom had sounded so blunt and irritable when addressing her and Sunny a mere minute ago, only to abruptly switch to a more even, conversational tone the second she acknowledged Hero. It sounded... pretty much like the normal way mom would speak to their neighbors and various people around town, like it was just a casual conversation on a regular day all of a sudden.

Had... had that tone always sounded so phony, or was Mari just imagining it? Sunny exhaled another snorting breath through his nose, and Mari glanced at him to see his brows formed a flat line that she thought was a skeptical look. So if she was imagining it, then at the very least his imagination seemed to be on the same wavelength too... Not that that helped to understand what any of this meant.

"...But it's not really necessary, you don't need to go out of your way for us." Mom continued, seemingly trying to match Hero's smile with one of her own. Though like all of her expressions since she'd arrived, at least to Mari, it just looked off... If Hero noticed, however, he gave no outward indication of it (or at least none Mari could perceive). "And actually, I know it might not be the best time, but I really do need to speak to Mari and Sunny, so do you think you could step out and give us a little privacy?" Mom added, her voice seeming to grow slightly more pointed, in the way Mari recognized as the tone mom'd use when making "suggestions" that weren't really suggestions.

All Mari could think to do in that moment was to just watch the back-and-forth between mom and Hero. On a normal day, she knew she probably should've spoken up, said something for herself rather than just sitting there staring blankly at them... but today was about as far from a normal day as possible, and she truly didn't have the faintest idea of what to say. And thus she was again forced to settle on "nothing". On some level, it was almost frustrating feeling this passive, this... useless – at least back in the ambulance, she'd had the excuse that she was just waking up and trying to get her bearings, while here she was wide awake – but she didn't know what else to do. Beyond just hug Sunny close and hope this nightmare would become less suffocatingly tense.

"Ah, about that, ma'am..." Hero said, reaching up to rub the back of his head. His polite smile seemed to have grown even more strained, if that were possible. "I'm really sorry for imposing, but mamá actually asked me to stay right here, you know? I don't want to make her mad by wandering off, so is it okay if I stay in here, just until she gets back?" he asked, in an almost impeccably earnest tone that resembled the one he would use when trying to reason with angry teachers at school, or talk down Ms. Candice from sniping at Mari when they visited the sweets shop. "She should be back any minute now." he added, and for some reason Mari thought she saw his eyes flicker over towards her and Sunny for a moment... though whatever message he might've been trying to convey, she had no clue.

But she wasn't really focused on that.

If Mari hadn't already been staring openly at Hero throughout this whole exchange, she definitely would have been now. To the point where it was probably a good thing mom seemed focused on him as well, so she didn't notice the stunned surprise that Mari was sure must've been etched into her expression for all to see – even if she had know way of knowing exactly how her face looked right now. (Besides half of it being red and purple from bruises, that is.)

Hero had just lied. He lied straight to mom's face with a butter-wouldn't-melt-in-his-mouth delivery so convincing that, if Mari didn't already know the truth, she herself would've believed it one hundred percent without the faintest reason to doubt. Now, one could maybe argue that it was technically true, in that Mrs. Rodriguez would indeed probably not be very happy with him wandering off... but Mari had little interest in even entertaining such a stretch. Hero's mother was far more likely to be understanding if he just needed to step out into the hall for a few minutes, it wasn't like anyone was suggest he run off to the opposite end of the building. And she most certainly hadn't given him specific verbal instructions to stay in this exact spot, yet that was precisely what he was claiming. No matter how you sliced it, that was a lie.

But why? Why lie about that here and now? Hero was obviously using it to give himself a valid pretext to refuse mom's request that he leave, Mari got that part... but then, that just spiraled back around to the other question: why be so insistent about that in the first place? The only reason she could think of...

The only reason that would make sense was that he didn't want to leave Mari and Sunny alone with mom right now. But did that really make sense? Mari felt like her head was spinning trying to keep track of everything, it was as if the conversation had been going on for ages (when in reality it had been such a short exchange), and she could barely begin to wrap her brain around all the twists and turns. Every other sentence – from either Hero or mom, it didn't matter – felt like a sucker punch. And every seeming answer that she managed to figure out was just raising further questions, it felt like rather than making progress, each step was just sinking deeper and deeper into the mire... And Sunny was being of no help either. He seemed content for the moment to just watch it all play out like she was, and trying to scrutinize his expressions to see if he understood what was going on or not only added to her mental exertion. Not that any of this was his fault, of course, not at all... part of Mari just really wished for even one thing she could understand.

.

At the same time, though...

Another part of her had to admit that she was honestly... grateful for Hero's insistence. Relieved.

Even if she couldn't seem to make heads or tails of his reasoning no matter how she scoured her brain, the fact remained that he was still here. He was still determined to stay by her side, regardless of the logic behind it, to the point of even outright lying to mom to do it. She knew Hero wasn't really very comfortable being dishonest, he'd do it on occasion if he thought it was necessary, but he'd confided in her about how it made him feel guilty deep down. Yet here he was bluffing on the spot just to stay with her and Sunny... Even if there was still that stinging frustration that she knew she was missing something, that she wasn't getting why it would be so important not to leave them alone with mom to begin with... The gesture still made her feel kind of warm. In fact, had her cheeks heated up, or was that just her imagination...? It felt like Hero was sticking up for her. Not that it should even be unexpected, she considered him her best friend because he'd always been so considerate. But it still felt... nice. Was she wrong to feel that way, in a situation as serious as this?

.

Mom, however, did not seem as pleased... at least, from what little Mari could tell from her expression. Maybe it was just imaginary, but Mari would've sworn mom's eye twitched at Hero's response. What was definitely not imaginary was the way mom's hands curled, balling into fists at her sides for just a moment – an unconscious gesture almost uncannily similar to one Sunny would sometimes make when frustrated, Mari recognized it in an instant. Mom pulled in a sharp breath that sent a sliver of alarm up Mari's spine, pushing herself up straighter where she sat (as much as she could with her knee strapped in place to prevent jostling it, anyway), suddenly alert. She'd seen the warning signs, it looked like mom was running out of patience... If she snapped at Hero, then Mari would need to speak up. It wouldn't be fair for him to be on the receiving end of mom's ire for any of this. So she'd need to say something, to intervene... but what could she say to mom to defuse this...?

("What can you say to the woman who hates you without just making things worse, you mean?")

Just as Mari's brain started to swirl into overtime, however, mom visibly forced herself to exhale slowly, her hands uncurling once more. She promptly brought them up to cross her arms, still looking at Hero with a frown, but one that seemed slightly less... intense.

Mari didn't even realize she was breathing out a sigh of relief until the sound passed her lips and Sunny glanced up at her curiously. Though, fortunately, he seemed to have been the only one to hear her. Or at least the only one to acknowledge it. Either way, though, she'd take it, meeting Sunny's gaze for a moment to give him a small shake of her head, a signal not to worry about her right now. Sunny... seemed to frown slightly? But he appeared to take the message anyway, quickly looking back over towards Hero and mom before Mari could read any more into his expression.

Mom also let out a sigh, this one noticeably louder and more pointed. "Listen, Henry, dear, I understand that you-"

*click-shunk*

Whatever mom was going to say, however, was interrupted when a sound that was becoming very familiar at this point rent through the air, instantly silencing any other noise in the room. For just a single millisecond Mari almost thought she saw mom scowl, but if it was really there, it was wiped away near-instantly as mom – along with everyone else – turned to look at the door that had just slid open once again.

This time, it really was Mrs. Rodriguez stepping inside. Carried in one arm were three soft drink cans and one bottle of water – the cap of which wasn't fully screwed on, as if it had already been opened. Mari presumed that was the one Mrs. Rodriguez had bought for herself. She realized with a small start that the three cans were each her, Sunny, and Hero's respective favorite flavors of soda. How did that happen? None of them had actually asked for anything specific before Mrs. Rodriguez stepped out, after all. It was one thing for her to remember her own son's favorite, that made sense, but had she really recalled Mari and Sunny's preferences just from them occasionally coming over to have dinner with Hero and Kel? That seemed a lot less likely... but at the same time, there was almost no way it could've been a coincidence, right? The chances of getting their favorites exactly right by pure guesswork were astronomical.

Before anyone else could speak, Mrs. Rodiguez's eyes fixed on mom. "Oh, Rin!" she said. There was a smile on her face, though... maybe Mari wasn't the best person to judge, but she would've sworn the expression didn't quite meet the woman's eyes. "I'm sorry, I didn't know you were here." Mrs. Rodriguez continued. As she spoke, she stepped into the room, stopping to pass a drink can to Hero – who replied with a small "thanks" – before stopping at Mari's bedside and offering the other two cans to her and Sunny. Sure enough, she correctly offered each of them their favorite. She must've remembered after all. Mari's pale arm felt a little shaky as she raised it. Had she truly been that nervous with mom being here? ...Actually, that was a stupid question, wasn't it...? Now wasn't the time for that, though, so she quickly took the can. Sunny, seemingly following Mari's lead, took that as his cue to slowly reach out and retrieve his as well.

Mrs. Rodriguez looked down at Mari for a moment – had she noticed her apparent unease? ...Wait, no, her eyes seemed fixed not on Mari herself, exactly, but rather... Mari followed her line of sight and saw that the woman was staring at the bandages wrapped around her arm. When she noticed Mari's attention, however, she immediately tore her eyes away and turned around to look towards mom, leaving Mari fruitlessly wondering just what that was about.

"Elena. Good to see you too." Mom greeted back now that Mrs. Rodriguez acknowledged her, tone carrying the same sense of obligatory politeness as when she'd greeted Hero. Mom also wasn't smiling, her face neutral, despite her ostensibly pleased words.

While she spoke, Mari popped open the drink in her hand, carefully raising it to her lips and trying to ignore how her hand was still quivering in the process. The soda was sweet, of course, it was probably more sugar than the actual apple flavoring it was supposed to be – which was exactly how Mari liked it. But honestly, she would've taken any flavor at this point, just the feeling of cool liquid was so indescribably soothing that it was almost staggering. She'd known her throat was strained, but she hadn't truly realized just how strained until right now. The relief was so momentarily blinding, in fact, that she almost didn't notice that mom had continued talking.

"-take it you were the one who called the ambulance for Mari, then?" Mom asked, looking at Mrs. Rodriguez with her eyebrows raised slightly, as if expectant.

There was a noticeable pause before Mrs. Rodriguez responded. Mari couldn't see her face since she'd turned away, but she got the feeling she was staring at mom, perhaps searching intently for something.

"...I was." Mrs. Rodriguez finally replied simply, apparently not seeing the need to elaborate any further than that. And- no, this time Mari definitely wasn't imagining it, there was undeniably an undertone of tension there. It was like the heavy weight in the air that had alleviated just a little from her arrival had suddenly returned with a vengeance. Enough to make Mari hesitate before taking another sip from her drink. Sunny hadn't even opened his, and once again seemed to be intently watching the back-and-forth. Mari still had no clue what he could be thinking.

"I see." Mom replied with a similarly matter-of-fact tone, still looking at Mrs. Rodriguez as if trying to scrutinize... something about her. What she could be looking for, Mari had no clue. After a brief instant, however, she shook her head slightly, her expression seeming to clear once more. "...Well, either way, I appreciate you taking time out of your day to keep an eye on my children when they ran off." She emphasized those last words rather pointedly, shooting a look towards Mari and Sunny for a moment as she did. Mari had to resist the urge to quail under the look, a chill rolling through her blood on instinct. It was brief, only for a heartbeat, but she was sure she saw that look in mom's eyes again. The one like she was glaring down at an insect. But before Mari could even try to still the sudden spike in her heart, it was gone again.

"Oh, it was no trouble, don't worry about that. I'm glad to look out for them." Mrs. Rodriguez denied, waving one hand to the side in a dismissive sort of gesture. Yet, despite the casual, friendly-sounding words, something in her posture was... off. It was hard to tell exactly what – Mari still couldn't see her expression, and it might not have helped even if she could. But she looked... stiff. That nonchalant little wave was just ever-so-slightly forced. Though whether anybody other than Mari noticed anything like that was anyone's guess at this point. "There weren't any... problems while I was gone, were there?" Mrs. Rodriguez added, tilting her head slightly, and... wait, why did it look like she was directing that question more towards the direction of Hero rather than mom?

It looked like Hero noticed the same thing too, as he frowned and gave a small shake of his head. It was a very subtle gesture, more characteristic of something you'd see from Sunny than Hero, really... Almost like he was trying do it without drawing too much attention? But that didn't really make sense, did it?

But Mari wasn't really able to think on that much at the moment. She had another question on her mind.

Why had Mrs. Rodriguez been asking at all? What had she been expecting to happen...?

"...Everything's okay right now."

The words had left Mari's lips before she had even realized she was speaking, much less had any chance to stop herself. All eyes in the room suddenly swiveled towards her, and it was only then that she became fully aware that she'd said it out loud. Normally, she might have tried to get a read on their various expressions, but... the sudden attention had left her feeling oddly self-conscious, such that she didn't seem to quite be able to muster the energy for it right then. Where was that feeling even coming from? Wasn't being shy more like Sunny or Basil's wheelhouse?

...Was it because mom was here? While Sunny, Hero, and Mrs. Rodriguez were all comforting presences in their own ways, mom was undeniably the odd one out. There was no getting around that at this point.

("You can't really say you feel safe with people who care about you... when she hates you, now can you?")

Don't think about it.

Mari tried to force those thoughts down and continued, looking up at Mrs. Rodriguez and trying to tune out everything else. "Nothing bad happened, so you don't need to worry about us in here." she said. Honestly, Mari wasn't even sure if she fully believed those words. Was everything really alright? Was there really nothing to worry about? ...The answer to both those questions was no. Obviously not. They wouldn't be in a hospital room if everything were fine. But Mrs. Rodriguez had been so genuinely helpful and considerate thus far – Mari hadn't forgotten that she played an essential part in coming to find her in the hangout spot – so she just didn't want the woman to feel the need to fret over every little thing. She didn't deserve the stress. Something as simple as stepping out to get drinks was obviously harmless and well-intentioned, even if it had become uncomfortable with mom's arrival...

.

Before Mrs. Rodriguez – or Hero or Sunny, for that matter – could say anything, however-

"Oh, so now she talks." Mom scoffed, her voice low but still loud enough to be clearly heard throughout the room. She crossed her arms, looking down at Mari, her eyes visibly narrowing as she did. "You've been just sitting there staring blankly at everything since I got here, but someone else walks in and then you're feeling chatty? Were you just being rude on purpose, Mari?" she wondered. Or perhaps it would be more like "demanded", given the way her already-tense tone grew increasingly harsh with each word.

.

.

What...?

Mari's mouth worked itself open... but no words came out. Her hands had tightened unconsciously around her drink can, knuckles starting to turn white. There was a faint crackle from the aluminum, crinkles starting to form on the metal – though not enough to actually crush it. (Which was undoubtedly a good thing, as it was still three-quarters full.)

Why would mom even say that? Why now?

And... why did it hurt so much that she did...? Mari knew, of course, that her mom had always preferred it when she was willing to speak up and give verbal responses. Getting caught up in her own head to the point of ignoring her mother was incredibly rude, that was what she'd always been taught. She'd heard comments like that several times a week, sometimes more, for pretty much her entire life. Sometimes it was just a minor nudge to "use her words" and sometimes it was more of a scolding, like this one, but the sentiment was always familiar. It was just... normal. It'd been normal for her since she was three. So why did hearing something that she should, by all rights, by perfectly accustomed to... feel like she'd been kicked in the chest? All she could do was silently gasp for air, her mind and body both reeling in tandem from the blow. Her hands were shaking so badly, now, that it was a miracle the can in her grip hadn't spilled a drop. Not that she would even be fully aware she was doing that until later.

It was a totally unreasonable reaction. She had no logical reason to feel like this from a simple scolding. So why wouldn't it stop? What had changed from all those other times that-

.

She knew exactly what had changed. Or maybe "changed" wasn't the right word, since nothing was actually different. The status quo was the exact same as it had been for the last twelve years or so. Mari had just been too oblivious to realize what that status quo actually was until today.

It felt different because before, she'd always believed that mom's words were – regardless of how they were said in the moment – purely well-intentioned. The little chidings to speak up, to meet peoples' eyes, to stop picking at her collars or her shirt buttons, and a thousand other little things... she'd always believed, intrinsically, that those were for her sake. They were things she needed to do to succeed in society like everyone else. She needed to be normal. Because of course her mother, her hardworking mom who'd always seemed so in control of life, who loved her family, would be giving valid advice and reminders to Mari for her own good. And if she got a little irritated while doing it, who could blame her? Mari knew she'd never been the easiest child, she made no pretenses about that... Expecting mom to have infinite patience would just be unfair. It all made sense, she had no reason to question it, because mom loved her.

Except that mom didn't.

Someone who hated her didn't speak from love. A statement so obvious she couldn't believe she had to spell it out to herself – even Mari had to have a limit to how dense she was, right? But there it was. The words hurt now for the same reason her own maelstrom of thoughts burned away at her when she'd gazed into the bathroom mirror on that Monday afternoon. She'd been so desperate to silence that poisonous voice, even for a moment, that she'd rather do something monumentally stupid with a razor...

Never again. She would never make that mistake again.

But that didn't make this new hatred – or rather, a very old hatred that leeched its toxins into things she'd thought were innocuous – hurt any less.

.

.

Mom exhaled sharply through her nose. "Still nothing? Are you really trying to give me the silent treatment right now, young lady?" She brought her hand up to massage her temple, as if fighting off a headache. "Honestly, the things I put up wi-"

"Shut up."

.

The room went silent for a long moment, as if the universe itself had frozen mid-breath. Even the storm of thoughts churning in Mari's mind ceased their movement briefly.

With that moment of clarity, her eyes took in the hospital room around her. It wasn't like she hadn't been able to see it all before (her eyes worked just fine, thank you, black eye or no), but now it was like... It was like one of those "spot the difference" puzzles, where you'd take a second look at it and suddenly half a dozen obvious details would jump out at you. Mom had stepped forwards a bit while she was talking, now standing right at the foot of Mari's bed to better look down at her. No wonder it had felt like she was towering over... She wasn't the only one who'd moved, either: Hero had taken a step forwards too... But oddly enough, rather than approaching Mari, he'd actually moved towards mom, his body clearly angled more her way than facing Mari. Even odder, his fists were clenched at his sides, a deep set in his brow. It was an absurd thought, but the first thing that popped into Mari's mind was that he looked like he wanted to punch something. Mrs. Rodriguez, meanwhile, hadn't moved, but she had a strangely severe look on her face, her eyes narrowed to the point where Mari almost wanted to call it a glare. A glare meant for who...?

But the most surprising of all, the one whose words had drawn all eyes in the room to begin with, was Sunny. He was sitting up a straighter rather than leaning into Mari's side anymore – had she really been so zoned-out she hadn't noticed him pulling away? His posture was stiff, his shoulders set with tension, one hand gripping his still-unopened drink tightly enough that his fingers were paling in a way that mirrored Mari's own. What truly commanded attention, though, was his expression. He was looking up at mom with a hard set in his brow, his jaw clenched, and behind his eyes... Mari had to fight the urge to flinch, even though it wasn't directed at her. She'd never seen such a cold look from Sunny before. Even when they'd had their argument about the recital and he'd shouted at her, it was more that he was just frustrated at her for not understanding him (and she understood, in hindsight), not at all like this... icy abyss that was the gaze peeking out from behind his bangs. Mari wasn't sure if even Sunny himself realized just how dark his eyes were in that moment.

Mom was the first to recover from the moment of surprise. "...Excuse me? What did you just-"

"I said shut up!" Sunny cut her off, his voice rising into a furious snap that made Mari wince, bringing one hand up to rub at her ear on instinct. He was sitting right next to her, after all. If anyone noticed her discomfort, though, they didn't show it, all eyes still locked on Sunny. Including Mari's own. "Don't talk to her like that! You don't get to say stuff like that!"

"Sunny?" Mari wondered, starting in surprise, feeling her eyes go wide. He was... sticking up for her? (Why did her chest hurt?)

Sunny, however, didn't appear to have heard her. "She's in the hospital and... and you come in here glaring at her and getting onto her!? The only rude one is you!" he ranted, outright glowering up at mom now. "Do you even know why we're here!? She almost- Mari almost...!" Sunny's voice shook with those words, his arms wrapping around himself as if he was cold. Mari's chest ached from the sight – she knew what he was trying to say – and part of her wanted nothing more than to reach out and try to comfort him. But she was too shocked by the explosive rant to do anything other than let him finish. "She could've died!" he managed to grit out, pain lancing across his expression from the admission. But his glare at mom only redoubled. "Do you... even care?"

.

For just a heartbeat, silence.

And then mom pulled in a sharp breath through her nose. She seemed to practically tower as she stood over Sunny where he sat in the bedside chair.

Mari saw, as if in slow motion for a mere instant, mom stepping forward, raising one hand in a way that was all too familiar.

"You-!"

"DON'T TOUCH HIM!" Somebody screamed, almost deafening, the words burning with such desperate fury that they could probably melt sand into glass. The window rattled, the sound bouncing off the walls, its sheer force grinding everything else to a halt.

It was only from the sudden rawness in her throat that Mari realized that it had come from her.

Sunny was staring at her with wide eyes. His lips moved slightly, like he was trying to say something to her.

But Mari couldn't hear it. She couldn't hear anything over the sound of her heart pounding in her ears, every thump like the beat of a jackhammer against cement, threatening to rattle her chest apart. When had it gotten that loud...?

And when had she moved? Somehow, driven by some instinct more urgent than she could even consciously realize, she had practically lunged to the side of the bed, reaching far as she could go with her injured leg still strapped down to stretch her arm out in front of Sunny, putting it between him and mom. Shielding him in whatever small was she could, she realized... Even if a mere outstretched arm would hardly amount to anything, she'd had to try.

Because it had looked like mom had... had been about to hit him.

The thought made her feel sick.

Mari herself being hit was one thing. She didn't like it, obviously – who would? She'd even go so far as to say she hated the feeling. It was terrible. But she could live with it, the very fact that she was sitting here thinking about this at all was more than proof of that. Frankly, it wasn't even the worst thing that she'd felt today alone.

But Sunny?

Nobody got to hurt Sunny.

Even if... even if it was mom.

The very idea that mom would even try to hurt him sounded absurd, but... Mari knew what she saw. And as much as she didn't want to admit it, it wasn't as crazy as it really should have been. Had it been any other day before now, she might not have believed it so easily. But today wasn't any other day. It was becoming increasingly hard to deny with each passing minute she was here that mom was still very, very angry about... about earlier, and was simply trying to keep it contained. Nothing else could really explain her behavior since she'd gotten here. And while Mari wanted to believe that mom wouldn't take her anger out on Sunny, who definitely didn't deserve it – who would never deserve it – the truth was that... she didn't really know what all mom was capable of. Not as much as she should. The throbbing of the bruises across her eye and the sting of the cuts on her arm served as undeniable, and very pointed, reminders of that.

Speaking of mom, she had paused mid-stride, seemingly taken aback by Mari's outburst. Not that she was the only one; Hero and his mother both looked to have been startled by the shout, and Sunny... Sunny looked to have shrunken back, curling in on himself, his eyes darting between Mari and mom. It almost appeared as if he was trying to hide himself behind Mari's outstretched arm, like he'd recognized the protective gesture for what it was, trying to take as much shelter as it could give him. Perhaps... perhaps he'd seen the way mom was moving too? The thought made Mari feel nauseous.

Mom swiftly recovered from the moment of shock, however, exhaling a deep breath through her nose and lowering her hand to cross her arms across her chest. Her gaze had shifted from Sunny back onto Mari, the evident surprise on her face soon fading into another hard look, and she took another small step forwards. It took all of Mari's willpower not to shudder under the intense stare, pointedly keeping her arm out between mom and Sunny even as she looked up at the former. Mom breathed in, opening her mouth as if to say something, when-

"Rin."

The word wasn't even spoken particularly loudly. Just a little above typical conversational volume, really. Yet it pierced the air like a bullet, commanding absolute attention simply through its tone. Dimly, Mari recognized why: it was the sort of tell-tale authoritative tone known to kids everywhere, the one you'd hear in every Saturday morning cartoon when the main character was in trouble, and their parents or teachers or whoever were about to lay down the law. There was something almost comical in how even an adult mom's age instinctively snapped to attentiveness from hearing it, though Mari didn't much feel like laughing at the moment. Mom turned, noticeably slowly, to face the speaker: Mrs. Rodriguez. Of course it had been Mrs. Rodriguez – who else but a mother of two boys, one of whom was as rowdy as Kel, could have mastered such a disapproving, attention-grabbing sort of tone so perfectly?

"...Elena, listen, I-" Mom started to say. Just like when she'd been talking to Hero earlier, it was like her tone had flipped on a dime, all traces of hostility vanishing in an instant. How did mom even do that? Whatever she was planning to say, however, Mrs. Rodriguez apparently wasn't interested in hearing.

"I need to have a word with you, if you wouldn't mind." she said, putting her hands on her hips. It obviously wasn't meant as a suggestion. So great was her commanding aura in that moment, in fact, that despite being a few inches shorter than mom, Mrs. Rodriguez looked as if she was the largest person in the room by a substantial margin, standing firm in front of the surprised and off-balance mom.

"I-" Mom was apparently so taken aback by the no-nonsense demand that she actually stuttered. Mari couldn't remember the last time she'd seen her so uncertain. She had no clue what Mrs. Rodriguez was even trying to do right now – but mom obviously didn't either. Still, mom didn't take long to rally herself, shaking her head and looking like she was trying to stand a little taller. "-Look, I've already got a lot I've had to deal with today, as I'm sure you noticed. Can this wait?" she asked, in that sort of beleaguered tone she used when stressed from a long day at work, looking back at Mari and Sunny with a quick, pointed glance as she said "deal with".

Mrs. Rodriguez, however, was unmoved, replying with a shake of her own head in return. "No, Rin, it really can't. This is important." she said matter-of-factly. She gestured vaguely towards the door with one hand. "Can we take this out in the hall? It should only be a few minutes."

Her tone brooked absolutely no argument, and mom seemed to have run out of reasons to refuse – or at least, any reasons that could be phrased politely – as her shoulders hunched a little in what Mari interpreted as concession, a sound rather like a sigh huffing from her mouth. Mari couldn't really see mom's expression with her facing Mrs. Rodriguez, but it wouldn't have been surprising if it were somewhere along the lines of exasperated or resigned.

"...Alright, fine. If you say so." she agreed, begrudgingly. "Let's get this over with, then."

Mrs. Rodriguez's only response was a sharp nod, and then she turned on her heel and marched over to the door, holding it open and gesturing for mom to exit. With another small sigh (just audible enough for Mari to pick it up), mom followed suit, and together the two women stepped out into the hospital hallway.

*click-shunk*

The door slid closed behind them, and for a moment, the room was plunged into silence once more.

Until-

"Holy crap, what was that!?"

Mari startled at the sound, her head whipping over towards the voice. Hero stood there, running a hand through his hair in agitation, looking more than a little frazzled.

"That was crazy!" he exclaimed, looking up at Mari and Sunny. "If it it got any heavier in here, I feel like I'd suffocate. Do you guys deal with that all the time?" he wondered. Mari paused, having no real idea how to respond to that... But it must've been a rhetorical question anyway, as Hero gave a sharp shake of his head that ruffled his hair even further, seemingly trying to clear his thoughts. He breathed out slowly and then looked at Mari and Sunny once more, his eyebrows knitting in concern. "...Are you two okay? That was a lot." he asked, slowly taking a couple steps closer to them.

"...I'm fine. You don't need to worry about me." Mari said, swallowing. Hero didn't look like he entirely believed her... But to be fair, she didn't even know if that was a lie or not herself. Wracking her brain, Mari honestly... didn't really know what she was feeling right now? Hero had sure hit the nail on the head calling this "a lot", she wondered if he even realized just how accurate that statement really was. It felt almost impossible for such a short amount of time, like an entire week had been packed into the last five minutes... and with it came a whole week's worth of feelings too. How could Mari even begin to describe the rollercoaster that her mind had been on ever since mom had walked in? She didn't even know if there were words in english to describe that swirling cocktail of emotions – certainly not words she knew, at any rate. She hadn't even realized until just now that her heart was still pounding from that brief moment of protective fury, her hands still shaking from the sight of mom glaring down at them...

Speaking of which.

"...Sunny?" Mari asked, her tone turning gentler as she looked over at her little brother. "How about you? How're you holding up?" she asked him.

Sunny looked up at her from where he'd curled up slightly. His eyes still looked a little wide. "...'M fine." he mumbled, but he was obviously shaken. Mari's heart ached from the sight, and she didn't hesitate, spreading her arms wide in invitation.

"C'mere." she instructed softly. Sunny didn't need to be told twice, practically lunging out of his chair to hug Mari once more, his arms wrapping around her waist and his face pressing right into her shoulder. Mari draped her own arms around his shoulders in turn, making sure to embrace him a little more gently this time rather than her more typical bear hug. Sunny needed a calming presence rather than a smothering one, she figured... Having an adult advancing on him so furiously, even- no, especially if it was mom, must have been frightening. No wonder he was rattled, nobody could possibly blame him for that, and certainly not Mari. Not to mention the guts it must've taken to stick up for her like that at all... She reminded herself to thank him, for the effort at least, once he'd calmed down a little.

"It's okay if you guys need a moment." Hero said, his tone gentle in a way similar to Mari's as he looked between the two of them. "Sorry I wasn't able to do more, I-"

"-Wait, hold on. Shh." Mari cut him off. She shot him an apologetic look, feeling a bit guilty for interrupting, but... "Do you hear that?" she asked, her voice dropping lower, tilting her head towards the door slightly.

"-ll? Are we just going to stand around all day, or did you want to talk?"

Hero paused, his ears almost visibly perking up, and he too turned towards the door, a frown starting to form on his face as he heard what had caught Mari's attention.

"I'm sorry, I was taking a moment to collect my thoughts, but yes."

Sunny apparently heard it too, pulling his face away from Mari's shoulder so that he could listen – though he noticeably made no effort to actually disentangle himself from the hug, still keeping his arms around her, just shuffling a little to adjust his head.

Mari didn't need to ask why. Those voices, though a little muffled, were obviously mom and Mrs. Rodriguez. It would seem they hadn't gone very far down the hall at all. And the hospital room door clearly wasn't very well soundproofed – which made sense now that Mari thought about it, it was a simple sliding door designed to give patients a bit of privacy, but still cheap enough to be mass-produced and installed all over the hospital, and easy enough to open that it wouldn't impede doctors and nurses in a rush for emergencies. A heavy-duty reinforced vault door, it was not. It was really no surprise that sounds like, say, people talking right outside might carry through, since it wasn't designed with soundproofing in mind to begin with.

"...So what's so urgent, Elena? If this is about what happened in there, I-" Mom started to say. But once again, Mrs. Rodriguez cut her off.

"It's not about that." A slight pause. "Or, not just about that." Mrs. Rodriguez corrected herself. "There's some things I've been wondering about that I hope you can explain."

Mari, Hero, and Hero were all looking at each other in silence. Sunny's expression was hard to read, little more than a small frown that was discernible, but Hero had a slightly wide-eyed, wondering sort of look on his face. Mari had to assume her own expression mirrored his rather well, as she felt similarly. She and Hero locked eyes for a moment, and then slowly, hesitantly, Hero nodded his head in agreement. A rustling of fabric told Mari that Sunny was mimicking the gesture without even needing to look at him. They had all reached a silent verdict to keep listening.

Part of Mari felt a little guilty for eavesdropping, but... It wasn't like she was even trying to put herself in this position. She hadn't moved from the hospital bed – couldn't have moved if she wanted, considering the state of her leg. Being able to overhear mom and Mrs. Rodriguez wasn't due to any effort on her part. And since Hero and Sunny could hear them too, it couldn't even be blamed on her oversensitive hearing for once. No, nobody in this room was responsible for their mothers choosing to talk right outside like that. And besides, she had to admit she was curious – this must've been about her, right? Was it wrong to want to know what this was about, when Mrs. Rodriguez had been treating it as something so serious? .Wouldn't that be her business? ...Maybe it was a little selfish, but Mari really didn't want to be left out of the loop. Especially on a day like today, when she'd constantly felt like she understood so little of what was happening.

And so they listened.

"What sort of things are you talking about?" Mom sounded... cautious.

Mrs. Rodriguez sighed. "Well, there's been quite a few, but... I suppose I really noticed just this year. Do you remember how Mari and Sunny really started in on their music practice?" she asked.

"...The recital was just last week, Elena. Of course I remember." Mom replied impatiently. "Where are you going with this?"

"Well, I couldn't help but notice that they were practicing an awful lot, weren't they?" Mrs. Rodriguez emphasized her question. "They came over to our house less and less, and I heard my sons complaining about them skipping all sorts of outings. Mari especially."

"I don't see what's so strange about spending less time with friends when you're busy." Mom said, her voice rather flat, as if unimpressed.

"But why were they so busy? They're just kids, Rin, shouldn't they have time to get out and play now and then?" If Mrs. Rodriguez noticed mom's attitude, she didn't seem to be showing it, as she kept pressing in the same expectant tone.

Mom scoffed. "I didn't set their practice times, that was all Mari. If she wanted to work on it all afternoon every week, that's her business. Why don't you talk to her about this?"

Mari couldn't quite stop herself from wincing, looking at Sunny apologetically. She knew she was being stupid about practice in hindsight... Did it really need to be rubbed in any further? Not that she really had the right to be upset about it, since it was her fault.

Sunny, however, responded with a quick shake of his head. "...Already forgave you." he mumbled quietly, squeezing his arms around her waist a little tighter, as if trying to convey his sincerity through the hug. Which, amazingly, actually worked, as Mari could swear his presence at her side felt just a little warmer right then.

She was still frowning a little, but... she supposed it wasn't her place to argue with him on that.

"You're her mother." Mrs. Rodriguez, however, apparently did not agree with that logic, as her voice had grown sharper with the retort. "If I found out Henry was stressing out himself and Kel over something, I would at least talk to them about it. Why didn't you intervene if you knew Mari was pushing things that hard? Weren't you worried at all about her running ragged?"

There was a noticeable pause before mom responded. Perhaps she'd been taken by surprise by that argument and didn't immediately know what to say? Without being able to see her, it'd be impossible to know for sure, of course, but the silence seemed to give that impression.

"...Mari was spending her time making sure the recital would be perfect. Which is what I would expect. Why should I stop her?" Mom finally replied, an odd tone to her voice. Almost... defensive. "Or at least, that's what I thought she was doing." she added with another scoff. "Clearly she doesn't really care about her talent that much."

Mari pulled in a sharp breath, trying to force down the spike of pain in her chest from that comment. She must not have been succeeding at hiding it very well, as Hero shot her a look with his eyebrows knit in sympathy.

"...I beg your pardon?" Mrs. Rodriguez asked. There was some kind of edge to her voice that was hard to identify.

"You saw how it turned out last week. And believe it or not, that wasn't even the worst of it. Just today, Mari tried to cancel the recital entirely when I wanted to talk about rescheduling! She'd rather just throw all that effort away! After all I did to try to set her up for success!" Mom ranted, her voice growing increasingly agitated.

"You did...?" Sunny's voice was small, almost disbelieving, as he looked up at Mari.

"Of course. I promised I'd try to do better, remember?" Mari replied honestly. She had to swallow a little as her mind flashed back to that disastrous conversation in the kitchen. She still... really, really didn't want to think about that, but... she couldn't quite bring herself to regret what had started it either, no matter how much it hurt to hear mom talking about it like that. It was just as she said to Sunny, she had promised to find ways to spend less time practicing and more with him and her friends, and she meant every word of that. And at the very heart of that issue was the recital itself – was it really so surprising that she'd be willing to do something about it? Even if it had turned out horribly... more horribly than she could've imagined... she wasn't going to go back on that decision either. Maybe she'd gone about it the wrong way, but she refused to believe that the idea itself had been wrong.

"...I- Thanks, sis." Sunny mumbled after a long moment, practically throwing himself back into the hug with full force. Despite the heavy tension from the conversation going on outside, Mari found herself unable to resist the urge to tease him just a little, reaching up to ruffle Sunny's hair with one hand. He audibly groaned into her shoulder, but made no movement to stop her.

The brief moment of levity would be cut to a close as quickly as it had come, however, as Mrs. Rodriguez managed to muster her response outside the room.

"...There's more to life than awards or accolades, Rin." Mrs. Rodriguez's voice was soft, yet somehow... intense at the same time.

"Excuse me?" Mom replied sharply. "Are you saying I'm wrong to want my daughter to make a good reputation now?"

"No, that's not my point." Mrs. Rodriguez answered patiently (if not slightly forced).

"Then what is?" Unlike the other woman, mom was clearly not bothering to try to be patient at the moment. "Why are you dragging this up right this second anyway? What's this got to do with anything that's going on here?"

Mrs. Rodriguez let out another audible sigh. "I was getting to that. If it was just that recital, then you're right, it might not be a big deal. But that was just the first odd thing, and once I started looking, everything I saw was only more and more worrying."

"What? What are you talking about? Looking for what? And what do you mean worrying? You're not making any sense here, Elena!" Mom replied... strangely quickly? Despite the barrage of questions, her voice was still sounding more defensive than baffled like she supposedly was.

Mrs. Rodriguez went silent for a moment, perhaps to gather her thoughts.

"Well-" she said eventually. "For starters, there was you bringing Mari and Sunny over for that forced apology. Was that really necessary?"

"That...! Well, excuse me for trying to be polite!" Mom sniped back, and there was no denying it now, that was definitely defensiveness.

"Really?" Mrs. Rodriguez sounded skeptical. "You didn't think to check to see if my husband and I were even upset before deciding that was appropriate?" she pointed out.

"I- Ugh, fine. I was trying to teach her- I mean, them a lesson about responsibility. Is that good enough for you?" It wasn't hard to tell, even just from her tone, that mom was only getting more and more agitated with each passing moment, her words growing increasingly snippy.

Mrs. Rodriguez simply hummed in response, and it was impossible to gauge what she might have been thinking from just the sound. But it seemed to be enough to spur mom to keep talking regardless. Possibly only due to her rising annoyance.

"But again, why are we even talking about this? What is this? Did you bring me out here just to nitpick every little thing I've ever done, or are you going to get to the point?" she demanded.

Again, there was another noticeable stretch of silence in response to mom's snappish words. This one stretched on a little longer, and felt somehow... heavier. It was hard to describe, exactly, but it was like there was a shift in the air, of the sort that would make you unconsciously tense up in anticipation. Like a shoe about to drop.

"...You want to get to the point? Alright." Mrs. Rodriguez replied. She wasn't even trying to disguise the hard edge to her voice now – if mom was starting to lash out from irritation, then Mrs. Rodriguez met it like a brick wall, completely unimpressed. "Then how about you start by explaining why, earlier this week, Henry came to me worrying about how your daughter showed up to school with a massive bruise across her face?"

You could've heard a pin drop inside the hospital room with how silent it was.

Not that the three of them had been making much noise to begin with, listening with rapt attention to the conversation going on right outside. What had seemed like Mrs. Rodriguez simple pulling mom aside for a moment had developed into... something else. The budding argument was going in such a strange direction that Mari... honestly didn't even know how to feel about it. As strange as it felt to say considering the circumstances... she sort of had to agree with mom. What kind of point could Mrs. Rodriguez possibly be leading up to here? The recital, the apology after, why was she talking about those like they were... mom's fault, somehow? And what did any of that have to do with mom showing up at the hospital today? Once again, all Mari could do was just sit there with her mind going in circles, knowing deep down that she was missing something massive here, but not having any clue what...!

But even that confused feeling paled in the face of Mrs. Rodriguez's words just now. Dimly, Mari was aware that she had gone very still. Sunny, at her side, had tensed up as well, his eyes widening a little.

The only person who didn't seem overly surprised... was Hero. He was frowning, but he looked more resigned than anything, certainly no signs of shock or confusion that Mari could see. Which made sense, because if what his mother said was true, then...

"You told her about that?" Mari blurted out before she could stop herself. She immediately felt guilty when Hero winced at the words – they had come out rather accusatory, hadn't they? He looked at her with his eyebrows knit in a way she interpreted as apologetic, but his frown remained. If anything, it had only deepened.

"...I was worried about you." he said softly. Not waiting for a response, he nodded his head towards her. "And not just me, the others too, we all knew something happened... We didn't want to bother you, but... I had to say something to mamá." he defended himself. "I mean, wouldn't you talk to someone, if it were any of us?" he added.

Mari fell silent, her head hanging a little lower, effectively shamed – even if that probably hadn't been Hero's intent, she couldn't help the ugly feeling stirring in her gut. What was she even doing complaining about that anyway? It wasn't like she'd actually asked him not to mention the bruise to anyone else. And she'd known full well she was being unfair by worrying her friends and refusing to explain it, of course Hero would go to a trusted adult like his mom if he couldn't get any answers from Mari herself.

Hero, perhaps seeing her expression, slowly approached the bedside, his frown softening as he did.

"Hey, Mari, listen, I'm not mad, okay?" he said quietly, his voice dropping to a soothing sort of murmur. "Nobody's upset at you, and we weren't trying to go behind your back, we're just concerned." he insisted, kneeling down slightly beside the bed to meet her at eye level. "And I'm not gonna try to make you talk about whatever happened if you're not comfortable." he added.

"I-" Mari started, her voice hitching ever-so-slightly. If Hero noticed, he graciously didn't comment on it. "...Thanks Hero. And I really do appreciate it. You looking out for me, I mean. I just... didn't want to think about it." she admitted, averting her eyes. How was Hero managing to keep such a cool head about this? She knew that he was stressed too, quite obviously so, but he was still able to push that aside to be there. For her. What did she do to deserve a friend like that?

Hero opened his mouth, probably to reassure her, when-

"Guys."

Sunny spoke up abruptly. Mari and Hero both immediately looked to him with quizzical gazes (or at least, Mari assumed her face looked quizzical, it wasn't like she could tell).

Sunny tilted his head pointedly towards the door, reminding them of the conversation going on outside. And it wouldn't be hard to tell why he was trying to draw their attention to it, because-

"-f you're going to accuse me of something, Elena, you'd better just come out and say it!" In the brief time when they'd been distracted, mom must have gone from annoyed to outright angry, as her voice was audibly much more heated.

"Oh, I'll say it alright." Mrs. Rodriguez sounded slightly more controlled – but only slightly. "Somebody hit that girl. If you don't know anything about that, then I'd love to hear how you didn't notice."

"You don't even know that!" Mom protested quickly. "And- And you're actually wrong! That bruise was from an accident."

"An accident." Mrs. Rodriguez repeated flatly.

"Yes, an accident! She tripped. You have no idea how clumsy she can be, honestly." Mom insisted, her tone suddenly shifting to something dismissive, as if trying to wave the conversation aside.

Mrs. Rodriguez, however, wasn't swayed. "Oh, I think I have a pretty good idea. Mari's been coming over to spend time with my boys on a weekly basis for the past eight years, Rin! I'm pretty sure I'd notice if she was bumbling and banging herself up all the time!"

"Oh please!" Mom scoffed, and Mari could just imagine her shaking her head. "She was probably hiding it from you! She does that."

"Alright. Sure. And what about today, Rin?" Mrs. Rodriguez replied pointedly, her tone dripping with such blatant sarcasm that she obviously wasn't buying the excuse whatsoever.

"What do you mean, today? If you're talking about what happened in there just now, then you have to know that Mari was just being melodramatic! I never did anything to Sunny in the first place, she was just making a scene!"

"I wasn't talking about that, actually – but that's another thing! I'm not blind, you know, I saw you moving towards him! You stopped because she yelled at you!" Mrs. Rodriguez snapped back.

"Oh, so walking towards my son is a crime now, Elena!?" Mom spit defensively.

"Again, I am not blind! Don't pretend that's all you were thinking!" But Mrs. Rodriguez was once again not buying it. And again she spoke up before mom could offer another retort. "But no, I actually meant Mari. You saw her in there, was that all an 'accident' too?" She emphasized the word "accident" derisively, as if it weren't already clear enough that she didn't believe that one bit.

"I-! That-! ...I don't know what caused that, okay!? Is that what you wanted to hear? But look, whatever she told you-"

"She didn't tell me a thing, Rin! We haven't talked about that yet!" Mrs. Rodriguez cut mom off, her voice growing even sharper – if that were possible. "But she doesn't have to!"

"Fine, whatever! Then you shouldn't listen to what Sunny told you either!" Mom sounded like she was scrambling to reply. "Not like there's any difference anyway!"

"...And what's that supposed to mean?" Mrs. Rodriguez's voice had dropped into a low, dangerous register unlike any Mari had ever heard from her. If mom noticed the warning, however, her next words gave no sign of it.

"Like you never noticed how much she bosses him around! She's spent years clinging to Sunny like a damn lamprey so he'll go along with everything she wants! Whatever horrible little things he told you were probably her idea!" Mom was working herself into a proper rant now, her words growing faster and louder as she went. "Open your eyes, Elena! Mari's manipulating you, just like she ALWAYS DOES!"

Mrs. Rodriguez... actually went silent for a long moment.

Mom seemed to take that as her cue to continue. "Honestly, she manipulates EVERYONE! I'm surprised you haven't realized, it's all she knows how to do! Every little smile, every sad look, every tilt of her head, it's all fake! She doesn't have real habits, just things she was taught to do, because god knows she can't act like a NORMAL person! Do you have any idea what it's like for ME, having to raise that!? Face it, Elena, you've been duped by some sociopathic little fr-"

"Rin!" Mrs. Rodriguez sliced right through mom's tirade, her voice so cold that the air in the hospital seemed to drop several degrees. "I'm only going to say this once. Shut your fucking mouth."

"...Holy shit, mamá...!" Hero breathed, wide-eyed. Mari glanced at him, but couldn't bring herself to chide him for the swearing this time. She understood what he was feeling perfectly, after all. The argument had escalated so much and so quickly that her head was spinning just trying to keep up, much less actually process what they were saying – and it clearly wasn't just her. Sunny and Hero were just as stunned as she was. It seemed like the only thing the three of them could do was just sit there, frozen on the metaphorical edge of their seats (or literal edge, in Sunny's case), waiting for the next blow to land. There would be time to make sense of all this afterwards... There'd have to be, as they certainly weren't given much of a chance to right now.

"...EXCUSE-!?"

"I said shut up!" Mrs. Rodriguez cut off mom's indignant yelp. "You clearly don't know the first thing about your children, so don't you say another word about them!"

"Oh, so- So you're going to lecture me about PARENTING, now, Elena!? Like you're so high and mighty and perfect!?" Mom clearly wasn't cowed yet, though, despite the icy fury Mrs. Rodriguez was leveling at her.

Again, the words were met by a noticeable pause, but this time Mrs. Rodriguez filled it before mom could build up another head of steam.

"...No, Rin. I'm not. I'm not a perfect mother at all. I smother Henry too much, he was always so sensitive when he was little, and I forget that he doesn't need me fawning over him anymore... And Kel, sometimes I think I don't smother him enough! He needs his mamá there for him too." Mrs. Rodriguez's voice grew quieter as she spoke, the cold tone giving away to one much softer, almost... regretful. "I want to do better by them, but it's hard, and... Every day I thank god our family hasn't had to face a tragedy, because I worry I'd fall back into bad habits and wouldn't know how to handle it fairly." she admitted.

"Then you-!" Mom started to say. But again, Mrs. Rodriguez cut her off.

"-So no, I'm not perfect! ...But I would never. NEVER. Lay a hand on my children! And the idea that you would... is disgusting!" Mrs. Rodriguez declared, her voice dripping with such obvious disdain that Mari shivered slightly even though it wasn't directed at her.

"...You... You...!" Mom floundered for a response. "...You still can't even prove I did that! Mari could've done it to herself for all you know!" she finally settled on, but her voice was almost desperate, grasping at straws.

"Really? Do you think I'm an idiot?" Mrs. Rodriguez replied scornfully. "I saw her before the ambulance picked her up, remember? I saw those claw marks on her arm! Only one person here has the nails to do that, and it isn't her!" she pointed out, sounding almost frustrated that she even had to point this out.

"...You know what!? Fine! FINE!" Mom had apparently, finally, realized that she was backed into a corner. "Yes, we got into a fight! Are you HAPPY now!? But did you ever consider that it was HER fault!?"

"Her fault!?" Mrs. Rodriguez repeated incredulously. "Do you even hear yourself!? What's next, are you going to tell me she 'asked for it'!?"

"I-! YES! SHE DID!" Mom's voice rose into something that was almost a shriek, whatever remained of her composure slipping away fast. "By being such an IDIOT! You just don't believe it, because YOU don't have to live with her! It's not my fault that she's too stupid to understand the simplest little things! It's not my fault that she can't just do what she's told! I didn't ask to have to raise a girl with her brain stuck at five years old FOREVER, throwing tantrums and stamping her feet and crying whenever things don't go her way! So YES, I got fed up, WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME!?"

"...I want you to make up your damn mind, Rin!" Mrs. Rodriguez seemed unfazed by the furious volley of words mom had just unloaded on her, snapping back with that same unforgivingly frigid tone.

"...What?" Mom stuttered, sounding almost taken aback by the response.

"I said, make up your mind! A minute ago Mari was supposed to be some manipulative mastermind who fooled me and everyone else, and now she's a stunted child in a teenager's body? Which is it!? It can't be both! So make up your damn mind! ...But you want to know what I think, Rin? I think it's neither! I think you had this image of Mari being this perfect little doll, and when she didn't live up to it, you blamed her for every little thing you could think of! And when she started to step out of line, you hurt her! Am I close?"

"ARGH!" Mom growled in frustration, and Mari could almost imagine her pulling at her hair in a fury. "Why are you so dead-set on defending her!? She's an AUTIST! Why are you taking HER side!?"

That was the last straw.

"SHE'S YOUR DAUGHTER!" The door to the hospital room rattled with Mrs. Rodriguez's scream. "YOU SHOULD BE ON HER SIDE! BUT IF YOU WON'T DO IT, THEN SOMEBODY SHOULD!"

Mari was silent.

She didn't know what to say.

She didn't know what to think.

She didn't know what to feel.

Why...?

Why was all this happening?

It was too much.

Mom and Mrs. Rodriguez were fighting.

They'd been friends for years. Now they hated each other.

Because of her.

Because Mrs. Rodriguez was standing up for her.

Why?

Why would she do that?

Why throw away a friendship for Mari?

Why defend her from mom?

...Because somebody should. That was what she said.

But mom...

Mom was supposed to be on her side. Mom was supposed to love her.

Why didn't she?

Why... why any of this...?

She didn't understand.

.

.

"...Mari?"

Sunny's voice cut through her train of thought for a moment, and Mari blinked down at him, seeing him looking up at her with his eyes wide in concern.

"...You're crying." he pointed out quietly.

Mari slowly brought her hand up to her cheek. Her finger came away wet.

When had that...?

"I... I don't..." she croaked, feeling like a rock was stuck in her throat. "S-Sunny, I- I c-" she stammered, but with each word, the shaking in her chest only grew worse, spreading down her arms until she was quivering uncontrollably in Sunny's embrace, another round of tears rolling down her cheeks, tracing the cold tracks the first had left behind.

Hero approached until he standing right next to Sunny.

"Hey, hey, shh. We're here." he spoke softly, soothingly. "It's okay."

"Hero...!" Mari gasped out. "It's not!" she shook her head, once, sharply. Even that simple gesture almost made her so dizzy she felt like she was going to be sick. "It's not okay! I'm- I don't- I don't know...!" she choked out, her words barely comprehensible. She didn't even fully know what she was trying to say in the first place.

Hero needed no more prompting, immediately leaning forward to wrap his long arms around her, turning Sunny's embrace into an impromptu group hug.

"It is. We've got you, Mari." Hero replied, his voice still soft, but underlined with a sort of firmness, like he was absolutely certain in what he was saying. "We're gonna get through this. It's gonna be okay. I promise." he murmured to her, head resting right near her ear. One of his hands started to gently rub a circle on Mari's back through the hospital gown, and Mari hiccuped.

"Yeah, we're here." Sunny agreed quietly, his own arms around her waist tightening in a supportive squeeze.

"I'm sorry!" Mari didn't even know what she was apologizing for. She just felt like she should.

"Hey, none of that." Hero denied, hair ruffling a little in a small shake of his head.

"'S not your fault." Sunny mumbled in agreement. "Mom's just a bitch..."

A sharp, wheezing breath choked its way out of Mari's mouth, her eyes widening a little in shock.

"You sh- shouldn't swear...!" she chided him, even as she stumbled over the words. Yet somehow, something in her chest felt somehow... lighter? Just a tiny bit.

Hero pulled back from the hug a bit – not actually removing his arms, just enough to look Mari in the eyes.

"...No, he's right. Your mom's a bitch-" Mari choked again. "-and you shouldn't let anything she said get to you, alright? We know you, and we know none of that's true!"

Mari's eyes burned at the fierce sincerity in his voice, another round of tears welling up.

"Hero, I-" She what? She didn't even know anymore. "I can't- I don't know what to do, I don't know why-!"

"Shh." Hero repeated, pulling her back into his embrace full force once more. "If you can't say anything, then don't, okay? I get it. Nobody... Nobody's expecting you to handle this perfectly right now."

Mari hadn't realized that was what she needed to hear.

As she buried her head into Sunny's shoulder, Hero still rubbing circles on her back, however...

Another voice echoed from the hallway, reminding them that they weren't alone.

"What the hell is going on here!?"

Mari looked up slightly, her eyes widening. She recognized that voice – but Hero and Sunny wouldn't, and indeed, they both paused almost in unison, looking up as if confused.

It was Mari's doctor, the one she'd talked to briefly after being admitted, Dr. Astora.

"-is a hospital, not a wrestling match! Patients are trying to rest!" the doctor was saying. "You two better have a good reason why you're out here screaming in the middle of the hallway!"

There was a tense pause, but mom spoke first.

"...Doctor, listen! This is an outrage! This woman is trying to stop me from seeing my daughter, and-!"

"That's rich! You can't let her near that girl, she-" Mrs. Rodriguez tried to interrupt, only to be interrupted herself.

"-Ladies!" the doctor snapped. His voice wasn't overly loud, but it was sharp enough to command attention nonetheless, in that particular way that was honed from years of dealing with people in public. "You say the girl in this room is your daughter?" he addressed mom. "So you're Mrs. Takahashi?"

"Yes, I am!" Mom replied shortly, her voice still brimming with anger from a minute ago, just barely restrained.

There was a pause.

"...Then I'm sorry, but I need to ask you to leave. You're not allowed in there."

Mari stilled.

What...? Did she hear that right?

What did he mean?

"...WHAT!?" Mom was apparently just as confused – and far less composed about it.

"You heard me, ma'am." the doctor replied evenly, an odd undertone to his voice that Mari couldn't identify. "You need to leave. Quite frankly, you shouldn't have even made it past the reception desk... I'm going to have to have a word with them." he said coolly.

"I need to leave? I need to leave!?" Mom repeated indignantly. "SHE needs to leave!" She was presumably pointing at Mrs. Rodriguez as she said that, though of course nobody in the room could actually see to be sure.

"Rin... Just stop." Mrs. Rodriguez said icily. It wasn't clear whether mom actually acknowledged her or not.

"I am not going anywhere! I'm her legal guardian, and you have no right to keep me out!" Mom declared snidely.

"I do, actually." the doctor replied, his voice flat. "Your daughter's been taken into the care of Faraway General Hospital for the duration of her treatment." he explained matter-of-factly, almost mechanically, as if it were rote.

"Are you even listening to me!? I am her MOTHER!" Mom snapped in frustration.

"And I'm her doctor." Dr. Astora replied, completely unimpressed. "And as her doctor, I'm telling you, you aren't allowed into that room, until and unless I say otherwise."

"Ugh, this is ridiculous! Skip that bureaucratic crap and tell me what's actually going on!"

"It's not complicated, ma'am. I have a duty to the safety and wellbeing of my patient, and that means. You. Need. To. Leave." Though the doctor's voice was still quieter than mom's, it grew increasingly stern with each word, hammering in the end of his sentence.

"First Elena and now THIS!? Am I the only person in the world who hasn't gone CRAZY!? You're all-!"

"-Ma'am, crazy or not, I don't really care." the doctor cut off the burgeoning rant bluntly. "This is the last time I'll say it. You can either leave under your own power, or I can call security to escort you out, but either way, you're not setting foot in that room."

"You smug-!" Mom seethed. "If that's how it's going to be, then...! Then how about I contact the medical board!? How about I sue you for malpractice!? You'll lose your license for this!" she threatened.

But the doctor was unswayed. "You do that." he said, sounding almost... bored? "But that won't be happening today. Now leave."

"I-"

"Go, Rin. For god's sake, just go! You're embarrassing yourself!" Mrs. Rodriguez finally snapped in agitation, her voice dripping with disgust.

There was a long, suffocating pause.

And then-

"...Fine." Mom hissed, venomous. "But this isn't over. And you, Elena! I hope you're happy with yourself." she spat.

Mrs. Rodriguez didn't dignify that with a response.

A moment later, the clicking of heels echoed faintly from the hallway.

Mom was actually leaving.

And then she was gone.

Chapter Text

Once again, the hospital room had been plunged into a stunned silence. It had only been mere seconds since mom's departure, since the clack of her heels on the tile had grown too far away to be heard. So little time had passed that it was questionable whether mom would've even had enough time to reach the elevator at the end of the hall, or if she'd still be heading that way, just out of earshot. Yet as far as Mari was concerned, it might as well have been an eternity. A suffocating stillness seemed to choke the air like a smog, such that she was surprised she could even still manage to breathe – not to say that the breaths were coming easily. Every heartbeat reverberated across her body in that moment like a blow from a gong, rattling her ribs and sending a tremor up her spine. It was as if the world itself had slowed to a crawl. If she had to compare it to anything, it was like... it was like when dad's old walkman cassette player had broken, unable to play back the tapes at the right speed, reducing every song into a deep warbling drone that put Mari's teeth on edge and settled into her bones.

Mari sniffled, the tears from before still burning at the corners of her eyes, having only momentarily paused due to the surprise from her doctor's arrival outside. Now that mom's presence had faded into the distance, the argument brought to an end and the dust beginning to settle, it all slammed back into her with a vengeance. She rasped for breath, trying in vain to fill her lungs as if that would be enough to soothe the hammering in her chest, trying to do something – anything – to block out the flurry of thoughts swarming within her skull. But it was rather like trying to barricade a home against a raging hurricane when the roof had already been torn off by the winds. A completely futile effort, and a smart person would have long since ran for safer shelter... only, Mari was in no position to run from anything at all, now was she?

It didn't feel real. It was... almost growing sort of tiresome, in an odd way, how often she'd found herself thinking that today. But it just kept being true. Mari didn't even know what she did feel like in that moment, just that it wasn't right. There wasn't even any one specific thing she could point to that was bothering her, it wasn't just one part of what she'd just heard from outside, there was no particular word or sentence she could single out, it was just... everything. Every single word and sound and feeling all crashing into each other at once, whispering in her ears and screaming through her skull. It was just chaos, even trying to describe it just devolved into nonsensical contradictory rambling with no real meaning. A thousand thoughts trying to run through her head when she could barely seem to make sense of one, all jumbled up and smashed together into something indistinguishable. She couldn't even say she was really thinking about anything, it was just... a cloud of confusion and hurt that seeped into her lungs and stung at the back of her throat like smoke.

Mari didn't have the faintest clue how long that single impossible moment stretched on. To her, it felt like hours, but in reality, it had to have been less than a minute. She could've sworn that time was supposed to run at a constant rate, but it sure seemed to enjoy jumping around an awful lot today. Not that she could do anything about it. The only thing she could think to do was to bury her head into Sunny's shoulder, her hands balling up the fabric of the back of his shirt tightly in her grasp. Hero had removed himself from the impromptu group hug at some point – Mari couldn't tell exactly what he was doing, but she could sense him still standing nearby, so he hadn't gone far. Sunny, however, made no such moves, apparently willing to let Mari cling to him like a lifeline to steady herself, trying to hide her face until she could at least get herself to stop shaking.

.

But she wouldn't even be given the chance to try to steady herself the way she wanted. While Mari was still trying to grasp the spirals bouncing around inside her skull-

*click-shunk*

-the sound of the plastic door sliding open rent through the air once again. It was a sound that was growing quite familiar at this point. And with its arrival, it was like the rest of the universe had suddenly snapped back into place. That odd, warped feeling of time crawling by impossibly slowly abruptly accelerated wildly, like someone slamming their foot down on a car's accelerator pedal with reckless disregard for safety. Every sound and sensation that had seemed muffled and distorted into unrecognizability in the moment all crashed back into Mari with full clarity, her head spinning as she tried in vain to keep up with it all. Her stomach lurched with a feeling almost like nausea... or maybe dread... She didn't even know. But it was like the sound of the door had broken through something, a gust of air sweeping a path through the fog... but was it really a good thing, to see the dirt beneath?

After all, that feeling of the world slowing down had only ever been Mari's imagination. As much as she might have wished for it all to stop and give her as much time as she needed to get her head on straight... she wasn't naive enough to actually believe that would happen. All the interruption did was pull her back to the present, making her acutely aware of just how little time it had really been. That what had felt to her like an impossibly surreal moment, a cascade of nonsense with no words to describe it, had really just been a few seconds of her hugging Sunny and hyperventilating. At some point her little brother had taken over for Hero in rubbing circles around her back presumably meant to be soothing – she wouldn't have the heart to tell him the way he was doing it was a bit too awkward to be comfortable. Not that she was even paying much attention to that right now anyway.

It didn't actually matter if her thoughts made sense. If she could really understand what had just happened with mom. If she was ready to deal with the aftermath. Whether any of those things were true or not was a totally irrelevant factor...

("Because the rest of the world can't, and won't, sit back and wait forever for you to get it together every time you get confused.")

That was how it had always been, and that was how it was now. Because footsteps echoed from the tile floor. Because a throat clearing rattled against her ears. Because somebody was here now and Mari was just going to have to deal with that fact. It was much too late to do anything about it – as if she'd ever been in any position to in the first place.

It didn't matter if she felt like she was ready. She had to be ready. Or at least able to act like it convincingly enough to deal with it, which was basically the same thing.

But Mari was used to that. Powering through things was what she did best, after all. Swallowing any discomfort wasn't some freak occurrence or exceptional scenario, quite the opposite – all too often, it was the only way she could even make it through her daily business. If she couldn't do that, learning piano would've driven her crazy (or, perhaps, crazier than it already had, given recent revelations). If she couldn't do that, she wouldn't have maintained perfect grades for practically her entire school career, even with subjects she hated like math. If she couldn't do that, she wouldn't be able to drag herself out of bed to clean up around the house or cook meals for herself and Sunny half the time. ...Admittedly, those may have all been on normal days, while today was anything but. The point remained, however, that if there was one thing Mari was supposed to be good at, it was powering through. She'd done it before, and she could do it again.

She'd have to.

And so, holding that thought firmly in mind, she swallowed slightly and pulled her head away from Sunny's shoulder, hands coming up to gently push her little brother, just the slightest nudge to signal him to let go for the moment and let her sit up straight.

Sunny met her eyes for just a moment, a small frown on his face, but he didn't object, seeming to recognize what she was doing – or at least, that was what Mari interpreted his expression to mean. It wasn't like she actually had any way of knowing for sure, she just wanted to hope that Sunny understood that it wasn't meant as a slight towards him at all. She just needed the space to focus for a moment. Even so, however, she had to admit that she immediately missed the feeling of warmth when Sunny withdrew and sat back in his chair, looking at her for just a second longer before turning his eyes towards the pair of figures who'd entered the room. There was nothing else for it now, though, so Mari promptly followed suit, finally mustering her concentration enough to focus on the newcomers as well.

Or rather, newcomer, singular. One of them was just Mrs. Rodriguez returning – which was no surprise, really, since she hadn't been made to leave, unlike... mom. Not that the other person with her, the one who'd stepped forwards and cleared his throat, was all that surprising either. At least not to Mari, who'd met him before, though Hero and Sunny would of course be unfamiliar. After all, it'd been her doctor talking outside, so who else would be coming in immediately afterwards? It wasn't like a doctor coming to check on a patient they were overseeing was at all odd, it made perfect sense in retrospect. What was probably more notable, really, was the fact that he'd evidently been giving Mari space to collect herself before speaking. She appreciated the consideration, honestly... not every adult was always that patient with her. Which she understood, of course, time was valuable and she was the one being rude by wasting it, but still. She'd take every moment she could get right now.

Dr. Astora wasn't a tall man. Mari had gotten that impression when she'd briefly met him earlier, but she hadn't really given much thought to his appearance at the time. She'd still been rather distracted by the bevy of tests and examinations she'd been put through immediately before. Now that he was standing here next to Mrs. Rodriguez and Hero as a comparison point, however, it was quite obvious. In fact, if Mari were able to stand up at the moment, she was pretty certain she would be taller than him. His exact age was hard to tell – though maybe Mari was just bad at judging such things – but his blonde hair and short beard were speckled with a few noticeable flecks of gray. His face, however, had no signs of wrinkles. None from age, anyway, there were a couple tired creases beneath his eyes. Being a doctor must've been a stressful job... Maybe it was a selfish thought, but Mari privately hoped none of her friends went down that career path. (She had to stop herself from letting her eyes drift over to Hero.)

Seeing that he apparently had Mari's full attention now, the doctor cleared his throat a second time. His expression was difficult to read, though it looked like his mouth was turned in a slight frown.

"...Alright, how much of all that out there did you hear?" the man asked, his tone straightforward. Almost blunt.

It didn't sound like an accusation, really, more just matter-of-fact... but Mari couldn't quite stop herself from instinctively wincing anyway. All her justifications to herself about it not technically being eavesdropping suddenly felt far flimsier when it was being directly brought up like that. Hero must have noticed her reaction, as he subtly moved a bit closer to the bedside once more – having taken a step away when the adults entered – and looked at the doctor with a frown, crossing his arms over his chest. In fact, if Mari had to describe Hero's body language as anything, she'd call it almost... protective. Like he was ready to step in and defend Mari if need be. She recognized that sort of attitude quite well, after all, since there'd been plenty of times when she herself had been ready to dig her heels in to defend Sunny or one of their other younger friends. It probably came naturally to big siblings like herself and Hero, though it felt somehow odd to be on the receiving end this time.

Not that there would actually be any need for him to intervene, though. Now that it had been directly called out, Mari saw no reason to try to lie about it. What would be the point, when the doctor had clearly already figured out they were listening? (Plus, she just wasn't all that eager to lie to her doctor anyway. That sounded like something that would usually be a bad idea.)

"...Most of it." she admitted. Her voice came out a little shakier than she intended, wavering in a way that betrayed the soreness in her throat, and she realized then that it must have been obvious that she had been crying just a minute or two before. Her face was mostly dry of tears from having pressed it against Sunny's shoulder while hugging him – and she probably owed him an apology, the wet spot on his shirt couldn't be very pleasant. But her eyes would definitely be red, they felt a little swollen too... or rather, the one eye that wasn't already swollen and bruised felt a bit puffier. She really hoped Dr. Astora wouldn't comment on it. (Or Mrs. Rodriguez, for that matter, though it would at least feel slightly better coming from someone she was more familiar with.)

Fortunately, he didn't, at least for now. "I'm not surprised." the doctor said instead, letting out a noticeable sigh. "These doors can't block out anything, and we should've replaced them years ago if not for budgets..." Shaking his head slightly to himself, Dr. Astora turned to give Mrs. Rodriguez some sort of look Mari couldn't see. "Which is precisely why we don't want people getting into screaming matches in the halls." he added, addressing the woman with a tone clearly meant to be pointed. Mrs. Rodriguez didn't appear to be offended by the slight jab (or not in any way that was obvious enough for Mari to tell), though, and in fact had the grace to look somewhat chagrined.

"I'm sorry about that. I should've been more careful, but I let things get out of hand..." Mrs. Rodriguez apologized, dipping her head slightly as if to concede the point. "But I hope you can understand why I did." she added, voice growing a little firmer as she shot the doctor a look in return. From the way Dr. Astora's shoulders dropped slightly as he let out an exhale, Mari got the impression that he did understand... and that the whole situation was leaving him rather tired.

She understood the feeling.

"...Anyway." the doctor began, turning back to the bed to address Mari once more. "You probably have questions, so while I'm here, I might as well answer what I can." he offered. Mari paused, feeling herself frown slightly – in thought, that is, not in disagreement. She wasn't entirely sure if the offer was out of a genuine desire to give her some peace of mind, or just a sense of professional obligation, his voice was too neutral for her to get anything from it either way... but she appreciated it nonetheless. After all, he was right. She really did have questions, almost too many really. So many that she had to stop and think about where she should even start... Some of the thoughts swirling inside her head were things she couldn't seem to think of how to put into words. (Others were things she didn't know if she wanted to put into words.) But if she was ever going to try to understand what was going on, she needed to start with something, right?

.

"...Why wouldn't you let mom in?" Mari eventually settled on the most straightforward question of the bunch. Or at least, she thought it was the most straightforward. Yet the question was met with another awkward pause, the air in the hospital room seeming to grow just that little bit heavier, and she would swear that she saw Sunny and Hero both glancing at her with unreadable looks from the corner of her eye. It made her frown deepen ever-so-slightly... She didn't like being looked at like that, especially since it was an honest question, even though she knew that neither of them would be trying to make her uncomfortable on purpose.

"That's... a more loaded question than I think you realize." Dr. Astora unknowingly echoed Mari's thoughts, matching her frown with one of his own. (Mari almost thought she heard a faint mutter about "understatements" from Mrs. Rodriguez's direction, though the woman had schooled her expression by the time Mari spared a glance at her.) She wouldn't have to wait long for the doctor to elaborate, though, as he swiftly continued. "But the short version is essentially what I told her: you're my patient, and I have a duty to your safety." he said. There was that tone again, the one that sounded like he was reciting something by rote. Mari got the sneaking feeling he'd said those exact words, or ones very similar, to patients many times over before.

Yet that answer did nothing to quell the confusion swirling around inside her skull.

"My safety?" Mari repeated, her head tipping slightly to one side, feeling her brow forming a noticeable furrow. "Are you saying that I-... wasn't safe?"

Somehow, that question... hurt. She hadn't been intending or expecting it to, but it did. A heavy, painful lump formed at the back of her throat, like she'd suddenly swallowed a rock, her voice hitching as she had to force it down to finish the sentence. Yet that only sent a sliver of cold down her body in its wake, like a droplet of icy water rolling down her spine. Even as she tried to keep her discomfort from showing, very deliberately crossing her hands in front of herself so they wouldn't be tempted to start shaking... she couldn't quite suppress a shiver. It was subtle, her shoulders trembling almost invisibly, but it shifted the scratchy fabric of her hospital gown just enough to leave a faint rustling sound. It was a near inaudible noise, just the tiniest whisper of the cloth shifting, but to Mari's ears it might as well have been damning.

That was... a bad thought. She shouldn't have asked it. Shouldn't have spoken it aloud, because now the question was real, and that meant she had to acknowledge the idea's existence, had to think about one of the very things she'd been trying to shove down to power through this conversation in the first place-

"Listen, dear-" Mrs. Rodriguez started to say, looking at Mari with an expression that could only be described as sad. Yet, before she could finish whatever she was thinking, someone else beat her to the punch.

"She hurt you, Mari!" Hero burst out, looking at Mari with a deep frown etched across his face, a heavy set to his brow. "That's not okay! And don't say you deserved it, because you didn't!" he protested, with indignation burning in his tone fiercely enough that Mari was struck silent for a moment, her eyes widening slightly. She didn't... know how to respond to that. How she should even feel about that. (Or if she felt anything at all.)

She wasn't the only one who was taken aback by the outburst, though – in fact, even Hero himself seemed slightly surprised at his vehemence, visibly pausing for a moment and closing his eyes, his mouth opening to let out a slow breath. ...Funny, it almost reminded Mari of her own 'take a deep breath' mantra she used when trying to calm herself, the one she'd taught to Sunny. She hoped Hero was having more success with his version than she had been lately...

But now wasn't really the time to focus on that.

"Henry." Mrs. Rodriguez said, ever-so-slightly reproachfully, and Hero opened his eyes once more to look at her. The look his mother gave him appeared sympathetic, though, so Mari got the impression she was only taking issue with his tone and didn't seem to disagree with the words themselves. The two locked eyes for a moment, some sort of unspoken conversation passing between them... though what they were thinking, Mari hadn't the faintest clue.

"But I-" Mari started to say, feeling like she needed to say something, only for her voice to hitch again. She paused, swallowing furiously, trying to shove down that lump in her throat again... with even less success than last time. Her hands gripping each other tightened in frustration, just enough for her knuckles to start paling. This would be easier to deal with if she could at least focus enough to talk properly! Not much easier, perhaps, but any little mercy would be worth taking, which made it all the more grating when she wasn't even allowed that much. Was it really so much to ask for her body and mind to cooperate even one time today?

("Like you don't already know the answer to that.")

She wouldn't be given time to work herself up to saying anything coherent, though, as Dr. Astora sighed and spoke up before she managed to get her thoughts together, his voice cutting right through her concentration. Not that she could even be annoyed by that, it wasn't like she could expect everyone to just wait forever for her to choke out some incoherent mumbling, especially when she didn't even know what she was trying to say to begin with.

"Look, Ms. Takahashi- Or, would you rather I call you Ms. Mari?" The doctor paused briefly, awaiting Mari's answer. Realizing it would be rude not to respond, she forced back the feeling of confusion and frustration enough to nod her head once. "Alright, Ms. Mari. Think of it like this. Ignore everything about why, and how, and who deserves what for a moment, I'm not here to judge that. Just answer me this: if I had allowed your mother back in here, would you feel safe?"

.

.

Mari froze.

She wanted to say it was because the question had blindsided her, that the truthful response was so complicated and tied up in so many different feelings, that she didn't even know what to say. But it hadn't, it wasn't, and she did. No, the reason she froze was the exact opposite: because the answer to that question was obvious. From the very moment she heard it, she knew instinctively there was only one honest thing she could possibly say in reply, and it was that realization which made it such a bombshell. It wasn't a question of not knowing, it was just a question of... whether she should say it. After all, her memory was bad, but it wasn't nearly that bad, it had been less than twenty minutes ago that mom had been standing right here in the room looking down at her. She hadn't forgotten how that had felt. How her mother's piercing, disdainful gaze had left her feeling like she was two inches tall, being looked at more like vermin than anything...

Something in her chest hurt to think about it, but... she hadn't felt safe then.

And even less so when mom had advanced on Sunny like that. Mom had tried to pass it off as just her being melodramatic, but... Mrs. Rodriguez had seen the same thing she did. It was obvious and undeniable what mom's intention had been in that moment when she'd stepped forwards, the way her temper had flared from Sunny yelling at her... and what that temper-driven impulse would have led her to do if Mari hadn't intervened. Even if none of the rest of today had happened, that one moment by itself would have been enough proof that Mari didn't feel safe. If not for her own sake, then for Sunny's. Because her little brother getting hurt just... wasn't acceptable. It couldn't be ignored or excused or swept aside... even if it was just a single moment of anger that led mom to act without thinking, even if she stopped herself the second she was called out on it... Mari couldn't just sit there and say it would be okay to ever try to hurt Sunny. That was one thing she couldn't tolerate.

So between the two of them... there was only one possible answer.

No. She wouldn't have felt safe if mom came back.

But somehow, she couldn't quite bring herself to say that out loud. Leaning forward slightly, Mari let a few strands of black hair dangle in front of her face, not even bothering to bring a hand up to brush them aside. She was aware of every eye in the room being fixed intently on her, she could feel the stares boring into her skin even if she couldn't, or wouldn't, meet any of their gazes. Even Sunny was looking at her oddly from where he sat, almost... expectant. Mari knew what they were waiting for, obviously she wasn't the only one who'd figured out that inescapable answer, but... she still remained silent. It was an irrational thought, she knew it was, but it felt like, if she answered that question, she'd be... betraying something. Revealing something that wasn't fair to reveal. Spilling secrets that weren't hers to spill. She didn't even know who she'd be betraying, but even so, the feeling wouldn't go away!

("Oh please. You know exactly who. Why are you still dancing around this even now? You heard all that out there! The cat's already out of the bag! Everyone knows!")

.

.

...Not that it would end up mattering whether she could muster up the words or not. Mari realized perhaps a moment too late that staying silent could only give away her answer even more damningly.

Dr. Astora nodded once, sharply, lips pursed in a frown. "...And that is all the reason I need." he said simply.

Pulling in a sharp breath when she realized what she'd just given away, Mari looked up at him, wide eyes peering through her hair as she tried to make sense of what he'd just said. "All the reason he needed"? What did that even mean...? She wouldn't get the chance to ask, though, as he apparently noticed her confusion and went to continue before she could say a word.

"Before I explain, have you ever heard the term 'mandated reporter'?" the doctor asked her, tone almost expectant. Or perhaps "leading" was a better word.

Mari paused momentarily at the odd question. She glanced over towards Hero and saw him meet her gaze for just a second – he looked as confused as she had to imagine she was as well. She had heard the term, but from what she could recall about it... Swallowing yet again – that lump in her throat was still there – she finally managed to speak again. Perhaps just due to the seeming swerve in the topic distracting her enough to push the maelstrom in the back of her mind back down again.

"That's the thing where... teachers are supposed to intervene when kids are in danger and get the right authorities involved, and they'll be in trouble with the law if they don't... right?" Mari replied slowly, wracking her memory as she spoke. She knew that her answer wasn't the best way of explaining it, and she had a sinking feeling she was overlooking an important part. But she was having trouble remembering what, exactly, she'd learned about the subject before. She did know what it meant, at some point... she just couldn't remember what she knew. Her eyes drifted to the side, glancing to Sunny as if hoping he might be able to assist... but he looked even more confused than Hero had, shoulders rising in a tiny, unhelpful shrug at her expression. (Not that she could begrudge him for that. She and Hero were the older ones here, it shouldn't be Sunny's responsibility to fill in the blanks for her anyway – quite the other way around, really.)

"Not just teachers, dear." Mrs. Rodriguez interjected with a soft shake of her head. There was an odd undertone to her voice, something almost like recognition... like she already knew where the doctor was going with this. "Police, social workers, emergency responders, doctors-" she emphasized that last word, tipping her head slightly towards Dr. Astora in case Mari somehow hadn't gotten the obvious hint already. "-they're all reporters too." the woman corrected.

"Right." Dr. Astora agreed, nodding his head in thanks towards Mrs. Rodriguez. Then he turned his attention back to Mari. "In your case, while you were being admitted, the paramedic who was with you in the ambulance tipped us off. She had suspected that you were a minor in an unsafe environment due to your injuries, and some of the things that were said while you were being transported." he informed her, his tone falling into that distinct sort of clinical recitation doctors seemed to use so often. "So you understand, as a mandated reporter, receiving a statement like that, I'm legally obligated to ensure your safety above all else?"

.

"...I understand." Mari said finally, after a noticeable pause while she processed all that. Intellectually speaking, it made perfect sense – the doctor and the paramedic had literally just been doing their jobs. An aspect of their jobs that Mari hadn't really known about, true, but one that she probably should've figured in hindsight. Teachers weren't the only people whose careers would see them interacting with children or teenagers fairly regularly, as Mrs. Rodriguez suggested. Of course other public-facing jobs would have similar requirements, especially those dedicated to peoples' health and safety like cops or medical professionals. Yes, that part was easy enough to grasp. But...

"But mom wasn't-" Mari started to say. But she cut herself off, her mouth clicking shut awkwardly, suddenly realizing that she didn't even know what she was actually trying to protest. "Mom wasn't" what? Wasn't responsible for her injuries? Everyone in the room knew that was a lie at this point, the argument outside had made that very clear. Wasn't the reason she felt unsafe? Another lie, one Dr. Astora had just exposed a minute ago. Everything Mari could think of to try to explain how it wasn't that bad just tasted like lies in her mouth... how could she ever convince anyone if she couldn't even think of a way to say it truthfully?

("...And more importantly, are you really so sure it is truthful?")

"Listen, Ms. Mari." Dr. Astora spoke up again before anyone else could – though it certainly looked like both Hero and Mrs. Rodriguez had wanted to. "Even if, by some freak chance, this all turned out to be overblown, or some kind of horrible coincidence... Though after that screaming match, I highly doubt it-" The second part was muttered to himself like an aside, and Mari wasn't even sure if she was meant to hear that bit. The doctor quickly shook it off, though. "-Anyway, even then, it wouldn't change the situation right now. Even if it were nothing, you have to understand that this looks really serious, and the hospital can't take any chances. That's how the law works."

.

.

Mari couldn't argue with that.

She... didn't even know if she should be arguing with that anyway. After all, the doctor was right, she wouldn't feel safe with mom around. Mom had... hurt her. But even putting that aside for a moment, there was no real reason to protest that point. She believed the doctor about the law – Mrs. Rodriguez was standing right there and was clearly familiar with the concept herself, she would've said something if Dr. Astora were exaggerating about it, right? So even if Mari had wanted mom to be here right now, she wouldn't have tried to push for it anyway. She couldn't stand the thought of anyone getting in serious trouble because of her, especially not someone like a doctor who was there to help her... The very thought of someone violating their professional ethics and literal laws, just to humor her feelings... she'd never ask for that. Even an admittedly selfish person like Mari wouldn't ever expect that much.

No, the only thing she could do right now was to accept it. Mom wouldn't be allowed back in, and that was that.

(It hurt somewhere inside to know that part of her was relieved.)

But that raised the question...

"So... What's going to happen now?" Mari wondered, looking up to the doctor with her brow furrowing with worry. Her voice came out a little raspier than she'd expected it to... though maybe she shouldn't have been surprised, with the persistent soreness in her throat. From the corner of her eye, she saw Sunny sit up a little straighter from where he'd been slouching in his seat, watching the conversation play out. And it was no real wonder why, this could affect him too after all; mom being made to leave put him in a bit of an odd position, didn't it? ...Perhaps the Rodriguezes would let him sleep over tonight?

Dr. Astora stared searchingly at Mari for a second before responding. Perhaps surprised that she'd conceded the point about mom, just like that? "Now?" he repeated, tilting his head up slightly, as if considering. "In the short term, as we just went over, I'm legally required to report this situation to child protective services. They'll have to send someone to talk to you in person, so expect a visitor... probably tomorrow, or the day after." he said thoughtfully.

"Oh, I see..." Mari replied. Internally, she cursed herself for such a blank, useless response, but she really did mean it all the same. She did see. Child protective services... she'd be lying if she said she didn't see that coming. It was the obvious outcome considering everything they'd just talked about with mandated reporters and all that. Even Mari wasn't dense enough not to put together two and two there, regardless of how heavy her head might have felt. Yet, somehow, hearing it out loud still seemed... surreal. She didn't know how she felt about it. (How she was supposed to feel about it.) So instead, she did the only thing she could and moved on. "But, if you say that's short term, what about the long term?"

"I can't say." Dr. Astora replied honestly, shaking his head and sinking Mari's faint hope for clarity. "It depends on how that meeting goes, what happens after that is between you and CPS. It's out of my hands." he explained matter-of-factly. "From this point, I can only tell you about your medical needs, and-"

*beep-beep-beep*

Dr. Astora's sentence was interrupted by a shrill electronic beeping that... sounded like it came from his coat? Without a moment's hesitation, his hand immediately shot into his pocket, fishing for something, and emerged holding some kind of rectangular shape that looked to be made of black plastic. Squinting slightly, Mari quickly recognized it for what it was: a pager. There'd been a time when her dad used to carry one just like that for his job, before he'd gotten a promotion and been provided a cell phone for work instead. It made a certain amount of sense for doctors to favor pagers for quick messages though, they were convenient and relatively cheap so they could be issued to all the hospital staff easily. Dr. Astora took only a moment to scan the message.

"Speak of the devil..." he muttered to himself before looking back up at Mari with a small frown. "I need to go." he said.

"Doctor?" Mrs. Rodriguez wondered, sounding slightly worried as she shot a curious look towards him. Mari had to imagine her own expression probably looked similar, an inexplicable feeling of tension starting to settle on her shoulders from the doctor's sudden announcement. Just from the way he said it, she got the impression that the message, whatever it was, had something to do with her. Something important.

Dr. Astora glanced at Mrs. Rodriguez for a moment. "Looks like I owe one of the boys at radiology a favor, because they've finished developing her x-rays already." he answered matter-of-factly. Mari jolted a little in surprise, straightening up – she'd been expecting that to take a few more hours at least, fully ready to not receive any news until late into the night. "That was the critical thing we were waiting on to decide the course of her treatment, so this can't wait. I need to go check them out now." the doctor explained. Mari already knew that part, of course, so it was presumably said for everyone else's benefit.

"I'll be back, Ms. Mari." the doctor added when nobody spoke up to object to his leaving. Even as he spoke, however, he was already turning towards the door to leave. And with that distinct kind of hurried-yet-professional stride only somebody used to working on their feet all day could have, he was exiting the room just as quickly, leaving everyone present to simply watch his back depart.

*click-shunk*

And then, just as quickly, the door shut behind him, plunging the hospital room into silence.

.

.

The stillness that settled over the hospital room with the doctor's departure, it turned out, was not just a momentary affair. It soon morphed into a heavy shroud that seemed to settle itself uncomfortably on everyone's shoulders, a cloud that choked the air and stifled any attempts to speak. Or at least that was how it seemed to Mari – but since nobody else had managed to break the silence either, she had to assume it wasn't just her. It wasn't hard to figure out where the air of discomfort had sprung from so suddenly, either... Actually, it would probably be more accurate to say that the air of discomfort returned. It wasn't that there'd been any sort of abrupt shift, not really. The pressure that was weighing down on Mari's shoulders, the tension that coiled in her spine like a spring... it had been there all along. It was the very same suffocating fog that had filled her every breath before Dr. Astora's arrival, after all. The feeling was utterly familiar at this point. It was just that she had once again been left with no excuse to distract herself from it.

After all, the conversation with the doctor had given her something concrete she could focus on- no, something that she had to focus on. It had seemed so important that she keep up with everything that was going on, she needed to shove everything else down and pay attention to every bit of information the doctor could give her. The situation was going to keep developing, the world was going to keep turning, regardless of how she felt about it... But in a way, that was a mercy. It gave Mari a simple, straightforward thing she could do to keep herself in the present. To not be left behind. Just knuckle down, push aside her storm of feelings for a minute, and pay attention to the conversation. Nice and straightforward – not necessarily easy per se, but not complex, and something she was well practiced in. It was almost sort of refreshing to have solid, tangible information to think about rather than a constant maelstrom of vague thoughts and emotions crashing into each other and jumbling up inside her skull. Even for just a few minutes.

But now that the doctor had gone, she couldn't use that to occupy herself anymore. She couldn't power through when there was nothing to power through, now could she? It was like, within moments of Dr. Astora's departure, the pillar holding up Mari's focus had started to crumble away like a sandcastle at high tide, little chunks breaking off with each rising wave. Until, in the end, all that was left was grains floating aimlessly along the shore. ...Perhaps that was a rather melodramatic thought. But she needed to be thinking about something, right? And it was certainly better than the alternative... If she started trying to actually think through the implications of that conversation, then... she'd have to consider what happened with mom, and what was going to happen next. Child protective services were being called, and Mari had no idea how that could go, and if she started to wonder what they'd do-

Don't think about it.

Don't think about it.

Her shoulders were shaking. She couldn't bear to think about it, because every possibility that came to mind was... terrifying. There was no other word for it. She'd seen enough movies and tv shows, and while she certainly wasn't foolish enough to expect daytime soap opera plotlines to provide an accurate depiction of CPS, it didn't seem unreasonable to expect that a meeting like that would be life-changing for the child in question... which was her.

But did anyone even bother to ask Mari if she wanted her life to change? (...Would anyone even care?)

Don't. Think. About. It.

.

Yes, spiraling into random overwrought analogies and meaningless jumbled up thoughts, something she would normally berate herself for, still felt like the lesser evil here. She sort of wished someone would say something, though, if only to give herself something else to think about.

("You're expecting everyone else to talk, when you can't even dredge up the energy to start a conversation yourself? Hypocrite.")

Yet the fact remained that Mari didn't even know why the others were being as silent as she was... Well, no. That wasn't quite true. Sunny withdrawing into himself, huddling up in his chair and not saying a word, was... admittedly not that surprising. He'd always been on the introverted side even on normal days, and today had been a thousand times more stressful than normal for him, hadn't it? Quite frankly, Mari wouldn't have blamed him one bit if he'd been too overwhelmed to speak at all upon arriving at the hospital. Yet he'd made it this far. The fact his social battery had held out this long was an impressive show of willpower – a lot better than it was really fair to expect of him. So no, Mari had no unreasonable expectations of him contributing to any conversation at this point. His comfort was more important.

Hero and his mother were stranger, though. Hero might not reach Kel's level of infectious chatter by any means, but he typically wasn't one to just let an awkward silence fester either. And Mrs. Rodriguez, well... Mari didn't know her habits in nearly as much depth as those of Sunny or their friends, but the woman had never been impolite to her. The unwillingness to speak up now, in favor of trading the occasional glance with Hero before looking back at Mari with an expression that left a slightly uncomfortable stirring in her gut, was conspicuous.

Mari didn't really... want to talk anymore about what had happened outside the room, or what they'd heard from the doctor just now, of course. (Don't think about it.) But wasn't it weird for them to not be talking about it either? Shouldn't they have something to say? Mari really, really would have expected that to be inevitable at this point.

Mom and Mrs. Rodriguez had been friends ever since Mari's family had moved to Faraway, eight years ago. That was a long friendship, just as long as Mari's bond with Hero, and she considered him her best friend... Even if it was a bit different for adults, that had to mean something. And now they'd just a massive argument. And it was obviously an ugly one, even to someone like Mari who normally struggled at understanding social interactions between adults. There was no missing the coldness and disgust in Mrs. Rodriguez's tone, or the way mom's temper had blazed in response to the pushback. And there was no missing the sense of... finality to the whole thing.

Even if, somehow, nothing about the situation changed or escalated at all – which seemed impossible at this point – there was no taking all that back. That friendship would never be the same. And Mrs. Rodriguez must have done it deliberately. There was no way she could possibly have confronted mom like that on accident, from the way she was talking she had to have known exactly what she was saying as soon as she'd started. She'd torn that friendship apart on purpose.

She'd torn it apart on purpose... because of Mari.

Was she really not even going to talk about that...?

.

.

Apparently not. And so the silence lingered.

At some point, the door had slid open again, but rather than the doctor's return, it was a nurse bringing Mari a tray of food – apparently it was dinnertime. Even that interruption didn't seem to be enough to break the cloud of tension choking the life out of the room, though. Mari knew logically that she ought to eat, keeping energy up was important to healthy recovery and all that. And especially after a day like today. So she slowly started working away at the food, not meeting anyone's eyes as she did so, feeling more than a little self-conscious to be sitting there eating while others just... watched.

It didn't help that the food itself was... well, there was no other word for it... Bad. It was bad. It wasn't actively revolting or anything, but it was just so bland that nothing about it was pleasant. It was an incredibly humble meal, just some macaroni and cheese accompanied by steamed broccoli and a simple yeast roll. Obviously meant for function rather than style. The broccoli was... fine, technically, it wasn't overly soggy but it also had very little flavor. The bread was probably the best part of the meal, though that wasn't saying much. A little butter would've gone a long way. The mac'n'cheese, however... That had never been Mari's favorite dish to begin with. She could tolerate it, it didn't disgust her like certain other things, but even high-quality mac'n'cheese wouldn't be her first pick. And this was not high quality. The noodles were rubbery and the cheese somehow had even less taste than the vegetables. Mari still wouldn't consider it outright gross, because she'd tasted some truly offensive things in her years cooking, but it was teetering close enough to the line that she was in no rush to clean the tray.

As she forced another swallow of painfully mediocre noodles down her throat, Mari couldn't help but wonder what was taking Dr. Astora so long. He was just supposed to be going to retrieve her x-ray results and return, right? ...She supposed that it might make sense for him to want to examine them himself first before revealing them to her. That way he'd know the important parts to point out and what possible treatments she'd need. That was probably what he was doing right now... Or maybe he'd just gotten waylaid by something, or multiple somethings? Being a doctor at the primary hospital in the area had to be a hectic job, every emergency in Faraway would be coming through here. Even if Dr. Astora had intended to return promptly, he may very well have been diverted to attend to a more critical situation that came up. Mari supposed she was being rather selfish expecting herself to be the priority when her case – while definitely painful – could have been much, much worse.

Yes, there were plenty of perfectly reasonable possible explanations for the doctor's absence dragging on. But, even still, with every second that ticked by... Mari felt an anxious squirming growing fiercer in her gut. (A squirming that was entirely distinct from the feeling of the bad hospital food, though that sat like a rock in her stomach as well.) She just couldn't quite shake the rising suspicion that something was... wrong. Normally, people might say that "no news was good news", but in this case, she really couldn't agree. Maybe it was just the pain from her knee getting to her – and it had not gone away all this time, she'd just been stubbornly refusing to acknowledge it – but the back of her mind was starting to whisper that the doctor was taking so long because something about her situation had escalated, that some new problem had developed.

Maybe she was right. She hoped she was wrong. Yet all she could do was wait.

.

.

*click-shunk*

Mari almost breathed a sigh of relief when the door finally slid open again, and this time the figure of Dr. Astora stepped in. She only stopped herself due to a small flare of guilt – she shouldn't be acting relieved to have something to distract her from the company already in the room with her, should she? What right did she really have to complain about her little brother, her best friend, and a woman who'd always been nice to her? That wasn't remotely fair. The awkward silence was admittedly... really uncomfortable, but that was just as much her fault as anyone else. Arguably more, if you thought about it – none of them really created the stressful situation in the first place. She did. They wouldn't be here if she hadn't ran out of the house like an idiot...

Mari wouldn't have time to go further down that, spiral, though, because-

"Oh, doctor!" Mrs. Rodriguez exclaimed, the first to react to the door's opening besides Mari herself. "You're back." she said and... wait. Did Mrs. Rodriguez sound a little relieved too? ...Mari had to be imagining things, right? That didn't even make any sense. Why would she sound so eager to break the silence when she hadn't said anything this whole time...?

(Unless... they'd all been just as uncomfortable, but they were doing it for Mari's sake. But that couldn't be right...)

As Dr. Astora turned to her, the woman continued. "Are those the results you've got?" she wondered, gesturing towards the doctor's side, where... Ah, somehow Mari had overlooked that when he entered. Tucked under one arm was a pastel blue manila folder with the corners of several plastic sheets poking out of it. Mari didn't even need to wait to hear the doctor's answer, honestly – she'd been through all this last time, after all, and the sight of the folder sparked a similar detail from her memory. The hospital were still using the same folders and all. (Honestly, their commitment to the 'white and pastels' theme was sort of impressive, the folder was the exact same shade as the bedsheets. There was no way that happened by accident, it was too uncanny.)

Sure enough, Dr. Astora nodded. "These are the x-rays we were waiting for." he confirmed matter-of-factly. That statement drew all eyes in the room to him, and Mari almost found herself wanting to hold her breath in anticipation... Only for the man's next words to puncture a hole in the expectation immediately. "However, that's all I can say with you here, ma'am." he addressed Mrs. Rodriguez, his voice taking on that same reciting-things-professionally tone Mari had noticed from him before.

Mrs. Rodriguez blinked, looking a little taken aback by the abrupt shift, but the doctor didn't leave any room open for questions before he carried on speaking.

"I'm going to need to ask you and your son-" his eyes flicked towards Hero momentarily, who stiffened slightly at being addressed, but didn't linger for long. "-to step outside while I discuss this with Ms. Mari." he explained simply.

"...What?" Mari was the first one to speak, finally finding her voice. She looked up at Dr. Astora with a small frown forming on her face. "Why do they have to leave? I'm alright with them being here..." she said, her voice genuinely confused (and maybe slightly defensive). The dragging silence may have been getting more and more uncomfortable, but it wasn't upsetting her that much, not to the point where she would ever for one second have wanted them kicked out... She was so grateful they were here at all... And besides, the doctor wouldn't have known about that anyway, so that couldn't be it.

"It's a matter of patient confidentiality." Dr. Astora replied, turning to face Mari fully as he spoke. "It's part of a larger policy known as HIPAA, but the short version is that I can't disclose sensitive medical information about my patients, except to people with explicit authorization." he said, and... Oh, that made sense. Mari almost wanted to kick herself. She wasn't familiar with the exact wording of that law or anything, but she had heard of it in vague terms. It had just rested forgotten at the back of her mind alongside lots of other information that was probably more important than she realized. That instantly explained why the doctor sounded like he was going through things by rote, too, because this literally was another legal routine.

"Your brother- Sunny, was it?" The doctor shot a glance at Sunny as he said that, but Sunny only seemed to shrink a little at the gaze and stayed silent. (Mari wanted to hug him, and she hated that now wasn't a good time.) So Mari gave a quick, sharp nod of her head to the question instead. "...Right, Sunny should be fine to stay with you, as an immediate relative. But your friends..." Dr. Astora paused to shake his head. "Normally, since you're a minor, we would need permission from a parent or guardian, but..." he trailed off leadingly.

Mari didn't need anyone to fill in the blank. She'd been paying attention to everything they talked about before. She was under the care of the hospital directly, her parents weren't allowed to be involved in this situation... and wouldn't be until, presumably, the whole thing with child protective services was done. Which meant... there was nothing for it, was there? Hero and Mrs. Rodriguez weren't relatives, the hospital legally couldn't tell them the nitty-gritty medical details – details that were the whole point of the x-ray results. It made sense. Mari didn't like it, but it made sense.

Mrs. Rodriguez nodded her head slowly. "...Yes, of course. That slipped my mind for a moment, but you're right." she conceded. Then she turned to her son. "Come along, Henry, let's get out of their way." she said, making a brisk gesture towards the door with one hand, as if to hurry him along.

Hero, however, met his mother's words with a sharp frown. "But that's..." he started to protest – only to trail off as if he'd just realized that he didn't actually know what protest to make. Hero was a smart guy, after all, he must have recognized the truth behind the doctor's explanation just like Mari had. Instead he just glanced over at Mari with his eyebrows knit helplessly for a moment.

All she could do was try to give him a small smile in return, to try to signal that she was okay with him going. That she understood. Because she truly did, there really was no argument to stand on here... That didn't mean Mari didn't appreciate his effort for what it meant, though. Seeing the displeasure on Hero's face at the thought of leaving, the fact that he clearly wanted to stay with her, it felt... nice. It might've been enough to Mari blush on a day where she wasn't so exhausted.

"I-... Okay." Hero finally sighed, hanging his head for a moment before looking back up at Mari. He took a step close to her bedside for a moment, and she looked up at him quizzically, wondering what he was doing...

And then, to Mari's shock, he leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. It was soft, barely a touch, his lips only just grazing the skin for an instant, and he was already pulling back away before Mari could even register what just happened. One might almost think it had been imaginary... But her senses weren't lying, she'd definitely seen that, and though the feeling on her cheek had only been a whisper, it was still there. All Mari could do was sit there frozen for what felt like ages – though in reality it only could've been about a second – staring at Hero with wide eyes. It was like her brain was a car engine on an icy winter day, sputtering when you turned the ignition, struggling to get going due to the cold. Oh, there was no doubt it'd fire up eventually, but in the moment it was just stalling with every frustrated turn of the key. And... oh, there was the blush, it seemed she wasn't too tired after all, because she suddenly felt a tingling burn in her cheeks.

(Mari was no stranger to flirtatious behavior, she'd been throwing teasing comments at Hero for years. And occasionally, he'd even get a good one back at her. It was all just in good fun. So why did this still take her by surprise so much...?)

.

"We'll be back, Mari... As soon as we can." Hero promised quietly, and then before Mari could even try to muster up a response, he was already turning away to hurry over towards his mother, who was watching him with an... odd expression. Mari had figured Mrs. Rodriguez would look expectant, since she was waiting on him, but instead her face seemed almost... fond? Mari didn't even know what to call it. But there was some kind of glint in the woman's eye.

A soft noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort came from Sunny's direction, cutting through Mari's train of thought, and she snapped her eyes over to him for a moment. When she met her little brother's gaze, however, he was looking at her with his expression set completely neutral like the face of a cliff. Which was... pretty normal, really, so she didn't dwell on it and soon looked back towards Hero again. The sound was probably just her imagination anyway, right?

Dr. Astora cleared his throat slightly, apparently deciding to tactfully ignore that whole moment as he turned to Hero and Mrs. Rodriguez briefly.

"If you go down to the end of the hall and take a left, there's a waiting room where you can sit." he instructed the two of them, pointing vaguely towards one wall to indicate the direction he meant. Mrs. Rodriguez gave a short, thankful nod in return and together she and Hero dutifully headed out the door without another word, sliding it shut behind them.

*shunk*

.

.

Dr. Astora sighed. "Alright Ms. Mari, sorry for the delay." he said, shaking his head once, briskly. "Now, we really do need to take a look at these." he added, holding up the manila folder. There was something about the man's tone, an undercurrent that sounded a bit... off, that made Mari frown, an odd feeling starting to settle in her gut. She hoped her suspicion was wrong, that she was just being paranoid, but...

"...It's not good news, is it?" she asked quietly, keeping her voice soft while she looked up at the doctor to hopefully mask the building sense of dread. Sunny stiffened slightly in the corner of her eye, and she had to assume he was feeling similarly... Carefully, without another word or even trying to meet his gaze, Mari extended her hand off towards the side of the bed, reaching partway over to him. A silent offer. And sure enough, Sunny seemed to recognize the gesture for what it was, as with only a second's hesitation, Mari felt his own palm seize hers, clinging to her hand for support. His hand was smaller than hers... but it felt warmer, too, like she was only just realizing how cold and clammy her own hands felt when she had another grip to ground herself.

It wasn't much, but it was the best comfort she could think to offer. (She wasn't going to say the part where she felt like she needed it too.)

Dr. Astora was silent for a moment that dragged just long enough to become noticeable, an unreadable expression on his face.

"...Let me show you." he said simply, and before Mari could reply, he was already turning away, taking a step over to the wall closest to the bed. Mounted on said wall was a simple blank whiteboard – Mari hadn't taken much note of it until now, given that it blended with the white walls, but she assumed it was in case patients or doctors needed space to write things. Or, in this case, to pin things up, as the doctor opened the folder to remove the several glossy black sheets within and hang them on the whiteboard with small magnets. As he worked, Mari could practically hear her own heart sinking. It hadn't escaped her notice that he avoided answering the question... And that was all the answer she needed.

All she could do now was try to brace herself for however bad it would be.

"Alright, can you see these clearly?" Dr. Astora asked as he finished arranging the x-rays and turned to Mari expectantly. She nodded her head once in return. "Good." the doctor said, and wasted no time looking back to the sheets. "So as you can see here, this is your knee. And this bone here is the patella, or what you'd call the kneecap." he explained briefly, removing a pen from his coat pocket and using it as a pointer to indicate one of the images, a shot of the bones from a side-on angle, specifically towards a rounded plate-like shape. Mari simply nodded along tensely to the explanation (not that the doctor would see, of course).

"...Which means these lines here are where it's fractured." Dr. Astora continued, pointing to the next sheet, a front-facing view. From this angle it was clear that the shape of the kneecap wasn't a singular piece – or rather, wasn't anymore – but rather numerous disjointed segments with a spiderweb of light grayish lines indicating the cracked spaces between them. "As you can see, it's broken into... quite a few pieces. This is what's known as a comminuted fracture. And based on how it's formed, I suspect that it was likely damaged from multiple sources." he said.

Mari felt her frown deepen, her brow furrowing. "Multiple sources?" she repeated, confusion bleeding into her tone. "What do you mean? The paramedic said something about muscle spasms causing it?"

"That's part of it." the doctor agreed, looking back to Mari again to give a sharp nod. Then he crossed his arms. "Since I understand that you had a prior injury, one which – according to your medical records – you never received a course of physical therapy for. Even though it was heavily recommended by your previous doctor, your guardians apparently deemed it unnecessary and had you discharged as soon as possible." Dr. Astora was frowning deeply now, his voice still professionally neutral but undercut by a hard tone.

"...What?" Mari replied, her voice sounding faint to her own ears. At some point her eyes had gone wide. Sunny shifted beside her, his hand giving hers an extra squeeze. Physical therapy? She had been supposed to go through a course of physical therapy after the softball accident, not just sent home? "...I didn't know anything about that." she said quietly. Honestly. She felt lightheaded. This really, truly, was the first time she was hearing about any of this.

Was this what the paramedic had meant by "not receiving proper care"...?

.

"I'm not surprised." the doctor admitted with a quiet sigh, his expression softening a little – though he was still clearly not pleased. "As a minor, it would be your guardians who legally consent to any medical procedures, and technically they aren't even required to inform you... Though I think your prior doctor was being negligent if he only talked to them rather than you directly." he explained, turning his gaze away slightly with that last aside. "But we're getting sidetracked. That will be something to discuss, but... not now." he added, shaking himself as if to try and get back on track.

Part of Mari wanted to object – and if she'd been less exhausted, she might have. Her head was still swimming trying to even make sense of the implications of that thought, of what this new revelation meant, they couldn't just brush it aside like that... But Dr. Astora was right. They were supposed to be talking about her current injury, not her previous one, and that was far more immediately pressing information. So she shoved those feelings down and stayed silent, waiting for him to continue.

"The point being, your knee doesn't seem to have been allowed to heal properly, which in turn weakened the surrounding quadriceps muscle. Which, when you tried to run on it, resulted in – as you said – a severe spasm that pulled apart the patella." the doctor explained clinically, directing his attention back to the x-rays again. "But that was only the first source of damage." he continued. "That would only have caused a singular break. The rest of these splinters look as though they were created by... some kind of hard impact."

Mari blinked. An impact...?

Oh. Of course. "You mean when I fell." she said. It wasn't a question. That was the only possible "impact" she could think of, after all. Although she could barely remember the moment her knee buckled earlier today, the memories blurred and hazy – she was pretty sure she'd been blacking out from the sheer pain before even hitting the ground – she knew for a fact that she'd fallen forwards. She'd woken up face-down, and there was nothing that could've caused her to roll over like that. So it only stood to reason that, if she'd fallen straight forwards onto her knee while running, then her kneecap would've smashed directly into the hard ground. It'd be all but impossible for it not to. Yes, the theory made perfect sense thinking about it like that.

"Presumably, yes. Unless you smashed your knee with a hammer without telling us." Dr. Astora agreed with a small shrug. Mari genuinely couldn't tell if that comment was meant to be a bit of humor, or something he'd actually seen. Not that she'd have long to ponder over it before he moved on. "But that's where the real problem comes in. The impact compounded the injury, causing these secondary breaks. As you might expect, a comminuted fracture is harder to repair than a singular one... But it's worse even than that."

The doctor's voice had grown grim, and Mari could feel herself tensing again. The shoe was about to drop, wasn't it?

"You see, these numerous small fractures, combined with your bone shifting around with movement... resulted in these." Dr. Astora pointed to another one of the x-rays with his pen again. This one was a side view similar to the first, but significantly more zoomed-in. At so close up, it revealed several more small, previously-indiscernible white shapes floating roughly around the main kneecap, though noticeably separated from it. "These spots are fragments of the bone that have broken off and become embedded in the surrounding tissue." he revealed. His voice had grown so serious, now, that the announcement sent a chill up Mari's spine. She didn't even need him to explain to instinctively understand that this was something bad.

But of course, the explanation came anyway.

"Just to make sure you understand how serious that is... We were always going to need to operate to reconstruct your knee after damage like this, but normally such a surgery would be safe to wait a few days, or even a week or two, so long as your leg was secured properly to keep it from further damage. But this requires much more immediate intervention. In fact, I've already arranged the operation for later tonight, a few hours from now." he informed her, finally turning back to face her fully as if to impress the severity of the situation onto her.

...Oh.

"Oh." Was all Mari could think to say to that, staring up at the doctor with wide eyes. The shoe had indeed dropped, hadn't it?

Surgery. She'd always known that was a possibility, of course. Determining whether it'd be necessary was sort of the point of taking the x-rays to begin with, wasn't it? But like the doctor had said, she had been expecting something more delayed, a slower process, if it turned out that way. Not to just... have a surgical operation suddenly dropped on her head tonight. Was that what had taken him so long to return with the results, the fact that he'd gone ahead and scheduled the operation immediately? ...On some level, it did make sense, Dr. Astora had made it clear earlier that Mari was taken under the care of the hospital itself right now, they could proceed with whatever treatment they deemed necessary without having to run it by mom or dad... Even so, though, couldn't the doctor have led with that part...?

"You understand, these bone fragments cannot be safely allowed to remain. If left as they are, every time you moved your leg they would shift around, cutting into the tissue further. This would put you at extreme risk for all kinds of complications, including muscular and nervous damage that would put your previous injury to shame. In a worst case scenario, the tissue might even become necrotic, which could force us to amputate." Dr. Astora was pulling no punches now, rattling off the dire information with an absolute clinical efficiency that brooked no argument, giving Mari no chance to object (not that she would even know how to object), only pausing just long enough to see if she was still following the explanation before continuing.

"Nobody wants to take that risk. So you see why operating on this absolutely can't wait. The surgeons will be attempting to reconstruct what they can, of course, but chances are most of these fragments will simply need to be removed, as will some of the larger ones remaining in the center to prevent them from becoming displaced as well." the doctor held out his arm to tap the x-ray sheet with his pen for emphasis, even as his eyes stayed staring Mari down.

.

If Mari had thought her head was spinning before, she realized, she hadn't seen anything yet. It was almost dizzying, she was halfway expecting to see her surroundings start lurching like a ship rocking in a storm. The inside of her skull certainly felt like it. Yet the hospital room remained still. She had no idea what expression she might have been making right then, nor did she dare to look over at Sunny to see his face either. He'd been silent throughout all this – which wasn't surprising – but she could feel his hand still in her grip, his fingers now clenching around hers tightly enough for the knuckles to whiten, giving away his tension more clearly than any words ever could. Not that Mari was being much more gentle with her own grip at this point, so even though it was slightly painful, she didn't blame him.

Finally, she managed to muster up the effort to speak... and there was only one question that came to mind.

"Will I still be able to walk?" Her voice was barely above a whisper, yet it echoed across the hospital room all the same.

Dr. Astora fell silent again. And Mari felt that sensation of her heart dropping again.

"...I don't think you're likely to lose mobility completely. But with an injury like this, I'd be extremely surprised if you don't need aids to stand and walk."

"Aids?" Mari repeated, tilting her head slightly. "You mean like, a knee brace...?"

"I mean like a cane." Dr. Astora corrected bluntly. "Though yes, a brace in addition may very well be a good idea."

Again, all Mari could say was a quiet "Oh."

A cane. She'd be... walking with a cane.

Fifteen years old. And she'd have a cane.

For the thousandth time, she thought for sure this had to be a dream.

("It isn't.")

.

.

"...How long?"

The quiet, unexpected voice made Mari's head shoot up. She hadn't said that. Her gaze snapped over to see Sunny sitting up straighter in his chair, looking at Dr. Astora with an intense stare that made Mari's stomach squirm uncomfortably even though it wasn't directed at her.

"...Pardon?" the doctor blinked, his coolly professional facade faltering for just a moment, clearly just as surprised as Mari was by Sunny suddenly speaking up now.

"You said she'd need aids after the surgery. To walk." Sunny began slowly. Mari could feel his grip clenching around her hand even tighter, if that were possible. Any more and he'd be digging his nails right into the back of her hand. Yet she still didn't try to pull away. "So... how long will it take, to heal so she... doesn't need it anymore?" he asked, his words halting. Anxious. A closer look revealed his shoulders were quivering, ever-so-slightly. The shiver was restrained, a tremble that was barely visible against the stark walls behind him, but now that Mari had spotted it... she could tell he was actively trying to hold back a much more severe bout of shaking. That serious stare might have fooled someone who didn't know him, but Mari was his big sister. She knew what he looked like when he was worried or afraid... and this Sunny looked exactly like the one who'd crawl into her bed after a nightmare.

"Young man..." Dr. Astora had softened his tone as he addressed Sunny.

(Somehow, something about that sent more of a sliver of ice up Mari's spine than his fully clinical speech had.)

"...With the kind of damage your sister's knee has taken, well... We won't know the full extent of it until the surgeons are done, they'll be able to reconstruct parts of it. But based on other cases like this I've seen, at this point the chances of her being able to make a perfect recovery... are extremely low."

.

"Even with extensive physical therapy, we can only do so much. With an injury this severe on top of the preexisting trauma from the previous break... regaining full mobility would be incredibly unlikely."

.

"The truth is that she'll probably be walking with a cane for the rest of her life."

Chapter Text

.

.

You could hear a pin drop in the silence that followed the doctor's words. For a long moment, the only sounds reaching Mari's ears were those from the outside. The faint ding of the elevator down the hall opening, the bustling of footsteps as nurses hurried past the door on their way to other rooms, those sorts of things. Not a single noise to be heard in the hospital room itself. Even the pounding sledgehammer of her heartbeat, which had become such a constant companion, seemed to be absent now. It had slowed and quietened until it was little more than a silent tapping against her ribcage, the shock of the pronouncement having stifled her heart like a bucket of water dousing a fire. It had subdued so much, in fact, that it was only the very faint feeling of blood in her veins that let Mari know it was still beating at all.

At some point, her fingers had released their deathgrip around Sunny's own hand and slipped from his grasp, her arm simply falling limply, hand dangling over the edge of the bed. She made no effort to pull it back up to a more comfortable position. Her arms felt inexplicably heavy, weighed down by a frigid chill that had settled in her fingertips... In fact, now that she paid mind to it, the cold seemed to have pervaded her entire body before she'd even noticed it. This wasn't the icy feeling she was used to though, stabbing at her from within like frozen needles when she was uncomfortable... It was a more extreme cold than that, somehow, like when you'd been out in the winter air so long that it stopped stinging and just started to feel numb. It was just a wave of... complete nothingness that washed over her, chasing away every other thought and sensation and leaving only dullness in its wake.

She knew, logically, that she should be feeling something. With the news she'd just gotten, how could she not, any person would and should feel something after hearing that! Yet it was just... blank. It wasn't that she didn't understand what she'd heard. She understood it perfectly fine, at least as well as she'd gotten the rest of the doctor's explanations. It made sense, she knew what it meant, she should be thinking about it...!

But instead, she just sat there and stared.

.

"Listen, Ms. Mari..." Dr. Astora finally spoke up after the silence had dragged on too long, perhaps having noticed Mari's stunned response and realized that she wasn't going to ask any further questions or say anything unprompted. "I know this news has to be upsetting, and I'm sorry for that. But we'll still be doing everything we can to ensure your quality of life is as good as possible, the surgeons-"

But Mari could barely bring herself to listen while the doctor launched off into a spiel. He started to segue into a lengthy explanation on the nature of the surgery, the associated risks and what they would be doing to mitigate them, how long she could expect to be in recovery... and what felt like about a thousand other fine details that probably would've left her head spinning if she could actually bring herself to focus on them. Idly she wondered if spelling out every bit of information was meant to be an attempt to reassure her... She could even understand such an effort, it probably helped patients who were jumpy about surgery to show them the hospital staff were professionals who knew what they were doing. But to her, it just went in one ear and out the other. She nodded along or shook her head vaguely at appropriate intervals, but if you asked her later, she wouldn't be able to recall pretty much any of the details.

It was rude to just completely tune out an adult like that when they were speaking... mom would certainly have chastised her for it, had she been here to see. (But that was a rather funny thing to be worried about now, after everything that had happened with mom today, wasn't it?) The truth was, though, that Mari didn't think she would have been able to listen if she tried. A strange buzzing noise seemed to be filling her ears the longer she sat there, arm still dangling over the bedside. It was a metallic hum building in the air, like the faint drone of electric lights, except magnified dozens of times over, growing louder and louder until it was drowning out all other sounds. The doctor's voice was reduced to little more than a mumbling in the background, leaving Mari with nothing to think about but the noise and her own feeling of numbness...

For a minute, she almost thought she was going to black out again. It wouldn't have shocked her with how today had gone. Yet her vision never swam, the familiar darkness never encroached around her eyes. She just sat there, the world buzzing around her. It was like she had reached a point where she was so tired that her mind couldn't even shut itself off properly, couldn't muster the energy to work itself into a panic so that it could crash into unconsciousness. There was probably some clever way to concisely describe the feeling in a single word or phrase... but as usual, Mari didn't know what it was.

.

Eventually, however, Dr. Astora finished his lecture – or maybe he just realized the information and attempted reassurances were falling flat. Mari couldn't tell the difference. Either way, though, she was sure it wouldn't be the last she heard of the subject. There were definitely going to be a lot of very long and very exhausting conversations about her injury and its treatment in her future. But she couldn't even begin to try to process the implications of that right now. Regardless of her feelings at the moment, though, the fact remained that the doctor simply couldn't have infinite time to spend on her when he must've had other patients to attend to as well. So, with one last reminder of the time her surgery was scheduled for later tonight and a promise to keep her informed if anything changed, both of which Mari only vaguely acknowledged, the man eventually excused himself. Mari still couldn't bring herself to do much of anything while she watched him exit the room.

.

.

"Mari...?"

Mari felt a small jolt through her heart at the sound of the small voice from her side, barely above a whisper, yet somehow managing to pierce through the electric hum in her ears all the same. She might have startled from the noise if she weren't still so sluggish from numbness. Even so, however, it took her just a brief instant to react, her eyes trailing to the side the second she'd managed to process that it was indeed a voice she'd just heard.

...Oh, right. Sunny. Mari looked at him, curled up into the tiniest ball he seemed able to manage in his chair, his arms around his knees and his eyes wide as he stared at her... Was it bad that, somehow, Mari had almost forgotten he was still here after the bombshell the doctor had just dropped on her. Or, no... not forgotten, exactly, it wasn't her memory that was the issue. Logically she of course remembered that he hadn't left in the last few minutes or anything like that, she obviously would've noticed if he'd gotten up and walked by her to the door. Her ears may have been flooded, but her eyes were still working. It was more like... the spreading chill had clouded out so much that she stopped really registering him being there. Yes, that was a more accurate way to describe the feeling. She knew Sunny was sitting there, she just stopped thinking about it, which made it something unexpected when he suddenly snapped her attention back to him.

("But to actually answer the question, yes, of course it's bad you ignored him! What kind of sister are you?")

"Mari..." Sunny repeated when he saw her looking at him – though he dropped his eyes to avoid meeting his gaze. Mari felt a bit guilty for thinking it, but... that was probably for the best. She really didn't think she would be able to parse anything from staring into his eyes right now. All it would really do was make them both uncomfortable, so better to just let him avert his eyes if he wanted. "I'm-" Sunny started to say, but his voice hitched slightly – yet noticeably – and he paused. Mari saw his throat shift like he was swallowing something... She wondered if he had something like that feeling of a rock in the windpipe that had been plaguing her so frequently today.

"I'm... I'm sorry!"

The words burst out of Sunny's mouth so abruptly, his voice rising so much louder than it normally did – almost a shout, really – that this time Mari actually did startle, the hospital bed rattling just a little as she flinched from the loud noise stabbing at her. Sunny was sitting right by her bedside, after all, there were only a couple feet between the noise and her ears... Even if she knew he didn't mean it, it wasn't exactly pleasant for her sensitive hearing. If there was one good thing, though, at least the yell was so distracting that it managed to force to buzzing noise in her head into the background, at least for the moment. Small mercies.

Not that Mari was really focusing on that. Instead, she simply stared at him, blinking slowly a couple times while Sunny pulled in a shaky breath. She couldn't be sure exactly what expression she was making right now, but she suspected it was probably something blank... not the usual seemingly-emotionless flatness she often fell into, but more like something simply uncomprehending. The dull look of somebody who didn't understand a word of what they just heard – which would make sense because, of course, she didn't. Or, well, she understood the words. Literally speaking. Obviously Mari knew what the phrase "I'm sorry" meant, even with the odd void of empty feeling that seemed to have swallowed her, she hadn't forgotten something so utterly basic, that wasn't the issue here. This wasn't like her tuning out the doctor a minute ago either, this time she actually had paid attention to the words (if only because Sunny not only speaking up, but suddenly having such an outburst, had surprised her so much to demand her full attentiveness).

"...Why?" Mari managed to say at last. The word came out surprisingly raspy, she hadn't even realized her throat had become that dry until she tried to speak. She wished she hadn't already emptied both the drink Mrs. Rodriguez had brought her, and the small cup of water that had accompanied her dinner tray. It would certainly make talking a lot easier... not that she had much more to say than that one word anyway. Her brow furrowed a little as she looked at Sunny, "why" really did sum up all she could think right now, she truly didn't get why he was saying sorry at all.

Sunny's eyes snapped up to her in surprise at the question, a sharp, almost pained-sounding breath hissing from his lips. "You know why...!" he gasped, somehow managing to sound just as confused as Mari felt, like he actually had expected her to know what he was apologizing for. Sunny wrapped his arms around his knees even tighter than before, his knuckles starting to turn white. "Y-your knee. You can't...!" he stammered, a visible tremor across his shoulders.

...Oh.

Sunny clenched his eyes shut. "I'm sorry! It's my-"

"...Sunny." Mari cut off whatever he'd been about to say. She knew it was rude, but he was obviously getting more and more frantic and... she honestly didn't think she was in much condition to be able to muster up the calming attitude needed to talk him down from a full panic right now. She really didn't have the energy for it.

("Once again. Some sister you are.")

So instead all she could think to do was be honest. Sunny slowly opened his eyes again at her interjection, so slowly in fact that it seemed like he was trying to delay it as long as possible, as if he was dreading whatever he was going to see... not that it really made any sense to Mari when she interpreted it that way, since she was still just looking at him with (what she assumed was) a more-or-less neutral expression. There was nothing there to dread. Still, she waited until it was clear that she had Sunny's full attention before she spoke again – which was, in reality, only about a second, though it felt longer. At least that one second gave her the time she needed to swallow dryly in an attempt to clear the roughness of her throat a little. (It didn't really work.)

"I don't... want an apology." she said, frowning. She saw Sunny's eyes widen, visibly shocked, the instant he heard the words, and internally she immediately cursed herself for her bluntness. Her voice had sounded completely flat, missing the slightly gentler inflection she normally used when talking to him. It was still the truth, of course, she really didn't need any apologies from anyone about her leg, and most certainly not from Sunny. Even with... all that stuff Dr. Astora and the paramedic in the ambulance had said about physical therapy and not healing... the only reason this happened today was because she strained it too much by running. And the only person who decided she should run was Mari herself. That was just the simple fact of the situation, even with how exhausted and dulled she felt, she wasn't stupid enough to deny that. Sunny had nothing to do with that choice, and an apology from someone who wasn't involved... was just pity, really.

And Mari didn't want him to feel like he had to pity her. The thought made her feel a bit ill, if anything. Her little brother of all people didn't need to deal with that, it wasn't right. She didn't want it.

Sunny, however, didn't respond how she might have expected. Rather than accepting the words and dropping it, he instead visibly jerked his head in a flinch away, as if the blunt statement had physically struck him. His eyes had gone wide, staring at Mari with a mixture of shock and... something else that left a painful stabbing feeling inside her chest. Sunny sat there frozen like that for just a moment, only barely long enough that Mari thought she saw a glistening at the corners of his eyes... before he broke his gaze and hunched forward to bury his face in his arms, blocking his expression from view so all Mari could see was the messy black hair atop his head. That... She knew her reply hadn't been nearly as tactful as she would normally want. That much was obvious. But... wasn't this reaction a bit extreme...? She felt like she had just missed something massively significant between them, something that Sunny was thinking that she was unaware of... or something she'd done that she hadn't realized.

"Sunny..." Mari said again, her voice a little softer this time in an attempt at gentleness – though it still sounded rather dull to her ears, a poor imitation of her usual comforting tone. But it was all she could manage right now. Slowly, she raised her hand – and for some reason it seemed to take a disproportionate amount of effort to even lift her arm – and reached out to try to comfort Sunny, to rest her hand on his shoulder and maybe pull him into a hug if he was open to it...

But she wouldn't get the chance. The moment her fingers so much as grazed the fabric of his shirt, Sunny jolted violently, pushing back in his chair – all but throwing himself back into it, really – as if to shy away from her touch. His face was still stubbornly engulfed by his arms, but he pressed his head into his knees as if to hide behind them as well, balling up to cover as much of his head as possible. He wasn't actually out of Mari's reach, of course, he'd only moved a couple inches in reality. He couldn't exactly push any further back without tipping the chair over, after all. But Mari was so stunned by him recoiling at all that she didn't try to reach towards him again, simply sitting there frozen with her arm hanging in the air, fingers outstretched towards Sunny for several long seconds before they slowly curled and she let her arm fall limp again. She... she was trying not to acknowledge the faint feeling of hurt from the rejected touch. She really had just been trying to help, even if she was doing a horrible job at it...

Mari thought she heard another, whispered "I'm sorry..." come from Sunny's curled-up form. But the sound was so faint, so muffled from being muttered into his knees, that even with her abnormal hearing, she couldn't be sure she'd understood it properly. Or even that she'd heard it at all and not simply imagined the sound... On a normal day, Mari knew that there would have been – should have been – more she would do to try to reach out to him, both metaphorically and literally. She couldn't just ignore it when her little brother was so obviously distressed. But she didn't even understand why he was acting this way, she still didn't have even the faintest clue... Her head was starting to hurt trying to make sense of it. That wasn't a figure of speech, she thought she could literally feel a dull throb starting to form within her skull, somewhere behind her eyes... It sounded heartless to even think it, but it was becoming increasingly apparent with each passing second: she was too tired to be trying to piece together... whatever this was, much less to talk him through it.

From where she was sitting, Sunny's bout of misery had come practically out of nowhere, and she'd already had so many blindsides today... It was too much. And so all Mari managed to do was to just stare at him helplessly, even as part of her at the back of her mind cursed her uselessness in doing so.

.

*click-shunk*

...But there wouldn't be any more time for her to collect herself or try to do anything about it (not that she thought she had any real chance of doing either regardless), as the door slid open with its by-now-instantly-recognizable sound, smashing right through whatever little train of thought Mari had mustered. Like a foot right through a sandcastle. And the ones doing the kicking in this analogy – which Mari wasn't particularly surprised to see, she found – were of course Hero and Mrs. Rodriguez stepping into the room. It only made sense that they'd make their return shortly after the doctor's departure, after all. They had only left in the first place to give Dr. Astora space to talk without running afoul of patient confidentiality laws... and now that Mari was thinking about it, Hero had even said they would be back as soon as possible, hadn't he? Really, the fact that she hadn't one-hundred percent seen this coming was a testament to how slow her brain was running now.

The way the two entered the room was... odd. Mari couldn't glean much, if anything, from either of their expressions – though whether that meant there was nothing to read, or just nothing she was able to identify, was questionable. But what she could tell was the anxious way they carried themselves, their footsteps into the room noticeably slow. Almost hesitant. Something about the way Hero and his mom approached Mari's bedside honestly reminded her less of a couple people just visiting a resting friend... and more like how one might approach an animal which you weren't sure was comfortable around people or not. She wasn't even sure entirely why she was getting that vibe; besides the slow pace, nothing about it was incredibly overt, she couldn't point to any specific behavior from either of them that gave her that feeling. But it did all the same.

What was undeniable, though, was that the sight of Mari and Sunny did no favors for their moods whatsoever. Mari still couldn't be sure exactly what either of them were thinking. But considering the way Hero stopped before reaching the bedside as if hesitant to come too close, his brow visibly furrowing with concern, and his mother cast her gaze across the siblings with a growing frown... it wasn't hard to figure out that they were worried by what they'd walked in on. Mari supposed it must've been a concerning sight, Sunny curled up in his chair determinedly hiding his face, shaking slightly, and Mari herself- Well, she had no clue what her expression would look like from the outside. If she had an expression at all. But her sitting there uselessly, arm dangling limply over the bedside, her eyes staring... it couldn't exactly paint an encouraging picture, could it? It wouldn't take a genius to immediately figure out that something was wrong here, and Hero and Mrs. Rodriguez were far from dumb.

And sure enough... "Mari, Sunny! What happened, you guys? Are you alright?" Hero exclaimed, his eyes flitting between them, his hands fidgeting with apparent worry. Part of Mari wished that she could tell him that it was nothing, that they were fine, that it was just a small thing they'd be able to get through. Hero of all people deserved some peace of mind, after all the worry he'd been through today. But saying that would be lying. And besides, the feeling of wanting to reassure him was having to struggle against the same numb feeling that was choking out the rest of Mari's thoughts, so she wasn't convinced she'd be able to say such a thing even if it were true.

"Hero..." was all she managed instead, her voice just as dull and rasping as when she'd spoken to Sunny a minute ago.

"The doctor told us that you got some bad news, dear." Mrs. Rodriguez spoke up, and Mari's eyes drifted over to her... not that it helped to read anything more from the woman's expression now compared to a few seconds ago. The words themselves surprised Mari, though she supposed that in hindsight it made a certain amount of sense... The doctor legally couldn't tell them any confidential details – but a vague statement like "bad news" wouldn't include any of those details, now would it? It was as good of a status update as he could give them, considering the circumstances.

"...But I'm getting the feeling it was worse than just bad, wasn't it?" Mrs. Rodriguez continued, cutting through that train of thought, her voice going a little softer as she gave another glance at Sunny.

Sunny, for his part, seemed to sense the eyes on him despite his arms and knees still blocking his face... Or perhaps he was just reacting to Mrs. Rodriguez's words. Regardless of the exact source, though, Mari saw him flinch – slightly but still clearly noticeably – from the corner of her eye. Though she still couldn't even begin to figure out what he was thinking that had shaken him so badly, it seemed pretty apparent that continuing to talk about this wasn't going to make him feel any better... But was there really any other choice? Hero and his mom couldn't be left in the dark either, that wouldn't be fair to them, would it...?

.

"...Mari, dear, can you tell us what's wrong?" Mrs. Rodriguez prompted again, her voice having softened even more to a gentle sort of register. Like you might use when talking to someone who was frightened... which was strange, wasn't it? Because Mari wasn't scared. Mari didn't think she counted as being much of anything right now. Still, she looked up to see that both Mrs. Rodriguez and Hero were looking straight at her now, expectant... though Hero's eyes did flick over to Sunny a few times while he waited for Mari to respond, clearly worried about both of them.

There was no point in dragging it out anymore, was there?

.

.

Yet despite her reasoning, it was a long pause before Mari managed to make herself speak. She wasn't even sure where the hesitation was coming from – there still wasn't much of any distinct feeling discernible through the cold that would make her hesitate. She swallowed (unnecessarily, as there was nothing in her throat) and tried to focus on just saying the words. She needed to just get it over with and quit worrying Hero and his mother, they were both staring at her waiting for the answer, what reason did she have to deny it to them? None, obviously. It was just the facts, feelings and opinions weren't even relevant to begin with, why was she pausing over feelings that weren't even there? Mari breathed out slowly, hoping it would be enough to spur her brain into action enough to talk once more. Hearing the sound of her readying herself, if anything, only made the pair listening grow even more intense in their focus, the expectant silence falling heavier. Like the air itself was holding its breath.

"It's my knee. The doctor said... I won't be able to walk without a cane."

.

...Huh. Somehow, after needing to work herself up to saying that so much, Mari had really expected the admission itself to be... difficult. She'd been expecting it to be unpleasant even trying to talk, to have to force the words out, to struggle with a lump in her throat or a quiver in her voice. Saying it aloud meant acknowledging that it was real, after all. Meant admitting both to herself and the others that this was the truth and there was no way around it, nothing anyone could possibly say or do to make it better... Shouldn't saying it have hurt? Mari knew herself well enough that she could admit that she was actually pretty terrible at avoiding freaking out at this point. Running out of the house earlier today, and everything that followed, was just one of the more extreme examples. So she expected the admission to leaving her shaking and miserable, or manic from being overwhelmed, or just plain old too stressed out to speak, or... The point was, she should have felt something.

But she didn't. Besides a single, momentary pause in her sentence, the words came out shockingly easily, in the exact same sort of blunt, neutral tone as everything else she'd said since the doctor's departure. And internally, it was just the same: the only new feeling was the confusion over the lack of other feelings. Otherwise it was all still just as blank as it had been a minute ago. Idly, Mari noticed that the metallic buzzing sound had returned – thankfully not as deafening as before, but still noticeably there at the edges of her hearing. Or maybe it had never gone anywhere in the first place, and she was just bothering to acknowledge it again. Not like she could tell the difference.

Her odd neutrality towards the statement would not, however, be mirrored by her audience.

Mrs. Rodriguez pulled in a sharp breath, almost like a small gasp, the air audibly hissing past her teeth. Her brow crinkled, her forehead fraught with heavy lines, her hands crossing over her heart. Mari could only assume the look was meant to be something like worry or sympathy, or some combination thereof.

Sunny still refused to extract himself from his miserable curl or give any kind of input, but Mari thought she saw another flinch from the corner of her eye.

And Hero...

"Dios mío... Mari...!" the words escaped Hero almost breathlessly. Inappropriately, Mari was suddenly reminded of him trying to talk while winded from being tackled by an overexcited Hector. Only this was... a lot less funny. His eyes had blown wide, almost wider than Mari had known they could go. He'd taken a step towards her, seemingly on instinct, one arm raised halfway to reaching between them before he'd frozen for a moment, as if still trying to process what he'd heard.

Then he blinked, lowering his arm, and shook his head side-to-side sharply. "That's- No. No, there must be some mistake!" he declared suddenly. His voice took on a strange tone, almost passing for his usual easy air like he was trying to sound confident, but at the same time noticeably shaky. "Yeah, it's gotta be some kind of mixup, that's all, it'll be fine! We just need to call back the doctor and-"

"...Henry." Mrs. Rodriguez cut right through Hero's quickening speech... Huh, Mari had never thought of Hero as one to start babbling so easily, that was really more like something she'd do. Either way though, his mother's voice silenced him immediately, his mouth shutting awkwardly. Mrs. Rodriguez had torn her gaze away from Mari and was now looking at her son, though her concerned expression hadn't changed much. She met Hero's eyes for a moment before continuing. "I'm sure Mari knows what she's saying. This must be hard enough for her as is, she doesn't need you going off." she chided him gently.

Hero frowned deeply. "Mamá, I wasn't-!" he started to protest, but quieted himself again when Mrs. Rodriguez shook her head.

"These things are out of our hands. I'm sorry, mijo, I know this is a lot for you too, but right now the best thing you can do is keep a cool head and listen, alright? Be responsible for your madre." Her voice had dropped even softer when speaking, barely above a murmur, probably meant for Hero's ears alone. Though, of course, Mari was able to hear it as usual. Was it even really eavesdropping when they all knew full well that she was sitting right there on the bed anyway?

Hero opened his mouth slightly as if to say something in return, but then seemingly thought better of it and closed it again. He nodded slightly and Mrs. Rodriguez reached one hand up to pat him once on the cheek, giving him a small, approving smile for just an instant. It was a sweet scene, despite the circumstances, and on some level Mari couldn't help but feel a little frustrated that she lacked the energy to properly appreciate it. Or maybe frustrated wasn't quite the right word, that made it sound like she was displeased, when she really wasn't – not with this moment, anyway. Even if the warmth wasn't being directed at her, it was... nice. She was glad Hero had his mom to help keep him grounded, she really was... even if she was doing a horrible job of showing it right now. She was just having the same disconnected feeling plaguing her endlessly, which made it hard to focus on much of anything like this. And, of course, the soft moment was only a moment, and a second later reality dug its hooks back in.

"...There's no mistake." Mari said quietly as Hero and Mrs. Rodriguez turned their attention back to her. She looked up to briefly meet Hero's gaze, though she broke it an instant later. She didn't have the will to be holding eye contact right now. "He showed us the x-rays, it was pretty clear. My knee is shattered, and there's pieces of the bone broken off and just... stabbing into the muscles." she explained slowly. In a way, the sterile, ghostly x-ray images were probably a blessing, letting her see the issue without having to witness just how grisly the inside of her leg must've looked. Mari felt her stomach twist a little from imagining it, the room suddenly feeling even colder... which was strange, since she was quite certain she wasn't afraid of blood or related nastiness.

Hero's eyes had gone wide again, one hand clapped over his mouth as if to prevent another outburst. Or maybe just from shock. Actually, there wasn't really much of a distinction between those things in a situation like this, was there?

Mrs. Rodriguez, meanwhile, visibly winced. "Oh, dear..." she breathed, again fixing Mari with that worried look from before. "I'd worried it would be something like that when I saw how it looked before, but... you must've been hurting really badly." she murmured sympathetically.

Mari simply bit her bottom lip and shrugged. It was simply the truth, of course, it had been exactly as painful as Mrs. Rodriguez suggested. Even now, laying still with it secured soundly by straps to keep anything from getting worse, her knee still seemed to throb unpleasantly whenever she paid any attention to it. Nevermind how extreme it had been back at the park... But, well, it wasn't like any of them'd had any way of knowing this was the specific cause, Mari herself included, so... what was the point of complaining about it? She'd already been through the worst of it anyway, so really, while she recognized Mrs. Rodriguez's sympathy for how it was intended, there wasn't really much to say in response. Nothing any of them could really do about it.

"The doctor said it couldn't be left like that." she said instead, deciding to just get on with the explanation instead of dragging things out even further. "Or else it could get... a lot worse." She carefully decided not to elaborate on how much worse they were talking here – no need to worry anyone unnecessarily, right? (Besides, she didn't much want to think about it either.) "...So they're pushing up my surgery. It's tonight."

"Tonight?" Hero repeated, obviously surprised. Almost stunned by the revelation, really. He turned to his mother with his eyebrows knitting in worry. "Mamá, if that's true then we won't..." he trailed off uncomfortably.

"I know." Mrs. Rodriguez agreed with a grim nod of her head. Then she addressed Mari once more to elaborate on whatever they were thinking before she could even ask. "Visiting hours will be ending here in just a little while. So if your operation's tonight, then... we won't be able to be there with you when you wake up." she explained, looking at Mari apologetically.

.

That managed to get a reaction. Like a single crack in the shell of blank feelings that had wrapped itself so tightly around Mari. She felt herself freeze – not just sitting there limply like she had been until now, but actually lock up for just a second, her every muscle ridged like she had just taken a blow to the sternum. There was a quiet rasp like a sharp intake of air, and Mari realized only belatedly that it had come from her own nose.

They were going to have to leave. When she woke up from the surgery... besides the doctors and nurses, people she didn't know... she was going to be alone.

Mari knew it wasn't anyone's fault, of course. Neither Hero nor his mother – and certainly not Sunny – had any influence over the hospital's hours, and didn't really have any grounds to object to it either. And it couldn't even really be blamed on the hospital administration either, as the policy just made good sense. You obviously couldn't just have people coming and going all the time in the middle of the night when patients were needing to rest. This was a hospital, not one of those cheap roadside motels of the sort that always smelled faintly of cigarettes regardless of whether they allowed indoor smoking or not. Having daytime-only visiting hours was a perfectly reasonable limitation. So there was simply nobody to blame for Mari's predicament... Actually, was it bad that she was even looking for someone to blame in the first place? She got the feeling it was probably bad.

It didn't change the reality that she wasn't thrilled with the thought of waking up alone, though. She... really, really didn't like being left alone. That fact hadn't changed.

("Of all the thousand real problems you could be worrying about, it's your clinginess that's bothering you right now? What a joke.")

.

It probably wasn't even a rational worry. Logically, it wasn't like the hospital staff would just be leaving her to stew in her thoughts for a prolonged period of time. Obviously after an extensive surgery they'd be monitoring her fairly closely, so she was sure there'd be plenty of activity to occupy her mind even if it wasn't people she was familiar with. Or maybe the strain of the operation, combined with whatever painkillers they gave her, would be enough to leave her completely wiped so she could just pass out like a log throughout the whole night and not have to think about it. Visiting hours were opened again in the morning, so that'd be fine. Especially since Mrs. Rodriguez had promised that Kel and their other friends would probably be coming by tomorrow too. Yes, it was entirely possible – fairly likely, even – that it wouldn't turn out to be an issue at all, and Mari was simply working herself up for nothing.

Telling herself that didn't seem to really help the cold feeling settling in her gut, though.

But Mari tried to shove it down, hoping that her discomfort didn't show to Hero and Mrs. Rodriguez. She didn't need to be burdening them with even more problems on top of everything else. It seemed pretty obvious even to her that they weren't feeling any happier about this development than she was anyway, so why make things unnecessarily difficult for them? That would hardly be fair.

"...I understand." she said instead, though she wasn't quite able to keep herself from frowning as she did so. Her audience glanced at each other, as if having another silent conversation she couldn't understand, before looking back to her with matching frowns of their own. "No, really, I get it. It isn't your fault, so... It's fine." Mari hastened to insist before either of them could say anything in protest.

"...It's not really fine, Mari." Hero corrected her, his brow seeming to furrow even more from concern, if that were possible. "I'd stay here with you all night if I could." he said earnestly. So great was the sincerity packed into his voice, in fact, that for a second Mari almost thought she felt another crack in the wall of dull non-feeling around her. Part of her wanted to shrink away from Hero's gaze, feeling something almost like shame from the fact that she didn't have the energy to muster up the same sort of earnest consideration he was showing in return right now. She knew it was an irrational feeling, that he wasn't judging her or expecting reciprocation in the first place, but... Well, it wasn't unreasonable for Mari to feel undeserving when Hero was her point of comparison, was it?

.

So, rather than trying to respond, she decided to just switch back to the matter at hand and hope her discomfort hadn't been too obvious. (It probably was.)

"...Anyway, the point is, the surgery's later tonight, the doctor was saying it's already all scheduled and everything." she spoke up to reiterate before Hero or Mrs. Rodriguez could push the issue any further. "But the thing is, from how he was talking about it... The surgeons are going to try to reconstruct my knee, but it sounded like there wasn't much chance of doing it perfectly. Those bone pieces I mentioned, they're just going to have to be taken out, most likely..." Mari recounted slowly. She wasn't even sure why she suddenly sounded so uncertain about it. For all that it felt like longer, it'd only been a little bit since Dr. Astora had explained it to her, she hadn't forgotten. Hero and Mrs. Rodriguez listened on in silence, patiently waiting for Mari to finish her explanation at her pace.

"So that's why..." she said, shaking her head and frowning slightly, her gaze drifting idly down towards where her knee lay underneath the pastel blue blankets as she spoke. "That's why we're pretty sure I'm gonna need a cane to walk, part of my knee is just going to be gone... And there's only so much you can do with that, I guess."

.

.

"Oh, Mari..." Hero murmured softly. He took a few steps closer until he was right at the bedside, extending his arms. He leaned down towards her, when-

"Don't!"

-he froze abruptly midway through reaching for a hug when, all of a sudden, Mari's voice cracked sharply across the hospital room, deafening like a gunshot. Or maybe it had been just a normal command, perhaps raised just the slightest bit louder than normal speaking volume, and it only sounded deafening by comparison to the dull barely-above-mumbling she'd been doing since they came in. It wasn't like the distinction mattered much when it shattered the quiet of the room all the same.

Hero wasn't the only one surprised by it. His mother had started slightly where she stood, looking taken aback by the interruption – or at least, that was the best guess Mari had for her expression. From the faint sound of shuffling from the chair to her side, it seemed that Sunny had jolted from the shout too, repositioning himself and trying to scrunch into a smaller ball as if to avoid drawing attention to his startled response.

In fact, even Mari herself had been taken by surprise. She looked up with wide eyes, gazing at Hero's face where he'd frozen. He... he looked a little hurt as he slowly took in what she'd said and withdrew his arms. Mari knew on some level she should probably apologize, he didn't deserve her yelling at him like that... But she really hadn't even been planning to do that in the first place. She didn't even know why the demand had suddenly burst out like that, she hadn't been thinking about it. She hadn't thought she would even be capable of shouting right now, much less actually wanted to do it. With how out of it she had felt – how out of it she still felt, for that matter – this was just as shocking to Mari herself as it was everyone else. If not more. It was just that all of a sudden, her heart was pounding in her chest, and when she saw Hero reached for her, she just-

.

"...S-sorry." Mari croaked. Her throat felt heavy out of nowhere, like that feeling that she was swallowing a rock had returned. "It's just, please don't... touch me. Right now. I don't- I can't." she tried to explain with a dry swallow. Her words came out halting, mumbling. She wasn't even entirely sure what she was trying to say, what she couldn't do... She just knew the undeniable fact that, whatever it was, she couldn't. It was too much.

("You're not even making any sense now. ...If you were before.")

Hero, however, somehow appeared to understand what she was trying to say all the same.

"Right. Right! Of course. Sorry." he replied hastily, rubbing the back of his head with one hand and not quite meeting Mari's gaze. Not that she was particularly trying to meet his either, of course.

"Come on, let's step away and give her some space, dear." Mrs. Rodriguez spoke up, putting her hands on her hips and looking towards Hero. He blinked a few times at his mother's words, as if confused – before suddenly realizing where he was at the moment. Still standing there leaning on Mari's bedside, practically looming over her. Though Mari herself didn't really mind his proximity – as long as he wasn't outright touching her, it felt fine to her – Hero himself didn't seem to agree, as with a sudden jolt he pulled himself away from the bed quickly as if his mom's light chiding had set a fire beneath his feet. Sure enough, before anyone else could say anything, Hero had shuffled back over to his mother's side, though he still kept his eyes fixed with a concerned look towards Mari.

Apparently satisfied, Mrs. Rodriguez's head tipped in the slightest nod to Hero before she too refocused on Mari sitting in the hospital bed before her once more.

.

.

"...Alright, so listen, Mari. I know this whole thing with your leg has got to be frightening." the woman began, her voice somehow managing to be both gentle and matter-of-fact at the same time. Like she was trying to be upfront and straightforward, but kind about it. Or at least that was the impression Mari got. "But you're a strong girl. I know you can get through this, okay? Your life might be a little different, but I'm sure-"

"-Can we... not talk about this right now?" Mari interrupted, feeling herself frown. Mrs. Rodriguez paused, blinking down at her with an unreadable expression. A thread of guilt thrummed deep in Mari's chest, knowing that cutting the woman off like that was incredibly rude, but... she found that she didn't think she could take it back either. She hadn't been planning on just blurting that out, but with every word Mrs. Rodriguez had spoken, she'd felt her heart speeding up again, just like when Hero had tried to hug her a minute ago...

"I'm really not... ready for planning the future yet." Mari tried to explain, her hands rubbing at her arms as if to ward off the cold. Somehow, even though the chilly feeling in the room hadn't changed at all, she was suddenly noticing it much more sharply. It was probably just her imagination, but... That knowledge didn't really help much. "I'm just-" Mari paused for a moment, looking down, a feeling almost – but not quite – like frustration stirring in her gut. "I think I'm just really tired right now." she finally settled on, not looking up to meet Mrs. Rodriguez's gaze. It was absolutely the truth, she'd been exhausted before even arriving at the hospital and things had not gotten easier at any point since then. Yet somehow the admission still felt... embarrassing. Like she was burdening the others with her problems.

.

Silence hung for just a second, and Mari was about to open her mouth again, to apologize for her rudeness or... say something, when-

"...Of course, dear." Mrs. Rodriguez replied, nodding her head slowly. "You've had a really long day, haven't you? And it's only going to get longer, with your operation..." she noted sympathetically. It was probably meant to be a rhetorical statement, but Mari found herself giving a slight nod in response anyway. "You're right that you shouldn't have to deal with everything now. We'll handle it as it comes." Mrs. Rodriguez seemingly decided, putting her hands on her hips as if silently declaring "that's the way it is".

Mari blinked up at the woman, surprised that the matter had been conceded that easily. Not that she had any intention of arguing with the decision to drop it, of course, it was what she wanted all along. She really was too tired to keep talking about this, just like she said. But there was just something... weird about having an adult listen to her so easily. Her own mom would certainly have just told her she needed to suck it up and not bother other people with made-up issues.

But then, mom was...

She didn't want to think about that either.

.

.

Mari only realized that another awkward silence had fallen when Mrs. Rodriguez cleared her throat slightly. The woman appeared to be slightly distracted, glancing down at something on her arm, and- oh, she was just checking her wristwatch. That made sense.

"Well, anyway... Visiting hours really will be ending here soon." Mrs. Rodriguez commented matter-of-factly, a small frown on her face. She glanced over at Hero. "We should probably head out before a nurse has to come shoo us away." she pointed out.

"But mamá... Can't we-" Hero started to protest, looking between Mari and his mother with a frown of his own, this one noticeably deeper than Mrs. Rodriguez's shallow one. The older woman cut him off before he could finish whatever he was about to ask, though.

"No, Henry. Please don't argue with me. I'm not thrilled about it either, but we really do need to be going soon." Mrs. Rodriguez told him, her voice taking on just the slightest scolding tone – though certainly nothing too harsh, not at all comparable to the hard voice she'd used when speaking to mom earlier. The difference was practically night and day, in fact. If Mari didn't know for a fact this was the same woman who'd been berating mom earlier, she barely would have believed it, the gulf in her scolding tone compared to then was so vast.

"...You should go, Hero. I'll be fine." Mari told him, trying to give him an encouraging smile as she looked at him. It... probably wasn't very convincing. In fact, she knew it couldn't have been, because the words tasted like a lie on her tongue the moment she said them. There were many words Mari might use to describe herself right now, but "fine" was absolutely not one of them. And she was sure Hero and Mrs. Rodriguez must have known that just as well. It wasn't like her dull tone would be doing much to inspire confidence in anyone with, say, functioning ears. Even so, however... "I know you'll be coming back later. So it'll be okay." she insisted. She really didn't want Hero getting in trouble with his mother or anything, so... her own feelings would just have to come second right now.

Hero's frown only seemed to grow deeper with each word, so much so that Mari was almost starting to feel guilty for upsetting him... but he nonetheless nodded his head in grim acceptance, perhaps realizing that he had no good excuse to argue. If his mom was indeed telling the truth – and there was no reason to doubt that – then it was out of either of their hands. The hospital's visiting policies certainly wouldn't make exceptions for them.

.

All of a sudden, however, another though occurred to Mari. She felt stupid for not thinking of it earlier – was she really that out of it?

"Wait." she said abruptly, and both Hero and his mother's eyes snapped to her intently. The sudden focus might have been enough to make her flinch, if she weren't too tired to care. "What about Sunny? He can't stay here all night with me either." Mari pointed out.

A sharp inhale came from her side and Mari's gaze drifted over to see Sunny peering at her from between his knees, his eyes wide, like that realization had only just occurred to him too when she said it... When he saw she was looking, however, he quickly hid his face once more. So quickly, in fact, that if Mari hadn't seen herself reflected in his dark eyes, she might have thought she'd imagined the stare entirely. Whatever was going on with him, he still seemed to be too upset to respond to her...

(She was trying not to feel hurt by the clamped-down response. There must've been a good reason he was ignoring her this whole time, right...?)

"Sunny will be staying the night with us." Mrs. Rodriguez spoke up before Mari could think on the matter of Sunny's behavior any further. Her tone was straightforward in a way that brooked no argument, like the decision was already settled. Which it seemed to be – Mari certainly had no reason to argue. "And probably for the next few nights, too." Mrs. Rodriguez added as an afterthought. "I'd really rather he not have to go home to right now, with Rin there..." she pointed out.

"...I don't think that's a good idea either." Mari admitted uncomfortably. She didn't even know what she thought mom might do. If you'd asked her before today, she would've told you that the very idea of mom doing anything bad like that was unthinkable. Mom loved them, didn't she, so of course it'd be perfectly safe, that was an obvious fact. ...But after the events of today, everything she'd seen and heard earlier... That "fact" suddenly sounded a lot more dubious. Mari hadn't forgotten the feeling of mom's nails piercing her skin. Nor had she forgotten the way mom had advanced on Sunny earlier, gaze brimming with a moment of wild fury. ...No, "perfectly safe" didn't feel so safe anymore. It felt ugly to admit, even now after everything, but it was the truth.

"Right." Mrs. Rodriguez agreed crisply, giving a single sharp nod of her head. "I'll call your father here in a little while, tell him that Sunny's with us... I hope to god Nobuo pulls his head out of his backside and decides to be reasonable about this." That last comment was spoken as more of an aside to herself, her voice dropping to just above a mutter, though Mari still heard it clearly.

And she obviously wasn't the only one, as Hero turned to his mom with a growing look of concern. "...But what if he doesn't?" he asked, worry shading his voice. "What if Mrs. Takahashi's already gotten to him and he takes her side?"

Mrs. Rodriguez clicked her tongue. "...If that happens, then nothing changes. I'll just have to be less polite about it. We're still not leaving Sunny there, whether his father likes it or not... I'll just have to remind them that they already have CPS investigating them if they try to force the issue." she decided, her voice growing a little harder as she spoke. Now she was sounding more like the woman who'd been shouting at mom in the hallway before... though the animosity clearly wasn't directed at anyone present.

"Do you really think dad will do that?" Mari couldn't help but ask quietly. Mrs. Rodriguez looked at her for a long moment, an unreadable expression on her face, before replying.

"...I don't really know, dear. I feel like I barely know Nobuo these days, we haven't spoken two words in months. The man's off on business so often he never seems to be around. I really can't say how he'll react to all this. Honestly, I'd hoped you might have a better guess." the woman admitted.

"I-" Mari paused, feeling herself frown. "...I don't really know either." she realized, feeling her eyes widen slightly. Mrs. Rodriguez said she hadn't spoken to dad in months, but... when was the last time Mari had a conversation with him? A proper conversation, not just a brief hello over breakfast or a passing acknowledgment when he got home from work? ...The fact that she suddenly realized she didn't know the answer to that question was probably answer enough, wasn't it...? There was really no telling how dad would handle this situation when he found out. It was... it was like trying to predict a stranger. That felt wrong to say, but deep down, she couldn't deny it.

Today really did just keep getting more bizarre, didn't it?

...Mari was ready for it to be over.

Chapter Text

Sunday morning arrived quietly and with little fanfare. The torrential rain from the previous day had finally, finally subsided sometime during the night. The weather still wasn't exactly what anyone would call "clear" or "bright", but the blanket of gray clouds covering the sky had formed a few cracks which rays of sunlight were starting to break through, glimmering in the misty air the rain had left behind. Or at least, that was what Mari could observe through her hospital room's window when she awoke that morning. At some point, someone – a nurse, presumably – must have come in and opened the blinds, because she was fairly certain they'd been closed last night. Either way, though, it allowed a few shafts of the hazy golden sunlight to filter into the room... Though, rather than a cozy sight like it might have been at home, Mari mostly thought the illumination just cast the room's total lack of color into even starker relief. Being lit up by a bit of sun only made it more obvious just how bland the white walls and gray flooring really were.

Really, Mari's awakening that day was... almost startling in how uneventful it was. With her operation that night, she'd been expecting... she wasn't even sure exactly what she was expecting. Just something more. There had been this sense of anticipation, maybe even dread, hanging over her head from the moment the doctor had told her she would need surgery. And that had only built up further and further with every passing minute after Mrs. Rodriguez, Hero, and Sunny had departed and the hour of the surgery had drawn nearer. Yet today, when she'd first woken up, for a minute things had almost felt... normal. Nothing about waking up in the hospital bed that morning felt that different from a regular day at home. She was groggier than usual, her head heavy and her arms weak enough that she had to really concentrate to muster the strength to push herself up – but even that was hardly an unfamiliar feeling, considering the long nights of studying she occasionally had to do to keep up with her college prep classes.

If anything, she'd say the most notable thing she was feeling... was the near-complete lack of feeling. Not in quite the same way as last night, either. That had been a sort of pervading, absolute cold that left her feeling too numb, too overwhelmed, so that it seemed to create a sort of invisible shell around her that blocked out her feelings. This current sensation wasn't that. It wasn't stifling in the same way, she didn't feel suffocated or like she was blocking things out... She just didn't really feel much of anything. Just sort of neutral. About everything. The things that had been bothering at the back of her mind nonstop before seemed to have stilled when she woke up. The scratchiness of the hospital bed's blankets, the tangles in her hair, the throbbing of the bruises on her face, they were all just... not barraging her anymore. And in their place, they left... nothing in particular, really. Just an odd sort of silence. Mari knew logically that there should be something there – it wasn't like any of her issues had actually gone away – but she just didn't feel it. Or much of anything else, for that matter. Even something as simple as the temperature in the room, she wouldn't be able to tell you if it was cold or warm.

Actually, no. That wasn't entirely true. The dull, pounding pain in her knee was still there, ever-present as always. It was her familiar companion at this point, and it would seem even this feeling of blankness wasn't enough to get rid of it. Yet, even that was a sort of oddity by itself, when she really thought about it. Because sure, the pain was familiar, but that was just it: it was the same old dull pain she was used to. Considering that her knee had been quite literally cut open and stitched back together less than twelve hours ago – on top of everything else that had happened to it yesterday – shouldn't it really have been a whole lot worse than usual? That would only make sense. Yet somehow it didn't, it was grinding at the back of her mind at its normal level. Which was still unpleasant, but it was an unpleasantness Mari had plenty of practice ignoring, rather than something more awful and extreme. So... even that pain actually was being quieted, wasn't it? Just not fully.

...In hindsight, that was all probably down to the painkillers. Considering the extent of the damage to her knee and the invasive level of surgery that would be needed to address it, Mari had been told they would be putting her on some very heavy analgesics after the operation. Stuff much, much more potent than the over-the-counter meds she was used to taking at home for her migraines. She felt fairly safe assuming said painkillers were being steadily delivered through the IV tube now hooked up to her arm.

Huh, was that really what it took to get her brain to stop feeling like it was attacking her for a few minutes? Enough drugs to incapacitate an elephant? ...That was probably pretty sad, wasn't it?

.

.

Now that she was thinking about it, though, the surgery itself had been strangely uneventful as well. ...Or at least, she assumed so. Mari herself didn't really... remember much of it at all. That whole part of the previous night was a shadowy blur, and the harder she tried to recall it, the more details seemed to slip from her grasp. Which was to be expected, all things considered. Given that she'd been fully unconscious from anesthesia throughout the operation, of course that part would just be a huge blank spot in her memory. She'd be extremely worried if it wasn't. Mari had heard some of those horror stories of people waking up mid-surgery. That was the sort of topic she wouldn't dare to discuss around Sunny because she knew it'd give him horrible nightmares, and for good reason. So she was frankly quite glad that hadn't happened to her, the minor disorientation from the gap in her memory the anesthetic caused was a small price to pay in comparison.

Mari supposed that she must have been out of it for pretty much the whole night afterwards, because she didn't remember much of anything from then either. She'd been told it could take hours for the anesthetics to wear off, but even so, it might have been possible for her to regain consciousness here and there – even if she wouldn't necessarily be fully lucid at the time. But no, she didn't remember anything of the sort, not even vaguely. She was pretty sure she'd just slept like a log through the whole night. When she'd finally roused herself – groggy as it was – she'd found that an oxygen mask had been placed on her at some point, but a nurse had arrived soon after and removed it upon seeing she was awake. Apparently it was just a standard precaution for patients under anesthesia and was safe to take off once she was conscious.

Dr. Astora hadn't come back to see her yet – Mari hadn't been awake for that long, and she didn't even know exactly what time it was. He may not have even started his shift at the hospital yet, for all she knew. But she had to imagine her surgery had gone reasonably well. Or at least... as well as it could, given the severity of the damage. If there had been any sort of complications, she assumed that was something she would've been informed of as soon as possible. The doctor had seemed pretty insistent on it being a time-sensitive operation, so if something had gone seriously wrong, they definitely would've already been doing something about that rather than just leaving her to sleep it off. The nurse that came in hadn't seemed particularly urgent either (though Mari didn't really get a chance to question her).

So she was... assuming things had gone alright. For now.

In the meantime, she'd discovered that her leg had been secured in place with proper bindings – rather than just the straps they'd been using before – while she was asleep. It wasn't a full cast yet, just a splint along with some bandage wrappings to cover the surgical incisions. Though if Mari was remembering right, this was probably meant to be a temporary measure as well. It was one of the things Dr. Astora had tried to explain to her last night, the technical spiel while she'd been so shellshocked that she mostly just tuned it out... But she was pretty sure she recalled something about being given a splint while she recovered from surgery, and then a full cast for her leg later on. She just hadn't caught exactly how long "later on" would be. What she did know, however – going off her previous experience with breaking her leg – was that once they did give her a cast, she'd probably be expected to wear it for at least six weeks. Maybe longer, since she hadn't had surgery the first time.

Regardless, though, it would be quite awhile before she'd be in any position to bend that knee. (Not that she was in any rush to do so. Even with the painkillers dulling her feelings, that sounded viscerally unpleasant right now.) ...Really, the fact that she did have that prior experience with a broken leg was almost a blessing here, since she had already been able to get accustomed to the feeling of having her leg bound in outstretched position 24/7. This splint would be far more uncomfortable if she hadn't already gotten used to that discomfort the first time around.

...Though maybe "blessing" was the wrong word here, since that first accident was what had weakened her knee to cause the second one in the first place. She never would've been in position to have this current injury if it weren't for the previous one. This current injury that just compounded the damage from before. Damage that she had... apparently... been supposed to receive physical therapy and support for, but hadn't. This current injury that would... have permanent repercussions...

.

The room suddenly felt a little colder. Mari shivered.

She didn't want to think about this anymore.

...She hoped a nurse would bring her breakfast or something soon so she could distract herself. Even if the hospital food was just as unappetizing as it had been last night, at least it'd give her something constructive to focus on. Anything was better than just sitting here, waiting for something to happen.

.

.

.

.

It was getting close to lunchtime now, and Mari was bored. It was odd, in a way, since she would really have expected she ought to be feeling something else by now. Shouldn't she have been feeling... she didn't even know, anxious or something? There were a lot of things hanging over her head and she really shouldn't be this calm about them... Now that she could look back on it, yesterday had been dropping problem after problem on her without rest, hadn't it? Or maybe it'd be more accurate to say it was unearthing problems that already existed. Like digging up a treestump and finding countless beetles and worms crawling around beneath... Except Mari probably would've been happier to see the bugs, honestly. She didn't mind bugs one bit as long as they were outdoors where they belonged. Sure, it could feel a little uncomfortable if she let them crawl on her skin, but it wasn't like she made a habit of that (grossing out Hero as a joke notwithstanding). So really, she would be perfectly content to just let the bugs go about their business.

...And she was getting sidetracked overthinking bug analogies now. That was how bored she was. Which was pretty much the exact problem, really: rather than anything actually relevant , much less helpful, Mari was pretty much just stuck sitting here with her mind wandering aimlessly. She knew logically that there were plenty of things she should be feeling and trying to think through... but she just couldn't seem to bring herself to focus on any of it. Maybe part of that was another thing that could be chalked up to the painkillers she was on. It was sort of difficult to really concentrate on these things when everything around her just felt sort of vaguely dulled and indistinct. Idly, Mari wondered if this was sort of like how androids in science fiction would see things. Self-aware and all that, but just sort of detached from fully feeling the world.

Either way, though, she really wished she had something to do. She'd been stuck pretty much just sitting here for hours at this point. Dr. Astora had come in awhile ago, maybe an hour or so after breakfast. But he'd mostly just served to confirm the things Mari had already been thinking anyway. He'd detailed the operation to her some more – probably reiterating a lot of information that he'd tried to give her last night that she'd failed to process, if she had to guess – but the main takeaway she got was largely that her earlier guesses were correct. The surgery hadn't had any serious complications that anyone was aware of so far (though they would of course be keeping an eye on her recovery to be sure). And they'd probably be removing the splint and fitting her with a proper cast in a couple days. Not particularly groundbreaking revelations compared to what the doctor had dropped on her head last night.

Absorbing that information hadn't really done much to keep her occupied, though. Mari was sort of at the point where she had no choice but to just take in whatever developments occurred. Well past that point, actually – thinking back, she'd really had very little say in anything that happened to her ever since she'd woken up in the back of that ambulance yesterday. All the important decisions were basically made for her, and she was simply informed afterwards... Logically, she understood the necessity, of course. She wasn't that ignorant. These were time-sensitive issues and pandering to her feelings wasn't a reasonable expectation. Even so, however, she was forced to admit to herself that it did feel a little like she was being jerked back and forth, even if it was irrational... She probably would've even been outright frustrated, if it weren't for – again – the amount of painkillers she was on keeping her from mustering the energy. So instead, she was just stuck sitting here idly.

And Mari had never liked being idle, not by herself. She was usually perfectly content to chill out and relax with Sunny and their friends around, but when she was left alone? ...It bore repeating how much she hated that feeling, and she'd very quickly get restless in trying to distract herself from it. At home she'd do things like chores or cooking or extra music practice – though that last one wasn't an option anymore, she reminded herself, she'd promised Sunny – anything she could think of that seemed productive or that needed doing. But here and now? There was nothing like that available to occupy her. The hospital room did have a TV mounted on the wall up near the ceiling in one corner, but Mari suspected a nurse had misplaced the remote or something, because it wasn't on the bedside table or anywhere else in reach. (Plus, she wasn't sure she was quite desperate enough for daytime television. Yet.)

.

...Ha. What a strange situation. The more she thought about it, the more bizarre and surreal it sounded. Here Mari was, hospitalized, with everything that had been dumped on her lap at once yesterday – and wasn't it telling that the actual no-exaggeration near death experience somehow felt like the least of it? And she was sitting there bored. The predominant feeling she could muster up was restlessness. She was actually thinking about how she'd rather be doing chores at a time like this! Just unbelievable. Unreal. If anyone had told her this would be an actual situation she'd be dealing with, she would not have even considered buying it for a second, but here it was... She really was-

*click-shunk*

...Mari was pretty convinced at this point the sound of that door opening was going to be embedded in her psyche for years to come. But even so, at the moment, she found her eyes immediately, almost eagerly, snapping up to see who was coming in. Perhaps it went without saying, given the all-consuming boredom she'd just spent the last who-knows-how-long mentally repeating to herself, but the distraction offered by someone arriving was a very welcome prospect right now. And even more so when she laid eyes on the specific person – or rather, people, plural – in question. Even with the dull haze that seemed to be clouding all her feelings at the moment, Mari could have sworn she felt a sensation of something lightening in her chest. Just a little. It wouldn't have surprised her if her flat expression had brightened a bit, instinctively, though she of course couldn't say for sure. Before she could say anything to greet them, however-

"Mari!"

-A rather shrill shouting voice that could only belong to Aubrey pierced through the still air. Before Mari had even fully registered the word, the younger girl's form was already moving from the doorway, practically a blur as she darted across the room, black-and-pink-streaked hair bouncing behind her. Aubrey wasted absolutely no time, as the second she reached the bedside, she was practically lunging towards the bed to wrap her arms around Mari in a tight hug. Almost unconsciously, a small "oof!" passed Mari's mouth from the smaller girl impacting with her chest, all but forcing the surprised breath from her lungs. In that moment she felt rather more like she was being tackled than hugged. It was easy to forget sometimes, with Aubrey's smaller frame – she was definitely shorter than Mari had been at that age, let alone now – but the girl was really pretty strong. Strong enough to arm wrestle with Kel and win just as often as not.

Speaking of Kel...

"Geez, are you trying to break her ribs?" Kel's voice, too, echoed across the hospital room, more sedately than Aubrey's (but still probably a little louder than was strictly polite). He'd entered the room behind her while Mari was a bit distracted with the sudden presence of arms seemingly trying to compress her lungs. Kel crossed his own arms across his chest and looked at Aubrey, both eyebrows raised, in an expression that appeared... suspiciously similar to the sort of expectant or scolding looks Hero would sometimes give. Part of Mari wondered idly if he was doing that on purpose or not.

"Shut up, Kel!" Aubrey snapped back, so quickly it was almost like reflex, her head whipping around to glare at him. Despite her apparent indignation, however, she nonetheless seemed to concede the point, as she did release her arms and pull away from Mari – who meanwhile tried not to make her greedy inhaling for breath too obvious, though she wasn't sure if it succeeded. Aubrey still stayed quite close to the bedside, though, noticeably making no effort to step back much, if at all. She just wasn't actively leaning into Mari's space to embrace her anymore.

"...Aubrey, Kel-" Mari started to greet them, even as she tried to shake off her surprise from the sudden hug. It hadn't been uncomfortable or anything – despite Kel's snarky remark, it hadn't come remotely close to actually hurting her at all – but it had simply been so sudden that Mari couldn't help but be taken aback. Whatever she was going to say as she tried to collect herself, however, was cut off when Aubrey whirled to face her once more...

And then Aubrey's hand collided with Mari's shoulder with a soft "thump".

"Whoa, hey!" Kel's voice yelped in the background. But it would go unacknowledged by both girls, seemingly too distracted by the act to pay attention to much of anything else right then.

Mari's eyes trailed to her shoulder on instinct, staring at where the pastel fabric of her hospital gown had been slightly ruffled for a moment. Truthfully, she'd barely even felt the impact. It wasn't like Aubrey had hit her very hard to begin with – it really couldn't be called anything much more severe than an agitated shove. And between that and the sheer amount of painkillers in Mari's system still dulling her sense of feeling to a degree that almost felt excessive (she was pretty sure it was only the fact she was just coming off surgery today that warranted this level of sedation), well. If she were being entirely honest, it was only the fact that she'd directly seen Aubrey's action that made it apparent... if her eyes were to be covered for some reason, she suspected she might very well not have registered the hit at all.

Before Mari could even try to figure out why she'd done that, Aubrey balled her fists up at her sides, her mouth twisting into a frown. "You... You scared me, you jerk!" she accused, and...

Oh. It was then that Mari noticed the corners of Aubrey's eyes sparkling, holding back unshed tears.

So that was what this was.

"Aubrey..." Kel, in a rare occasion, seemed to be at a loss for words at the moment, looking just about as surprised as Mari felt while he too approached her bedside. His eyebrows were knit in open concern as he glanced between the two of them. Mari couldn't help but notice, however, that he didn't say anything to disagree with Aubrey's exclamation either – and considering that this was Kel and Aubrey, that was certainly notable. If either of them had even the remotest gripe with something the other said, they would typically be all too quick to needle each other about it. A fact anyone who'd been around the two of them would doubtless be aware of, much to Hero and occasionally Basil's chagrin. So the fact Kel wasn't voicing any objections to such an emotional statement... was probably a sign that his own feelings weren't so different.

Mari... supposed she really ought to have seen this coming, in hindsight. A very familiar brand of guilt from yesterday's events bubbled up in her stomach once more. Of course her other friends would still be upset and worried because of her. Sunny and Hero at least been there to find her, and had been able to see her yesterday, to talk to her and know that she was... Well, "okay" was definitely not the right word, considering... everything. But to know that she was still here. The others, though, they would've had to make due with getting updates on her situation secondhand, and that... just wasn't good enough. Mari knew that if positions had been reversed, if it were one of the others going missing and then sent to the hospital injured, it wouldn't really matter if she knew intellectually that they'd make it through. Deep down, she just wouldn't be able to truly believe it until she was able to see them in person. It was irrational, but that didn't make it any less true. So who could ever blame them for feeling the same?

"...Hey, come here." Mari said softly, holding her arms out. It was all the answer the distraught girl in front of her needed, Aubrey immediately leaning forward to let Mari repay the hug she'd given a few moments ago. Though this embrace was, of course, far gentler than that one, with Mari carefully pulling Aubrey close to her side – not so different from how she'd done with Sunny the day before. Idly, her fingers carded through the younger girl's hair, very gently so as not to tangle it. Aubrey had clenched her eyes shut momentarily, and if a slight, embarrassed hiccup may have come from her throat, well. Nobody would draw attention to it. Even Kel didn't see fit to point it out for once.

Something about the moment was almost... nostalgic, really. The context was entirely different, not really that comparable at all. But Mari's mind couldn't help but go back to her very first meeting with Aubrey, when she'd lost her shoe and become so overwhelmed failing to find it that she'd ended up sitting on the roadside, crying. Mari and the others – Sunny, Hero, and Kel – had all agreed that they couldn't just leave her like that, so of course they'd offered to help. Mari supposed that was why this reminded her of that... She'd of course let Aubrey lean on her (both metaphorically and literally) as much as needed, just like back then.

(Part of Mari did wish she could actually feel the warmth from the hug fully, but with her sense of touch so out-of-tune, it wasn't really there. But that was her own problem to deal with, not anything to burden Aubrey with.)

"Listen, I'm here and I'm not going anywhere, okay?" she told the smaller girl in her arms. Aubrey didn't say anything, but Mari felt her head shift in what was probably supposed to be a nod. Privately, Mari hoped that her words weren't a lie. Sure, she didn't mean for them to be, she certainly wasn't planning on anything happening to separate her from her friends. She would never have wanted that in the first place, running off yesterday had just been from... not thinking, not because she'd actually intended to worry anyone like that. But, well. Considering how things weren't even finished being upended in her life, with CPS now investigating her family and whatever might come of that... It might not be her choice whether anything happened from this point.

But there was nothing to be done about that now. She didn't want to think about it.

Looking up from Aubrey, Mari found herself not-entirely-intentionally locking eyes with Kel for a moment. Clearly catching her gaze, he immediately broke out one of his wide, gap-toothed grins and held up one hand in a thumbs-up, as if he was approving of... Actually Mari wasn't even sure what he was smiling about exactly, whether it was a show of support for her attempts at comforting Aubrey, or just happiness from seeing her in general. Maybe some combination of both. Yet... It was only the fact that Mari had known him so long – and the fact that this was Kel, who was not very subtle with his expressions to begin with – that allowed her to notice something ever-so-slightly off with his smile. She almost thought she was imagining it at first, but no, it definitely looked a little more forced than usual. It didn't take a genius to figure out why, though, and Mari certainly didn't intend to confront him about it. He must've been worried too.

.

"Hey, guys-" Another voice suddenly rang through the air, and a glimpse of movement from the doorway (which Kel had left open) caught Mari's eye. A head of blonde hair peeked around it, and just a second later, Basil entered the room as well, his green sweater visibly ruffled as if he'd just been moving around rather more quickly than usual. "-did you have to run ahead like that?" he asked, between a few slightly-panting breaths.

Another set of footsteps echoed from the hallway, and a second later, Mrs. Rodriguez stepped into the room behind Basil, sliding the door shut as she did so. Mari... supposed that made sense. Somebody would've had to drive the kids here, and since Kel was there, Mrs. Rodriguez was the most likely option. Plus, hadn't she said something about escorting them over here today? Mari thought she recalled something like that being mentioned last night, though it was admittedly vague. Given everything else that had been going on that night, minor conversational details were not exactly rising to the top of her memory.

"...So, um, what's going on?" Basil wondered, looking between Mari and Aubrey curiously, seemingly having just noticed the way Aubrey was clinging to her.

Aubrey took in a sharp breath, as if just realizing she was being watched. "Nothing!" she replied quickly, and just as quickly pulled back from the hug and took a small step away from the bedside while she spoke. "It's nothing, don't worry about it!" she insisted. Her cheeks looked a little red and her eyes were noticeably averted, not looking at Mari, Basil, or Kel. Like she was embarrassed... though personally, Mari didn't quite understand what there was to be embarrassed by. But she decided not to push Aubrey on it, instead looking up at Basil (who appeared somewhat confused by the whole exchange, if Mari was reading him right).

"Actually, it's not nothing, I was just going to apologize." Mari corrected, giving a small shake of her head. She closed her eyes for just a moment, to try to gather her thoughts a little (and, perhaps, to give herself a small reprieve from meeting anyone's gazes). "For making you all worry because of me." she clarified. "I know yesterday was... a lot, and I didn't mean to scare anyone." Mari spoke slowly, her voice hitching slightly on "a lot".

"Hey! Don't apologize, it's not your fault." Aubrey huffed, and Mari opened her eyes to see the younger girl glancing away with her arms crossed, a frown on her face. Mari tactfully decided not to remind Aubrey that she'd been the one to accuse Mari of scaring her just a minute ago – she knew she didn't really mean anything by it, so much as just being (understandably) upset.

Kel snorted, crossing his own arms as well. "Yeah, I can't believe Aubrey's actually right-" He ignored the glare that Aubrey immediately snapped over to him in response to that little potshot. "-but she totally is. You don't gotta apologize for anything." he agreed, nodding his head sharply.

"You guys..." Mari began, swallowing. But she suddenly found herself at a loss for words as she glanced between the two of them, looking for any hint of insincerity – any hint that they didn't mean what they were saying. But she found none. Not that she'd really expected to see any such thing, she certainly wouldn't want to accuse her friends of lying like that, it'd be completely rude and uncalled for. But there was just a part of her that was finding it hard to believe that they were just refusing to blame her. That they were letting her off that easily. While she'd fallen silent, however, Basil took the moment to speak up, apparently having grasped the situation well enough to give his own input as well.

"...We were worried about you, not because of you." he corrected. His voice was gentle, as it often was, but unless Mari was imagining it, there was something solid to it. He was speaking softly, sure, but not wavering like he did when he was nervous or uncertain. Still, Mari felt the corners of her mouth tilting ever-so-slightly in a frown of confusion over what he meant – and he must have seen it, as he immediately elaborated. "It's... not the same thing, I think. If something happens because of somebody, then they're responsible for it. But if we're worried about something, then that's on our side, and it's just because... we care about them." he explained.

"That's-" Mari started to protest, almost on instinct, because there was no way things could actually be that simple, right? But yet again she stopped herself – this time not from a lack of words, so much as a sudden realization. As much as her kneejerk reaction was to say his words weren't making sense... that wasn't really true, was it? Mari did understand what Basil was talking about. Her mind went back to that day that Sunny had almost drowned... She hadn't been mad at him for that, she wouldn't have ever dared to think it. Oh, part of her had been absolutely furious with worry, of course. That probably showed in how she'd forbidden them from going back there after that. But that was just her stress and fear from the situation as a whole. She'd never blamed Sunny for it or expected any kind of apology. It wasn't some sort of wrong that he needed to make amends for or anything like that. In fact, Mari hadn't really blamed Hero or Kel for that incident either, even though they arguably were partly responsible. Because assigning blame wasn't the point.

So Mari was pretty sure she got what Basil was trying to say.

But even so, she found herself shaking her head. "...But this isn't one of those times." she pointed out, her frown deepening as she did. Her voice came out... a little flatter than she'd really intended, to her ears. She hadn't been trying to be so blunt. "I did do something to cause all this. I mean, nobody made me run off like that."

.

Kel, Aubrey, and Basil all traded glances for a second, though Mari couldn't get a read on what any of them were thinking. Not even Kel, whose expressions were usually more obvious to her. Speaking of Kel, though, he was the first one to speak up between them, presumably giving voice to whatever the three had been thinking in that moment.

"Uh... Your mom kinda did, though?" he said, somewhat uncertainly like he wasn't sure whether it was a statement or a question. His brow furrowed deeply, visible even with his shaggy brown hair partly obscuring his forehead. "Nobody made her be a total jerk to you, but she did it anyway." he pointed out, crossing his arms across his chest as he did.

"Yeah!" Aubrey put in to agree, loudly – perhaps a little too loudly, as Mari felt herself reflexively flinch at the volume. Though she wasn't sure exactly how obvious her cringing was, Aubrey appeared to notice it nonetheless, if the way her cheeks dusted pink from embarrassment again was anything to go by. When the younger girl next spoke, it was at a somewhat more reasonable volume. "This wouldn't have happened if your mom just quit acting like a bully." she said, echoing Kel's opinion (and more-or-less confirming what they'd been agreeing on with their silent conversation a moment ago).

Basil, meanwhile, remained silent, and was looking at Mari with a small, awkward smile that looked almost apologetic (at least so far as she could tell)... But he too was slowly nodding his head in agreement with Aubrey and Kel's words nonetheless. The air of apology wasn't because of what they were saying, but more as if he felt like they were right about it, even though it was such an uncomfortable subject.

Before Mari could even try to respond to all of that – to try to pull together her thoughts into something coherent, which felt painfully slow in that moment (another thing she was choosing to blame on the painkillers she was on) – she would be interrupted by a soft snort piercing through the brief second of silence that had filled the air. Eyes trailing over towards the direction of the sound, Mari found herself blinking a couple times as she saw Mrs. Rodriguez with her arms crossed, leaning her back against one wall, as if observing the whole room.

Somehow, Mari had almost forgotten the woman was there, even though she'd clearly seen her come in with the others. That was probably pretty impolite, wasn't it? But it wasn't like she was even trying to be rude, she'd just gotten caught up in talking to her friends, and Mrs. Rodriguez had been so quiet thus far... Actually, that was pretty weird, now that Mari thought of it. Why hadn't the older woman really said or done anything? She'd been pretty much completely silent since she'd arrived a few minutes ago – or at least, if she'd tried to say anything at any point, then Mari certainly wouldn't have known it, and it seemed like none of the others did either. She... supposed that the older woman might have been content to let the kids have their moment and give them a chance to talk amongst themselves rather than interrupting, but that was little more than just aimless guesswork at this point. Not that there would be much time for her to ponder over it right now.

"They're right, you know." Mrs. Rodriguez said matter-of-factly, pushing herself away from the wall to take a couple steps closer to the bedside (though not approaching quite as near as Kel or Aubrey yet). "If you ask me, if there's one person to blame for this mess, it's Rin. And certainly not you." She spoke with that sort of solid tone that parents always seemed to know how to use, not harsh or scolding exactly, but not brooking any arguments either. Mari wasn't exactly sure what to call it – "absolute", maybe? Mrs. Rodriguez was just speaking like it was a straightforward, undeniable fact and it'd be silly to think otherwise.

Once again, however, Mari wouldn't even be given a chance to come up with any possible response to that. Instead, Mrs. Rodriguez simply kept talking, not leaving any lingering silence to give her previous words much time to stew before she continued.

"...But anyway, enough about that for now." the woman declared, shaking her head sharply for emphasis. "More importantly... Mari, dear, how did your surgery last night go?" she asked, looking at Mari with a small frown, her eyebrows knitting slightly. "Since you're up and talking, I'm hoping it's... well?" she probed carefully.

.

Right. Of course. Mari blinked, suddenly feeling rather foolish. The surgery... Obviously that was something one of them would ask about. With Sunny, Hero, and Mrs. Rodriguez having to leave her alone due to visiting hours ending before the operation last night, none of her friends would know how it turned out until she was able to update them herself today... No wonder it'd be a pressing issue. It should have been a more pressing issue to Mari, too, if she were actually thinking about this logically. She definitely should've explained it right away. It was just so easy to get distracted talking to her friends, so easy to get carried away and caught up in whatever was going on in the moment rather than looking at the big picture... To the point where she hadn't even realized she was stalling on the critical issue until Mrs. Rodriguez drew attention back to it just now. And from the way Aubrey, Kel, and Basil all visibly stiffened, they must have realized it too. All eyes were on her now, if they weren't before, like the whole room was holding its breath.

"It went-" Mari had to pause to clear her throat for a second, her otherwise-neutral words suddenly feeling a little scratchy, though she wasn't quite sure why. "It went about as well as it could." she hedged. It wasn't a very helpful answer, she knew that without anyone having to say it, though it was also completely true from her understanding. Still, though, she should at least try to be more specific.

"A bunch of the pieces of my kneecap weren't fixable, so those are... gone." she explained slowly. She was making an effort to pick her words carefully, trying not to mention anything too graphic (like the fact that quite a few of those unsalvageable fragments had been stabbing into the inside of her leg like knives) so as not to disturb the younger kids. While Kel and Aubrey probably wouldn't mind too much if she mentioned something gross, Basil could be... squeamish. The last thing Mari wanted was to go giving him nightmares.

"But they were able to piece together what was left without anything going wrong." she paused and gave a small shake of her head, trying to clear it a little – though this was a futile effort with the faint haze of medication still hanging over her. "...Or, anything wrong so far, anyway. They're going to be keeping a close eye to make sure it doesn't get infected or anything." she amended her statement, gesturing vaguely towards her knee with one hand. Not that they'd actually be able to see the bandages covering the surgical incisions very well beneath her blankets, but that was what she was indicating.

"...Well, that's good to hear, at least." Mrs. Rodriguez said. She tried to give Mari a smile, but it looked rather weak, not seeming to reach her eyes. Mari didn't have to wonder why; the surgery going relatively smoothly was a good thing, of course... but they both knew about the permanent consequences it would have all the same. So she really couldn't blame Mrs. Rodriguez for not exactly seeming enthusiastic. Mari appreciated the surgeons who must've worked hard to make even that much possible, but... it felt hard to really celebrate when the best-case outcome was, in the long run, only marginally less bad than the worst. Still, though... "After a day like yesterday, the last thing you needed was any more complications." Mrs. Rodriguez added, as if knowing what Mari was thinking.

And Mari found she couldn't really disagree with that either – it was absolutely the truth after all, so she simply nodded.

"Wait, so-" Aubrey began, squinting down in the direction of Mari's knee (though again, she would most certainly not be able to see anything besides blandly pastel hospital bedding). "If they had to put your knee back together, does that mean you've got a bunch of wires and stuff in there now?" she wondered. Mari couldn't quite tell if her tone was confused or slightly grossed out. It could've even been both.

"Pff-!" Kel abruptly let out a loud sputter, whipping his head over to look at Aubrey. "Wires? What, do you think they turned her into some kinda robot? Come on!" he protested. Mari couldn't quite make out his expression, but it wouldn't surprise her at all if it were disbelieving. His incredulous voice certainly wasn't very subtle. "You've been watching waaaay too much Neo-Spaceboy." he told Aubrey critically, crossing his arms.

(Mari distractedly noted that it had been a cyborg in the Neo-Spaceboy animated series, not a robot. But it wouldn't be an appropriate time to point that out.)

"Oh my god, Kel, I didn't mean that kind of wire! Don't be dumb!" Aubrey shot back, just as forcefully, cheeks puffed indignantly. She mirrored his gesture of crossing her arms stubbornly. "A boy in my class broke his arm one time and he said they had to hold it together with wires. That's what I meant. Duh." she defended herself, giving a pointed and very obvious roll of her eyes that even Mari couldn't possibly misinterpret as anything else.

"Um... She is right, you know." Basil interjected slowly, glancing between Kel and Aubrey almost uncertainly. He probably wasn't too thrilled about having to get in the middle of another one of their arguments, if Mari had to guess. Hero almost certainly would've shut it down if he were here, but in his absence, Basil was attempting to be the mediator instead. "Fixing broken bones with wires or screws is a real thing." he pointed out to Kel.

"Uh, yeah!" Kel replied quickly – perhaps a little too quickly. "I definitely knew that already, I was just testing you." he claimed, mouth forming a wide grin while he scratched the back of his head with one hand. Aubrey's face had gone very flat as she stared at him for a long moment, quite clearly not believing that for a second. Which was fair, because it was an incredibly transparent attempt. Even his mother had let out an audible huff from where she was standing.

"...Okay, anyway." Mari spoke up before anyone could call him on it, deciding to try to keep the conversation from getting completely derailed. "That was a good guess, Aubrey." she tried to lightly compliment the younger girl... though like everything she'd said so far, it came out sounding rather flat. Mari just had to hope it wouldn't seem sarcastic, because she really wasn't trying to be snide. "My doctor said they did put in a couple steel wire bands to hold the rest of my kneecap together." she explained. That was one of the things Dr. Astora had briefly mentioned when he'd come in earlier (and Mari was sure it must have been one of the possibilities he'd attempted to inform her of last night that she'd tuned out).

Mari had said it in a very simple, straightforward manner, no beating around the bush. Yep, there were wires in there now. It was just a matter of fact, her tone still completely neutral, not betraying any emotion about that information... because she didn't really feel any. From where she was sitting, it just seemed like one of those things she had to take as it comes at this point. She trusted that the surgeons knew what they were doing, such procedures existed for a reason, so if they believed it was necessary, who was she to argue? It wasn't like it was even close to the worst thing to happen to her knee, and in fact was intended to help ensure she wouldn't break it a third time. Sure, it was sort of weird to think about having bits of metal inside her body, if she really got into it... but even that she was feeling oddly unfazed about.

There was that vague impression again, just like when she'd been feeling completely bored earlier, that she should be having more of a reaction to this, but once again the emotion just... wasn't there.

But while Mari may have said it almost nonchalantly, that didn't mean the revelation was received that easily. Aubrey had paused; despite being the one to bring up the topic in the first place, she had an odd – almost conflicted – look on her face. Like she wasn't sure how to feel about it actually being confirmed. Kel had dropped his grin, looking at Mari with his eyes slightly wider than normal, and it wasn't hard to guess he was surprised. After all, his terrible bluffing aside, he clearly hadn't known installing wires was a real treatment for bone fractures at all, let alone been expecting Mari to go through it. And Basil was perhaps the most obvious, an almost painfully concerned frown on his face. Mari really did feel bad for worrying him once more with all this stuff, no matter what points he made about it not technically being her fault and such.

"It doesn't... hurt at all, does it?" Basil asked slowly, fidgeting uncomfortably with his hands folded in front of himself, and... ah. That was what he was worried about. That made sense, of course Basil would be the first among them to think of that.

"No, no." Mari said quickly to reassure him, waving her hands in front of herself as if to brush away the idea – or at least, she attempted to. She stopped herself when she felt the gesture tugging slightly at the IV tube running from one wrist. It wouldn't do to go accidentally yanking that out just because of some overdramatic hand waving. (Regardless of whether that was actually a realistic possibility, considering that she'd just barely pulled it.) She quickly moved on, though, hoping none of the others had noticed that rather embarrassingly obvious little mistake. "It doesn't hurt at all. Or-" Mari paused for a split second, giving a small shake of her head. "-not anymore than I'm used to, anyway." she corrected herself. "Part of that's probably because they've got me on a lot of painkillers." she admitted, shrugging slightly. "But it's really not bad."

Basil looked... at least somewhat relieved by that answer? His expression was a little hard to read, but it didn't seem as openly worried now, at least. He started to open his mouth to respond, but Kel beat him to the punch.

"Good. Good! That's great news." Kel said brightly, shooting Mari another one of his wide beaming smiles. He even held one hand up in a thumbs-up for emphasis, just in case she somehow hadn't gotten the point already. Yet, once again, she couldn't quite shake the feeling that his grin was just the tiniest bit too wide... "We were really-" Kel started to say, but paused abruptly, for just a split second. "-I mean, Hero was really worried about you last night and all. Especially with that whole thing with the cane, and how you'd be dealing with it and stuff. So it's good I can tell him you're feeling alright for now." he explained. Speaking a little too fast to be entirely normal – even for the often-motormouthed Kel. Not that Mari would've really bought it even if he'd measured his tone better, that slip with saying "we" instead of "Hero" was not as subtle as Kel clearly wanted it to be.

It also didn't escape her notice that Basil and Aubrey had both stiffened slightly at the mention of the cane. But they didn't look surprised... Ah. So they both knew about that. Mari hadn't been entirely sure if they'd been told that bit, which was part of why she hadn't mentioned it either. Not that she was trying to keep it a secret from them – that wouldn't be remotely fair and she knew it. Trying to leave them in the dark would be completely uncalled for. Not to mention pointless, since they'd obviously find out once she got out of the hospital anyway... It was just difficult to think of a good way to bring it up. She didn't want to stress them out or upset them even more if they hadn't heard about it, that wouldn't be fair either.

Mrs. Rodriguez let out a small sigh, shaking her head. "Kel, mijo. Remember what I told you on the way here, about badgering her about that?" she chided, putting her hands on her hips. Kel immediately ducked his head in what was presumably an apologetic gesture, mumbling something under his breath. Though whether it was meant for his mother or Mari herself, she couldn't tell. Then Mrs. Rodriguez turned to her. "...He's not wrong, though. He and Henry were up all night fretting, I think. I heard moving about from their room well after midnight."

"...Oh." Mari said softly, looking towards Kel with a small frown. He noticeably didn't quite meet her gaze. Maybe it was just embarrassment from his mother calling him out like that, but... she got the feeling that wasn't all. Mari hadn't really considered that part of things until just now. Oh, obviously she was more than aware of how worried they'd been, that was perfectly well established by now. But she hadn't fully made the connection between that and them literally losing sleep over it. It made sense, of course, Mari herself often had trouble sleeping, she knew how hard it could be to make your brain shut off and rest when you were stressed out. And there had been very good reasons to be stressed. It wasn't the "why" that got to her... It was just really weird to realize that she'd somehow had a more restful night than Hero and Kel – and she was the one getting her leg cut open!

.

...That did raise another very important question, though.

"...So, how's Sunny doing, with all this?" Mari asked, focused primarily on Kel and his mother. Not that she was trying to ignore Aubrey and Basil or anything, it was just that Sunny had stayed with the Rodriguezes, so they'd be more likely to know. In fact, that was why she hadn't asked after him before now. Mari understood that Hero and Sunny had stayed behind due to the hospital's limit on the number of visitors. All five of them plus Mrs. Rodriguez escorting them wouldn't be allowed, they'd been over that yesterday, and it was only fair to give Kel, Aubrey, and Basil a chance to see her, so that meant Hero and Sunny were the ones left out this time. And if there was anyone that Mari would trust unquestionably to look out for her little brother, besides herself, it was Hero. She hadn't worried (too much) about him because she could at least be confident he was in good hands.

But now, hearing about their rough night, it made that protective urge in her chest flare up again. Because Sunny had been sleeping over with them. And it hadn't escaped her notice that neither Kel nor Mrs. Rodriguez had mentioned him directly.

"Hey, yeah, we wanna know that too!" Aubrey cut in, looking at Kel with her hands on her hips. From the corner of her eye, Mari noticed Basil doing something similar – his posture a little less obviously demanding, maybe, but still looking at Kel for an answer too. "We didn't get to see him this morning." Aubrey elaborated, presumably for Mari's sake. "'Cause me and Basil went over to their house so we could all ride over here together-" the younger girl gave a slight nod towards Mrs. Rodriguez as she said that. "-but Sunny didn't come downstairs at all!"

Kel visibly winced – just for a second, but it was still obvious. "Yeahhhh..." he admitted slowly. "That's pretty much how it was yesterday too, he ran up to me and Hero's room and didn't want to leave, mamá had to bring a plate up and badger him to eat some dinner."

"I know nobody had much appetite after a day like that, but he needed at least a little something to keep his strength up." Mrs. Rodriguez said, apparently feeling the need to defend her actions. Or maybe just explaining her reasoning for the benefit of Mari and the other two. Either way, Mari gave the woman a grateful nod and hoped it came across, because she really did appreciate the effort. Even if hearing word about Sunny's odd behavior was worrying her more and more...

"He hasn't said anything either." Kel said, shrugging. "I mean, I know it's Sunny, so that's not that weird, but... I don't think I heard him say anything to anybody since he got to our house? He'd just nod or shake his head when me and Hero tried talking to him, and he wouldn't really look at us much either. Just kinda curled up in his sleeping bag. And it was pretty much the same this morning?"

"Oh no..." Mari murmured, crossing her hands over her chest and making no attempt to hide her frown. "If Sunny's acting like that, he must still be really upset over last night." she said. Sunny had always been the type to close off when he was scared or angry or sad. Cocooning himself in his bedsheets when he'd had nightmares, locking himself in his and Mari's room when he was mad at her about something (as he'd quite recently done after their argument in the kitchen last week), that sort of thing. Of course, his options for doing that would be limited when staying at the Rodriguez house, since he'd be sharing a room with the brothers... but what Kel was describing, curling up and refusing to talk or leave the room, sounded like Sunny doing about as close of an approximation as he could get. "I was hoping going somewhere more comfortable and getting some sleep would help him settle down a little, but..." she trailed off, somewhat helplessly.

"It's not your fault, dear." Mrs. Rodriguez turned to reassure Mari, and- How had she even known about the guilt welling in Mari's stomach? It wasn't like she'd actually said she was to blame out loud. Even if she was. Sunny had obviously been scared and stressed out throughout that whole... thing yesterday, but Mari knew that it must've been something she'd said or done that really set him off, because he'd only shut down fully like they were describing after Dr. Astora had broken the news about her needing a cane and Mari had let herself become so dull and closed-off to everything. There was no way it could be anyone's fault but hers in that situation. She just wasn't sure, couldn't seem to remember, exactly what she would have done to shake him so badly.

While Mari was trying to work out how to respond to that – how to possibly explain that it must've been her responsibility when she didn't know the full details either – Mrs. Rodriguez appeared to suddenly think of something, as she quickly kept talking.

"Oh, but this reminds me!" The older woman announced. "I called your father last night, and he gave permission for Sunny to stay with us for a little while, until this all settles down. I'm sorry I forgot to mention that before now." she revealed, giving Mari what was probably meant to be an apologetic look.

Mari blinked. "Well, that's good, at least...?" she replied slowly, unable to quite keep the confusion out of her voice. "But, didn't you say you weren't going to give dad much of a choice anyway?" she wondered. Normally she might have known better than to second-guess an adult like that, but the question just slipped out without her really thinking about it. Mrs. Rodriguez didn't appear to mind, though.

"Wait, did you really?" Kel interjected, looking to his mother with his eyebrows raised high in surprise. "And you tell me not to be rude on the phone." he grumbled, crossing his arms. Either Basil or Aubrey – but, being realistic, most likely Aubrey – let out a soft snort at that comment.

"Oh, hush." Mrs. Rodriguez told him offhandedly, glancing at Kel from the corner of her eye for just a second. "But that's just it. I didn't even have to badger Nobuo into it. He just agreed pretty easily once I told him why I was calling." she said in answer to Mari's question. The woman shook her head to herself. "Honestly, it was hard to tell what he was thinking, but he mostly sounded confused. Apparently, Rin hadn't told him anything about what happened yesterday, I was the first he was hearing of it."

"...Huh." Was all Mari could think to say. That was... Actually, she wasn't even sure if she should be surprised or not? Dad hadn't been directly involved in any of that, obviously – he was at work, he'd have no way of knowing something like that was going to happen. But at the same time, didn't mom and dad usually talk about major things affecting their family? Like, say, Mari being in the hospital? And especially given mom's fight with Mrs. Rodriguez... Why would she keep it to herself instead of taking the chance to make sure dad heard her side first? Not that Mari was an expert in arguing, of course – even with her and Sunny's fight about the recital, she'd never been trying to make anyone take sides in the first place, she'd mostly just been trying to figure out why it was happening – but wouldn't that typically be what you'd expect someone to do in a situation like this? It just seemed off for mom to not say anything and let Mrs. Rodriguez be the one to fill dad in.

.

.

But while Mari's mind was going in circles about this latest mystery...

*KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK*

...Three sharp knocks rang out across the room, echoing clearly through the closed door, all eyes in the room snapping towards it at the sound, including Mari's own.

Someone had arrived, obviously, but that was... odd. Who would be knocking like that? If it were Dr. Astora or one of the nurses, they would've just come in, that's what they'd done every other time. Mari assumed it was part of the job, the hospital staff needed to come and go a lot, often in urgent situations, so waiting to knock and be given permission to enter would be... impractical. Not to mention a lot of their patients might not even be conscious to answer. And nobody else who'd come to visit her had really seemed to bother with it either. Besides which, the doctor wasn't allowing her parents in to see her right now, due to the incident, so it couldn't be either of them... but Mari couldn't think of who else would be coming to see her. Not to mention the limit on the number of regular visitors should've meant nobody else would be let in regardless... Unless this wasn't a regular visitor. But then who...?

.

"Uh, come in!" Mari called out, realizing that everyone was probably waiting for her to be the one to respond. Which was fair, it was technically her hospital room after all. Strangely, it felt a little more difficult than usual to raise her voice like that, though... Not like there was anything wrong with her throat, just that it felt like it took an odd amount of energy to do. Like she had to concentrate ever-so-slightly more than such a simple thing like speaking louder should have required.

*click-shunk*

The door slid open, and in stepped... a woman Mari didn't recognize.

...Wait, no, on second glance, she seemed familiar. Yet at the same time... not? The thought didn't make sense even in Mari's head. But the thing was that, even with her poor memory, she usually wasn't terrible with faces. And she was pretty sure she had never actually met this woman, but there was something in the back of her mind that felt oddly familiar despite that. Like the stranger reminded her of somebody else she knew, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it...

The woman was definitely an adult, though it was difficult to tell a more specific age than that at a glance. She had one of those faces that could just as easily be anywhere between twenty and forty. There were noticeable creases below her eyes, but those could have been from smiling, as her mouth was turned upwards. Not that Mari could really guess much about why she was smiling, this was a stranger, so reading her expression was a lot harder than people she knew. It may have just been to be polite? Regardless... The woman's look had a certain "professional" air to it. She had fairly long, straight reddish-brown (or was it brownish-red?) hair tied up in a neat ponytail, and her clothes were what Mari would consider very typically businesslike. Like an office worker or a school principal. A black pencil skirt, matching black heels, a navy blue suit jacket, and a white dress shirt. Nothing too fancy. Under one arm she was carrying what looked to be some kind of folder or notebook (which definitely added to the "office worker" impression).

The room had gone silent while the stranger's heels clacked across the floor, every gaze locked intently on her. Like they were all waiting for her to make the first move.

"Hi there, you're Mari Takahashi, aren't you?" the newcomer greeted, stopping a few feet in front of Mari's bed. "My name is Rachel Candice, and I'm here on behalf of Child Protective Services."

Chapter Text

"My name is Rachel Candice, and I'm here on behalf of Child Protective Services." the woman introduced herself.

Mari blinked, her gaze casting randomly around the room for a moment while she processed that. Kel, Basil, and Aubrey had all turned to face the woman, their attention completely honed in on her. Which wasn't surprising, really – while Mari couldn't read much from their expressions, or even see some of them that well with their heads turned away from her bed, she felt it was pretty safe to assume her friends were about as surprised by the newcomer's arrival as she was. None of them had any way of knowing this was going to be happening right now, so it was no shock that they were all pretty much in the same boat. Just waiting to see what was said and how this was going to play out... Actually, from what Mari could tell, that was what Mrs. Rodriguez seemed to be doing as well. She didn't have her attention completely fixed on the woman from CPS in quite the same way, but she was noticeably glancing between her and Mari. And, for some reason, appeared to have stepped slightly closer to Mari's bedside at some point when the newcomer had entered.

.

The woman cleared her throat subtly (though, oddly, her smile didn't appear to have faltered), and Mari started slightly, feeling a faint burn in her cheeks as she realized she'd been silent for a second longer than was probably polite.

"Oh, sorry!" she said quickly. "It's nice to meet you, Ms. Can-" Mari paused suddenly, feeling her eyes widen as realization suddenly slammed into her. "...Wait a moment, Ms. Candice?" she blurted out before she could stop herself. Was that what had been bugging at the back of her mind since the woman had walked in? (Mari really was slow on the uptake today to have taken this long to register that, wasn't she?)

This obviously wasn't the Ms. Candice she was familiar with from the sweets shop, of course she would've recognized something like that instantly... but there was a certain resemblance. This Ms. Candice had roughly the same hair color, maybe only slightly darker, she looked to be a similar height, she had the same slight coloring of pink to her cheeks (Mari had previously assumed that was just makeup, but it could very well be natural)... even the noticeable smile lines, while not quite as prominent as the candy shop owner's forcibly-cheery grins, weren't so different either. Mari hadn't made the connection beyond a vague familiarity before, but now being given that name... all that couldn't be coincidence, right?

"You mean like the lady from the candy store? No way!" Kel exclaimed before the woman could respond, turning to exchange glances with Mari as he spoke, his face showing a wide-eyed expression of disbelief she imagined had to be similar to her own.

"...Does kinda look like her, though." Aubrey muttered to herself thoughtfully, squinting up at this Ms. Candice, the younger girl unknowingly echoing Mari's thoughts.

"Oh!" the woman spoke up, her posture perking a little, like she was standing up slightly straighter. The smile on her face may have widened a little – though Mari might have just been imagining that, it was very hard to tell with such an enigmatic expression, especially on a stranger like this. "That's got to be my little cousin!" she said brightly. "You all know her?" she asked, looking between Mari and the three younger kids.

"Oh, uh, yes ma'am. I guess we do." Basil was the first one to answer, hesitantly. Mari had a sneaking suspicion, from the way his eyes had glanced towards Aubrey and Kel for just a split second, that he had decided to speak up because the other two may or may not have been entirely polite if given free reign to talk about it. Neither of them were overly fond of the sweets shop owner – which Mari could hardly criticize them for, as she wasn't her biggest fan either (in fact, she probably disliked the woman most among their friend group) – but making any less-than-flattering remarks would be extremely inappropriate when talking directly to Ms. Candice's... cousin, apparently.

And that was a whole other thing to process by itself, wasn't it? Mari had never really given much thought to the various adults she saw around Faraway and their possible families – it was rude to go prying into grownups' business and all – but obviously they had them. Ms. Candice, though... It sounded ridiculous to admit to herself now, of course, but if Mari were being fully honest, on some level she'd sort of been taking it for granted Ms. Candice had always been like that. The idea of her actually having a family and growing up and such – despite being perfectly normal and obvious – felt odd somehow. She could easily imagine the woman just emerging from some hole in the ground one day, already fully grown and ready to run her candy shop, that distinct oddly-sickly-feeling smile she always used with customers plastered on her face from day one.

...Actually, that sounded sort of like something from one of Sunny's weirder dreams. Maybe Mari had listened to him describing them a bit too often and it was starting to infect her subconscious. Or maybe it was just the painkillers making her mind go to strange places. Could've been both, even, now that she was thinking about it.

But she was getting distracted again, wasn't she? Mari shook herself slightly, trying to get herself back on track before the moment became awkward.

"We stop by the sweets shop sometimes when we go to Othermart." she spoke up to elaborate on Basil's answer.

"Oh, how lovely!" the woman replied in that same cheery tone, and- huh, now that Mari was listening for it, even that sounded similar to the way the other Ms. Candice spoke. Though that was a little odd by itself, since she'd always gotten the distinct impression that tone wasn't genuine either. "So, the next time you're there, tell Debby I'm thinking of her, okay?" the woman continued, oblivious to Mari's thoughts. "Honestly, she promised to keep in touch, but she never calls!" she complained, but with a light voice that was probably meant to be joking.

"I guess I can do that?" Mari said, the words coming out more uncertainly than she'd intended. She was only really agreeing to be polite, after all, it wasn't like she was particularly eager to talk to the candy store owner... pretty much ever, really, the two of them did not get along, so Mari was probably the worst person to be passing messages to her. But she didn't want to be rude to a stranger either. And speaking of rude, Mari was deliberately not acknowledging the way Kel had turned to Aubrey and incredulously mouthed the words 'her first name is Debby!?' – or the way Aubrey was visibly stifling a snicker in return. Though it seemed like Mrs. Rodriguez had noticed, if the way her eyes were fixed on Kel with a decidedly disapproving look was anything to go by. He'd probably be getting an earful about that in the near future.

"Well thank you, sweetheart." the woman said, fixing that wide smile of hers on Mari again in a way that was... probably meant to be grateful? Either way, she was apparently not noticing or just not acknowledging the other kids' antics. "Anyway, since you know her, I bet saying 'Ms. Candice' for both of us would get awfully confusing, so you can just call me Ms. Rachel if you like." she offered. That was probably meant mainly for Mari's benefit, if the way she was still looking straight at her was any indication.

Mari nodded her head on instinct before remembering that a verbal response was supposed to be more polite. "Alright, I'll do that, ma'am-" She paused for a split second, having thought she had seen a glimpse of the woman's smile appearing to falter ever-so-slightly. "-I mean, uh, Ms. Rachel." Mari corrected herself quickly. And just like that, when she looked again, the smile was back completely undaunted. She may very well have just imagined that whole thing – it was only a mere instant, after all – but even if she had, Mari really didn't want to come off as disrespectful to an adult she'd just met by ignoring what they told her to call them either. Mom definitely wouldn't have been happy with seeing that little slip-up...

("...With what you know now, would mom ever be happy with you involved?")

Don't think about that. Now wasn't the time to think about that.

"Excellent! But that's enough about me." the woman – Ms. Rachel, rather – declared, clapping her hands together once for emphasis. Mari flinched slightly from the sudden sharp sound jabbing at her ears, though she hoped it wasn't obvious enough for the others to have noticed. But if anyone did, they gave no sign of it. (Sunny would probably have noticed that, if only he were here, and even though Mari was glad no one was drawing attention to her discomfort, part of her still wished- no, now wasn't the time to dwell on that either.) "I actually came here to talk to you, Mari-" Ms. Rachel continued speaking matter-of-factly, pausing for only a moment. "-It is okay if I call you Mari, right? Ms. Takahashi just sounds so stuffy." she added, waving one hand to the side when she said the word "stuffy".

Mari felt herself frown slightly. "...That's fine?" she said, her voice coming out flatly. She wasn't even sure why she felt hesitant about the request. She'd already agreed to let Dr. Astora call her by first name last night with no issues, that hadn't left such a weird, awkward feeling in her mouth. So why was this different? And besides, the woman was right, Mari did think being called by her first name was usually a lot more natural and comfortable than her last. (Which was sort of funny, if she thought about it, since her family was Japanese... if she'd been born there like dad was, she would probably have a pretty different opinion on family names.) But something about the way Ms. Rachel said it just felt... off. It was like... Dr. Astora had just asked normally, while Ms. Rachel seemed more like she was assuming the answer was yes? If that even made any sense? So even though Mari agreed anyway, it felt... off-putting somehow.

If Ms. Rachel noticed the hesitance, though, she gave no indication of it, her continual smile seeming to get a little wider as she nodded readily in acceptance.

.

"...D'ya think she would've actually listened if Mari said no?" The faint murmur just barely reached Mari's sensitive ears – almost certainly going unheard by either of the adults in the room – and Mari glanced over at the source, seeing Aubrey leaning over and whispering to Basil. (Not realizing that she was once again echoing what Mari herself had just been thinking.)

"Aubrey, don't be rude!" Basil hissed back a bit more urgently, and it wasn't hard to imagine why. Basil had never really seemed to like doing things he thought might get him in trouble, at least as long as Mari had known him. Which sometimes made him something of a voice of reason compared to Aubrey and especially Kel... and sometimes just meant he was getting dragged into whatever schemes they had under a token protest. That was probably one reason he clicked so well with Sunny, who was somewhat less prone to being rambunctious... Not that Mari would ever suggest her little brother never got into trouble. She of all people certainly knew better. She had quite a few incidents ready to bring up in case she ever needed to tease him (as was her right as big sis). But he tended to be... subtler. If Sunny was involved in some loud, zany shenanigan, it was usually not originally his idea. Basil probably appreciated that about him.

With that said, though, Basil glanced back over at Ms. Rachel, a small frown forming on his face. "...But, um, you're probably not wrong..." he mumbled to Aubrey again, who nodded her head sharply in vindication. Then Basil must have noticed Mari listening to them, as his face visibly flushed when his eyes fell on her, seeing her looking towards the two of them. Mari tried to give him a slight, reassuring smile – she certainly wouldn't tell on them – but she had no idea if it came across or not. Focusing on making subtle expressions like that felt... more taxing than usual, somehow.

While that was going on, though, and before Ms. Rachel could get back to whatever she'd been planning on saying before that brief diversion, Mrs. Rodriguez stepped forwards. Mari couldn't be sure exactly what the woman had been thinking this whole time, she hadn't really drawn any attention to herself so far, but she'd clearly been listening intently to the whole conversation play out. She was standing right there, after all, so it'd be pretty hard to not be listening... Maybe she'd just been quiet so far to be polite? It wouldn't be the first time Mrs. Rodriguez had done something like that when Mari was talking with her friends or whatever. Yet somehow that just didn't feel like that was quite it. Mari wasn't even sure what was giving her this impression, exactly, but she sort of felt like Mrs. Rodriguez was watching Ms. Rachel? Like she'd been evaluating the other woman silently since she'd come in?

It was sort of an odd feeling, and Mari was half-convinced her mind was completely making it up, but it sort of felt like... Mrs. Rodriguez was hovering over her? In kind of the same way that Mari could remember herself acting when Sunny was sick, or injured – not when it was urgent (like when she'd seen the cuts on his hand before the recital and immediately insisted on doing something about it, it felt so long ago now...), but more like a sense of... readiness. Keeping a very close eye out just in case something went wrong and Sunny needed her help. She wasn't sure why Mrs. Rodriguez was reminding her of that, it wasn't like the woman had really said or done anything unusual – she certainly hadn't been anywhere near as pushy as Mari herself could be – but Mari's mind kept circling back to it anyway.

Not that there would be much time to even begin to figure that out now, though, as Mrs. Rodriguez was already speaking, her voice breaking through Mari's momentary distraction (for while she felt like she'd been puzzling over that for a good while, it had only been a second in reality).

"-said you're from CPS, right? We knew they'd be sending someone, but that's a pretty quick response, isn't it?" Mrs. Rodriguez wondered, tilting her head slightly as she looked at the other woman.

Ms. Rachel turned to her, eyebrows raised slightly as she considered the question, though her smile remained undaunted. "Oh, it is." she agreed readily. "You should see how it gets in big cities, there's a lot of children, and sadly just not enough social workers to go around sometimes..." she shook her head, closing her eyes for a moment. For the first time, her smile actually noticeably dimmed for long enough that Mari could be sure she hadn't imagined it... "But a small town like this doesn't see many reports, so when the one from the hospital came in, I was already available." the woman explained.

"I see, that does make sense..." Mrs. Rodriguez said thoughtfully, bringing one hand up to rub her chin, as if seriously considering it. Mari found herself agreeing, she didn't pretend to understand how government agencies worked internally, but it seemed logical enough that a town Faraway's size would have far fewer problems than, say, Nearish City or somewhere like that, and thus less cases to take up the agents' limited time.

("Why's it even matter if it's fast, though, isn't that good?" Kel mumbled.

"Shh! Shut up, Kel, just let the grownups talk!" Aubrey hissed back, nudging him with her elbow.

"Hey, you were whispering too-!"

And that was about the point where Mari decided to try to tune out their bickering.)

"...Even so, though." Mrs. Rodriguez continued, frowning – though it didn't look to Mari like a displeased frown per se, but rather something else. Cautious? Concerned, maybe? Along those lines, anyway. "I'd imagine there's a lot of hoops to jump through with this sort of thing... I just want to make sure it's not being rushed." she said, sounding almost skeptical as she crossed her arms over her chest as she spoke and met the other woman's gaze.

Was that what this was about? ...Mari supposed it made sense, though she hadn't even really thought of that as a concern until now. Obviously this whole... thing was a huge mess. That was understating it, really. The fact that CPS had been called in at all was proof of that – as far as "signs that something extremely serious is happening" went, that felt like a pretty big one. Even if the hospital had just been contacting them due to legal obligations and such like her doctor had talked about last night... that was still the law getting involved. Mari had to observe, in sort of a detached sort of way filtered through the screen of painkillers, that was honestly a pretty scary thought. Yesterday, the most "official trouble" she'd ever been in was just things like being sent to the principal's office at school, and now she was sitting here with a government worker looking to talk to her? No wonder Mrs. Rodriguez would be worried about making sure it was being done thoroughly. Mari probably ought to have already been worrying about that too...

Ms. Rachel, however, simply let out a laugh. And, wow, even that sounded quite a bit like how the other Ms. Candice laughed. Besides not being quite as high-pitched (or, if you asked Mari, unpleasantly shrill), it was almost uncanny, really. It really was pretty obvious that the two women were indeed family now that Mari was looking for the similarities, wasn't it? Either way, though, she didn't appear to be bothered by Mrs. Rodriguez's line of questioning... or at least, if she was, she was doing a good enough job at hiding it that Mari couldn't tell the difference.

"You're not wrong, of course, there's a lot of red tape. So many files to read through and forms to fill out... I've got some of the relevant records to look over here, in fact." she said, pulling out the manila folder she'd had tucked under one arm and holding it up to emphasize it. Now that Mari could get a better look at it, it was obviously full of some manner of paperwork, true to the woman's word. She couldn't see any of what was actually on said papers, nature, but the multitude of white pages protruding from the folder weren't hard to spot. And given the circumstances, there was no reason to doubt that said forms were about her and the current situation... Ms. Rachel didn't actually open the folder or remove any of the papers, though, and instead tucked it back under her arm once more – apparently she was just drawing attention to it to make her point, not to actually get into it at the moment.

"So I'll be going through all the proper procedures, you don't need to worry about that, Mrs..." she trailed off for a moment, her eyes squinting for a second and then going wide. "...Oh, how silly of me! I'm sorry, I never asked your name!" she exclaimed while looking at Mrs. Rodriguez, giving another more awkward-sounding laugh.

That was true, Mari realized – while the woman had identified herself right away, and gotten Mari's permission to call her by her first name (however oddly awkward it felt), she'd seemingly neglected or forgotten to make introductions to the others in the room... not that Mari could really judge her for it, even if it was the sort of thing she had been taught might be taken as impolite, since she hadn't thought to try to introduce them either.

"Elena Rodriguez." Mrs. Rodriguez answered, her tone what Mari would describe as "patiently polite". "And the kids are my son Kel, and his friends Aubrey and Basil." she said, indicating each of the three in turn. Kel gave one of his wide beaming grins, Basil waved shyly, and Aubrey simply gave a sharp nod, none of the three of them saying anything – maybe they'd realized they shouldn't interrupt an important conversation and were just watching to see how it played out? ...That was pretty much what Mari herself was doing, anyway, so she assumed it was something like that.

"It's a pleasure to meet you all!" Ms. Rachel said brightly, returning a slight nod of her own before looking back at Mrs. Rodriguez. "Anyway, I recognize your name from the report I got from the hospital." she acknowledged, gesturing vaguely to the folder once again. "You're the one who called emergency services about the incident, right?"

"That's right. My older son, Henry, found her like that... We were out searching along with her brother, Sunny, who'd told us she had gone missing." Mrs. Rodriguez confirmed.

Ms. Rachel blinked, seemingly taking a moment to process that. "Well..." she began after a second. "I think it's wonderful she had someone looking out for her, then." she said, her odd cheeriness still shining through despite the more serious shift in subject matter.

Mari, however, found herself frowning slightly at the woman's words – and from the way Basil glanced at her with sympathy written across his face, he seemed to have noticed her discomfort, though he didn't draw attention to it. It just sort of felt like... the adults were talking about her like she wasn't here. Not that Mari even really knew why that was bothering her so much, she really ought to have been used to that sort of thing by now... but that thought didn't make the vaguely off-put feeling go away. She didn't speak up to say anything about it though, not wanting to be rude when she understood that the CPS agent's presence was very important business. (Plus, she just couldn't really muster up the energy to feel be offended enough by it to raise a fuss anyway, even if that were to have somehow been acceptable behavior.) Yet again, though, without her voicing it, the adults would appear to be oblivious to her thoughts on the matter.

"...Can I ask how you know the Takahashi family, though?" Ms. Rachel continued, still addressing Mrs. Rodriguez, tilting her head in what was presumably curiosity as she spoke.

Yet it wouldn't be the older woman who answered. "They're our neighbors! They have been like, forever!" Kel interjected, with that distinct sort of excitable 'not technically shouting but still louder than what was usually considered a polite inside voice' volume he frequently employed. He grinned at Mari for some reason as he said that – maybe just because he was excited to talk about how long they'd known each other? Regardless of whether she fully got his reasons, though, Mari tried to return it with a smile of her own... though she didn't feel like she was really succeeding. Not that she didn't appreciate Kel's positive energy, quite the opposite, she wished she could repay it in kind... it was just hard.

"Kel." Mrs. Rodriguez chided him lightly for the interruption, clicking her tongue with a small "tsk". Kel's smile dimmed and he stepped back, mumbling something under his breath so faintly that even Mari couldn't hear it, but he didn't protest out loud. Aubrey reached out to pat him on the shoulder as he rejoined her and Basil... Though, given that this was Aubrey and knowing her history with Kel, Mari couldn't quite tell if the gesture was fully sincere or her way of slightly ribbing him for being a "loudmouth" or something along those lines. It could really have been either. Though if it was bait, then Kel for once didn't rise to it, simply glancing at Aubrey for a second and shrugging.

"But he is right." Mrs. Rodriguez admitted to Ms. Rachel as she got back to the matter at hand. "We've lived next door ever since they moved to Faraway about... oh, eight years ago now." she said, pausing for just a moment as if to make sure she was remembering the number right. "And both of my sons have been close to Mari and Sunny pretty much from the beginning, so I see them over to visit all the time." she added, both women glancing over at Kel again, who nodded furiously in agreement. "In fact, Sunny will be sleeping over at our house for the next few days, his father agreed it was for the best until... all this blows over." Mrs. Rodriguez explained, emphasizing the words "all this" carefully. It didn't take a genius to figure out exactly what she meant by that: obviously she was referring to all the issues going on with mom, even if she didn't seem to want to bring her up directly. Perhaps she was worried the subject would upset Mari? (And if it weren't being dampened so much by painkillers, it might have, to be fair.)

"I see, I see..." Ms. Rachel mused, one hand coming up to tap at her chin in thought while she looked at Mrs. Rodriguez for a moment. "...So I'm guessing you'd say you have a pretty good idea what their living situation is like, then?" she asked, and unless Mari was imagining it, there was a slight undertone to the woman's pleasant speech there, something questioning, or perhaps more like probing. Like she was fishing for information, which... would make sense, wouldn't it? Since that was doubtless part of the woman's job and all. In fact, it was likely she'd been doing that this whole time, just not quite as obviously, Mari was only just realizing.

("Slow on the uptake as ever, aren't you?")

"...I do, yes." Mrs. Rodriguez replied slowly, knowingly, as she met the other woman's gaze. It seemed fair to say she had caught onto... whatever Ms. Rachel was getting at too. "Now, I wasn't there to directly see... the incident yesterday, I didn't get involved until after, when Sunny ran to our house for help." she clarified, crossing her arms, her eyes trailing over to the watching Mari for a moment... though she looked away again before Mari could actually meet her gaze. "But I can tell you quite a bit about what happened and why, both the things people involved have admitted to me and... things I've noticed myself." Again, it wasn't hard to figure out what she meant, obviously thinking back to that nasty confrontation with mom last night... it was kind of impossible to forget something like that. Mari could still barely believe it had really happened.

Ms. Rachel was silent for a long moment while she processed that. "...I understand, ma'am. I'll make a note of that, I assure you." she said eventually, and now at last she'd dropped the peppy tone entirely – at least for the moment. It was almost a little jarring to hear a voice that resembled the Ms. Candice Mari knew not being upbeat (whether it was real or obviously faked), and instead becoming something more neutral, probably meant to be crisp and professional. "You can expect me to follow up with you sometime this week to get your full account, I have a feeling it will be an important part of this... Would you mind giving me your address, and a phone number I can use to contact you?" she requested, and while she was saying that, she reached into a pocket of her suit jacket to produce what looked like a small notebook and a plastic pen, handing both items to Mrs. Rodriguez when the other woman nodded her assent.

.

"Excellent, thank you." Ms. Rachel said a moment later, as a note in Mrs. Rodriguez's looping cursive was handed back to her. "...With that aside, though, I think it's time to get down to why I'm actually here." she added, and Mari felt herself tense slightly, feeling something like a slight shift in the air, like she knew what was coming. Even the other three kids – who had probably been getting a little bored with the adults' back-and-forth by now, if Mari had to guess – seemed to realize it, as they all looked to be intently paying attention once more.

"You want to talk to me..." Mari finally spoke up again, swallowing to try to clear a slight scratchiness in her throat. Her mouth had felt a bit dry all day, one of the nurses had mentioned that was common after waking up from anesthesia, but it was especially noticeable now. Both women immediately stopped talking, turning to look at her. Like they'd almost forgotten she was still listening to them for a second or something. "Just me, I mean, in private?" Mari clarified, though it came out more as a question as she looked at Ms. Rachel, even though she was pretty sure she knew the answer already.

Sure enough, the woman met her question with a nod. "That's right. I hope you don't mind?" she said, and again, there was that odd tone, where she was asking but really seemed to already be expecting Mari to agree.

Either way, though, Mari would be lying if she said she hadn't seen that coming.

.

.

As it turned out, though, it would be a little bit longer before they got to actually sit down and have that conversation... metaphorically, of course, in Mari's case, since she'd just been sitting immobile in her bed the whole time anyway. Not like she had many other options with her leg splinted like this. She knew that patients who had to stay in the hospital for awhile were typically allowed to move around the building (as long as they weren't in urgent condition, naturally), there were common areas like a cafeteria and a small outdoor garden, places they could go to keep themselves from going stir-crazy... but in her case, she'd only just gotten through a major surgery. There was no way the nurses would ever agree to it. And while Dr. Astora hadn't said she was under orders to stay in the room per se, he'd told her she ought to expect to be bed-bound for at least a couple days after the operation, which was functionally the same thing. It made sense, she understood the reasons... but it would've been nice to at least have a change of scenery before they had to get into whatever heavy business Ms. Rachel was here for.

Mari's faint feelings of cabin fever aside, though, it took a couple minutes to actually get the requested privacy. It was understandable why Ms. Rachel thought it was necessary before they proceeded, it was another confidentiality thing and all that. While the woman hadn't said so outright – Mari hadn't asked – there were almost certainly laws and policies against social workers discussing sensitive information about the kids they were working with, like medical records and details about their home lives, just like the ones the hospital staff had. And if she was here to discuss "the incident" (as the adults seemed to be calling it)... there probably wouldn't be any way to avoid some of that stuff coming up, would there? Among Mrs. Rodriguez, Kel, Basil, and Aubrey, none of them were on the small list of people who'd be allowed to sit in on that sort of thing with Mari. Sunny presumably would be, but he... wasn't here.

But while Mari understood the necessity and agreed to it, perhaps it shouldn't have been surprising that her friends weren't eager to leave...

Unsurprisingly, Kel had been the first to protest – and the loudest.

("Aw, c'mon, mamá ! Do we really have to go?" he'd complained – almost whined, really, though he definitely wouldn't have appreciated it being called that.)

Slightly more surprising – though maybe it shouldn't have been, when one considered her behavior earlier when she'd first arrived – was Aubrey immediately chipping in to back him up.

("Yeah, it feels like we just got here! Can't we stay with Mari a bit longer?" the younger girl had pleaded, her face set in a pout – though again, probably not a good idea to call it that out loud.)

Even Basil, while not as vocal as the other two – which wasn't surprising either, as he wasn't typically fond of confrontation, even one as mild as this – still didn't seem like he disagreed with them either, not looking particularly enthusiastic with the thought of leaving so soon himself. It was true, after all, that it hadn't really been that long since they'd gotten here. Mari couldn't blame any of them for hoping for a longer visit. In fact, she was almost... sort of touched that they seemed to genuinely want to stay and spend time with her, that it wasn't just a visit from a sense of obligation. Not that she'd really believed they would be thinking like that, she trusted them enough to believe them without question when they said they were happy and relieved to see her. But it still felt... nice, to have such a direct reminder.

("It's old news by now, but it bears repeating: you really, really don't deserve them.")

The fact remained, though, that dealing with CPS needed to happen. As much as Mari would have liked nothing more than to spend more time with her friends as well- Actually, no, there was one thing she'd like more, and that would be if only Sunny and Hero were there with them too... But, regardless of her feelings, it wasn't an option. It was out of her hands at this point. She couldn't just sit there and tell a worker from a government agency that she wasn't going to cooperate with them because she'd rather talk to her friends. Not only was that unrealistic to an almost comical degree, but it would also be incredibly rude to try to brush off an adult and waste their time like that. Especially for such important business as CPS... Mari hadn't missed the point before, about how big cities often didn't have enough resources and representatives to take care of every kid that needed it. So even if this was a smaller town, her wasting such resources for selfish reasons would be unspeakably spoiled and entitled...

Ms. Rachel at least didn't seem to mind being patient, simply falling silent and observing the scene with that vaguely-pleasant smile while Mrs. Rodriguez and Mari spoke to the younger kids. In the end, it took a few minutes of cajoling them to give Mari some space and reassuring them that everything would be okay if they left for awhile before they finally – albeit reluctantly – agreed.

("How about this? It's getting to be about lunchtime, so we were going to need to see about going to get a bite to eat pretty soon here anyway." Mrs. Rodriguez had pointed out reasonably, taking a different tact after a couple minutes of back-and-forth with Kel. "So why don't we step out, go find a restaurant nearby? We can still come back later this afternoon, visiting hours don't end until after dinner.")

(Aubrey had rushed over to give Mari another hug – this time somewhat less bone-crunching than the one from when she'd first arrived – before they had to leave. "...Don't ever worry us like this again, okay?" the girl had mumbled into Mari's shoulder. Mari had squeezed her arms around waist in return. "Oh Aubrey... I won't. I promise." she'd reassured her. Choosing not to point out that, technically, Mari might not necessarily have control over something like that...)

But, eventually – with yet another one of those familiar clicks – the hospital room door slid closed behind Mrs. Rodriguez, having just gotten done herding the kids outside. And then it was just Mari and Ms. Rachel remaining.

.

.

.

"...You know, I think it's lovely you have such dedicated friends!" Ms. Rachel commented, her tone once again as bright as it had been when she'd first arrived, as she turned her attention back to Mari fully.

Mari blinked, not fully knowing how to respond to that. She felt like she should probably say something, and on a normal day when she less addled, she almost certainly would have at least managed a polite acknowledgment if nothing else. It seemed like a bit of an abrupt non-sequitur to her, but that was no excuse to be rude. At the moment, however, her brain simply seemed to have stalled, not managing to come up with anything – not even a confused murmur of thanks – in lieu of simply staring at the woman in silence. She wasn't sure exactly what expression she was making, nor was she sure which possibility would be worse: a look openly betraying her bafflement, or just defaulting to something dull and flat... Though as it turned out, Ms. Rachel didn't seem to have actually been looking for a response anyway, as after only a brief pause, she just continued on without appearing to acknowledge Mari's non-reaction at all.

"But anyway, I know you're probably a busy girl, Mari-" the woman began, and Mari found herself squinting, not quite sure if that was supposed to be a joke. The way it was said didn't sound sarcastic, that oddly cheery tone hadn't shifted at all... but at the same time, how else was she supposed to interpret it? She was confined to a hospital bed, part of her knee had just been removed last night, they both knew very well she wasn't going anywhere. "-so let's get down to it, shall we?" Ms. Rachel said. Just like before, though phrased as a question, there was a distinct sense that "no" wasn't really an answer here.

So, forcefully shoving down her confusion at the woman's behavior, Mari nodded. "Alright, I'm ready now." she agreed simply.

"Excellent!" Ms. Rachel replied, clapping her hands once again. It was just as loud as it had been the previous time, and Mari felt her face twitch in discomfort. She also noted that this was the third or fourth time the woman had said "excellent" like that since her arrival... was that how she always reacted when she was pleased? Though Mari made a very deliberate effort to not voice that thought out loud, not wishing to sound rude.

While she was focused on that, Ms. Rachel had stepped over to her hospital bed and walked around to Mari's side, pulling over the room's sole seating, the beige armchair Sunny had been sitting in last night. She settled down into the chair, and- wow, even the way she sat down looked like a professional office worker or something of the sort, Mari couldn't help but notice: posture upright, legs crossed and hands folded neatly on her lap. Her file full of papers had been tucked in right next to the arm of the chair, within easy reach in case she needed to peruse it at any point in the coming discussion. Mari knew it was probably a stretch to be trying to analyze something as mundane as sitting down – and especially for her of all people to be doing it – but everything about the seating looked... almost calculated in its precision. It was just a little odd feeling, not quite meshing with the peppy, friendly voice the woman kept using.

.

"Alright, so! Before we get started, do you have any questions for me?" Ms. Rachel asked brightly once she'd gotten done seating herself.

Mari paused at that, not expecting it. She... supposed it made sense in hindsight. It could be a way of putting the person one was speaking to at ease by being willing to address their concerns, make it feel less like an interrogation...

("Or it's just to be polite, and you're overthinking it.")

Frowning to herself slightly in thought, she considered for a moment. She did have questions – more than a few, in fact – but now... didn't really feel like the most appropriate time for some of those. It'd be a bit premature and pointless to start badgering the CPS agent about the fallout of all this before they had actually talked about... whatever information the woman thought they needed to talk about, specifically. But... there was one thing that came to mind.

"If you don't mind me asking... Why did you come to talk to me?"

"Hmm?" Ms. Rachel wondered, shifting minutely in her seat, leaning forwards ever-so-slightly as if she hadn't heard Mari properly. "I was-"

"-No, wait!" Mari said quickly, cringing slightly as she realized she'd just interrupted the woman, but the words still spilling out to correct herself immediately nonetheless. "I know why you're here." she said, shaking her head softly. That part was pretty obvious and well-established by now. "What I mean is... why me? There's a lot of people you probably need to talk to, right? My doctor, Sunny, Mrs. Rodriguez... mom..." Mari swallowed slightly. "So, why come see me first?" As she spoke, Mari glanced down, finding that at some point her hands had begun fidgeting with the blanket covering her legs, pinching threads and balling up the fabric between her fingers. She wasn't sure exactly when she'd started doing that.

Ms. Rachel blinked. "...Well now, that is a good question!" she applauded, her smile appearing to grow a bit wider... though somehow, that didn't do anything to clear up that odd feeling where Mari couldn't tell if it was supposed to be genuine or not. And the way the woman said that, it reminded Mari strangely of her schoolteachers – but not the current ones in high school. Older teachers, years ago, like in elementary. She couldn't quite put her finger on why it felt similar, but she couldn't shake said feeling either. If Ms. Rachel noticed her confusion, however, she gave no sign of it, considering the question for a few moments before answering it properly.

"The simplest answer is just that you're the child who the report was about." the woman said, but there was a leading note to it, like there was more to it than that. Such a straightforward reason shouldn't have necessitated such thought to begin with, right? And sure enough... "But, you're right too, I know some of my colleagues might have interviewed your doctor or even your parents first. The adults who 'know better'-" Ms. Rachel actually raised her fingers and made air-quotes when she said that, a gesture so childish and at-odds with her professional appearance that all Mari could do was stare, feeling something rather like whiplash. "-can usually give more information." she continued, unfazed by Mari's mild bafflement.

There was a brief pause, and Mari realized she was supposed to reply. "But you... don't agree with that?" she wondered slowly, failing to hide the naked confusion in her voice. She really had no idea what the woman was getting at here – it made perfect sense to go to the adults, you wouldn't typically expect a kid to be able to give all the relevant details about their health or their home life. Mrs. Rodriguez probably knew her family's financial situation a lot better than Kel did, as an example. But that was the exact opposite of an answer to the question of "why talk to Mari first", it was an argument in favor of speaking to somebody who could be more informative instead!

"Not entirely!" Ms. Rachel agreed, bobbing her head in a nod. "I think it's important I talk to the child first in these sorts of situations, so I can get a proper impression of them – a proper impression of you, in this case." she said. Mari could only continue to stare at her, still feeling rather lost, not fully understanding what she meant by that. Seemingly noticing whatever baffled expression Mari had this time, the woman quickly went to clarify. "Even if you don't know everything, hearing your idea about all of this will still help. It's like a... starting point. I can compare what you think to what other people say. Does that make sense?"

"Um, I... suppose so." Mari replied, feeling herself frown in thought. It was another very slow response, a degree of "um-ing and ah-ing" and dragging things out that mom almost certainly would have scolded her for if she were here to witness it... It wasn't that Mari couldn't understand the concept – of course she could, it wasn't that complicated. It reminded her a little of mystery novels, where the detective would compare everyone's stories to see if they added up. It was just something about this conversation kept leaving her feeling... wrong-footed, somehow. It was just this vague feeling in the back of her head that she wasn't grasping things, wasn't paying enough attention, even when the actual words were relatively straightforward and understandable. (As straightforward as any conversation with an adult she didn't know well could be, anyway.)

Ms. Rachel's smile widened. "You see? All this isn't as complicated as you might think, really." she said, once again right back to that cheerful tone in an instant. "There's a couple other reasons, but I won't go into those, that's the main one that's important right now."

"Alright, I-I understand." Mari replied, internally cursing herself for the stutter. She still felt like she was missing something, but wasting time complaining about it when she didn't even know why would do no good. So she was simply going to accept the answer and move on. "I guess I don't have any more questions right now, then." she said. That was a slight lie – she had plenty more questions, but again, those could wait. If Ms. Rachel noticed her hesitance, though, she didn't call attention to it.

"Excellent!" (and there that word was again.) "So if you're sure, then let's go ahead and get started. You don't mind if I take some notes, right?" she asked. At Mari's slight nod, the woman once again took out the notebook and pen she'd used for Mrs. Rodriguez's contact information earlier. "So, for starters, tell me a bit about yourself, Mari."

...Huh?

Mari paused. "I'm sorry? I thought we were going to talk about-"

"We don't have to go into the incident just yet." the woman interrupted her, shaking her head. "I'd like to get a basic idea of your situation first. It would really help if I understood a bit about what your life is like in general, not just this most recent thing." she explained. Then she perked up a little, seeming to have had an idea. "If you're having trouble thinking of anything specific, then how about we just give it a nice overview? What's a normal day in your household like, for you?"

.

Mari went silent for a long moment, her brow furrowing as she considered. She... didn't really feel like she fully understood the question. Didn't fully understand the need for going off on some sort of tangent rather than just getting this over with and talking about what happened yesterday... she didn't really want to drag it out and build up to it slowly. Taking longer to get to it didn't feel like it would help the vague-yet-present cold feeling slowly pooling in her gut as she thought of it... But, if it was what the woman wanted, what right did she have to sit there and pretend she knew better than the professional CPS agent? None, of course. And besides, trying to argue would just be dragging things out even more. So, the easiest way was to just talk.

"I guess... for me, a regular day starts pretty early." she began, slowly. She wondered for a moment if she might have been taking the question too literally, actually spelling out her daily routine, but Ms. Rachel didn't stop her. So she continued. "School starts at eight-o-clock... Um, I go to Faraway High." she clarified, just in case the woman didn't know that. "Sometimes I walk and sometimes I take the bus. Walking takes longer, of course, but our neighborhood is pretty early in the bus route, so it's... about the same, really? How early I have to get up, I mean."

Ms. Rachel simply listened silently as Mari rambled.

"I usually let Sunny sleep in a little longer before I get him up – he really loves staying in bed!" Mari laughed lightly, taking the moment to tease Sunny just a bit... though the effect was rather lost when he wasn't here to grumble at her about it, and she quickly sobered again. Ms. Rachel was still smiling, but she didn't laugh either... "Uh, anyway... I have to get up a bit earlier so I can make breakfast for both of us before we go." she explained. She opted not to mention the part where her early rising was also often motivated by how she could barely sleep, some nights, tossing and turning as her brain refused to quit going in circles with the same maelstrom of thoughts over and over... Not important right now.

"...Wait." Ms. Rachel's voice cut through her thoughts suddenly, and Mari looked at her. She'd leaned forwards slightly, seeming to be more attentive somehow (not that she hadn't been paying attention before, of course). "You get yourself and your little brother up, and make breakfast for you both? What about your parents?" she asked, and there was something odd in her tone that hadn't been there before. Sharp, almost. Though Mari had no clue why.

"Mom and dad are pretty busy, they both usually have to go in to work pretty early too." Mari replied, frowning at the question, though she wasn't sure exactly what it was that bothered her about it. Ms. Rachel didn't seem to be satisfied by the answer, though.

"How busy do you mean? Are you saying your parents aren't there when you get up in the morning?" she pressed intently.

"No, mom or dad are usually still home." Mari corrected, an odd feeling in her chest all of a sudden. She wanted to call it... defensive, almost? But that didn't even make sense, she couldn't think of what exactly she was even defending, let alone why... yet that didn't make the feeling go away either. "Usually just not... both of them at once, most days. And they don't always have time to get me and Sunny up and make us breakfast, not if they want to eat something themselves, so... it was just easier for everyone if I learned to do it." she tried to explain, crossing her arms over her chest. Was it a little drafty in here all of a sudden, or was she imagining it...?

Ms. Rachel simply hummed in response. As if waiting for Mari to keep talking.

"And- and I don't mind doing it!" Mari added quickly, trying to clarify what she meant. "I actually kind of... like making sure Sunny can get ready on time. He's just a kid, I don't think it'd really be fair if he had to worry too much, and... I'm his big sister." she said, as if that explained everything. Because to her, it did. Of course she would be fine with being responsible for Sunny. The idea of even suggesting otherwise just felt absurd. Unthinkable. She may have failed... a lot... at her promise to be the best big sister ever recently, but even Mari knew that much.

.

"...Hm." Ms. Rachel hummed, the sound so neutral that Mari couldn't get anything from it. She had no clue what the woman could have been thinking in the slightest. It didn't sound like she agreed with what Mari said, but she didn't say anything to disagree either... not that Mari even knew what there would be to disagree with. Her statement was just a fact, she didn't mind looking after Sunny in the mornings, that wasn't a matter of opinion... Rather than doing anything to clarify, though, Ms. Rachel simply took a moment to look down at her notepad and scribble a couple notes onto it. For a few seconds the scratching of her pen was the only sound filling the air.

Then, without giving the faintest indication of what she'd just written, she shook her head to herself and changed the subject. "Well, anyway, let's move on. What's school like for you?"

Mari's frown deepened, she wasn't thrilled with feeling like she was being left in the dark, but there wasn't much choice other than to just go with it. "School is... fine?" she said, and yet again, it came out as more of a question. She didn't know precisely what was being asked for here. "I like some of my classes well enough, would you like me to tell you about them, or...?"

"Oh, I don't think we need to go over them all." Ms. Rachel replied, with a dismissive wave of her hand. "I more mean in general. What are your grades like? Are you struggling with anything? That sort of thing." she said. Then paused for a second. "...And please, be honest, Mari. I know some kids can be embarrassed by that sort of thing, but I promise you won't be in trouble if you're having a hard time." she added, and Mari might have been imagining it, but for a second her polite tone took on an edge that sounded almost... rueful. Like she was speaking from extensive experience.

Not that the concern was necessary, in Mari's mind.

"My grades are just about perfect." she replied matter-of-factly. "I have As in all my classes, and I always get good marks on my tests. I can't remember the last time I got lower than a B+ on an assignment..." It might have sounded like she was bragging, but she genuinely didn't mean it that way. She wasn't saying this out of pride, it was the objective truth. Her grades legitimately were that high. Faraway High didn't publicly post student rankings or anything – as Mari understood it, that was more of a thing in Japanese high schools, like dad talked about occasionally, and wasn't really common in America. But privately, a few of her teachers had told her once or twice that her average grades were among the best in her year. And that only meant she had to work even harder, since they'd be expecting her to keep it that way.

"Really? That's very impressive!" Ms. Rachel had raised her eyebrows high, her forehead creasing in astonishment as she said that. She sounded... legitimately surprised to Mari's ears. Something about that sort of stung, somewhere in Mari's chest. She knew the woman didn't really know her, and maybe she was being uncharitable, but... was it really that shocking to think that she could do well in school? She stopped herself from saying that aloud – taking such a sulky attitude with an adult wouldn't be acceptable – but the feeling remained.

("Not like you could really blame people for doubting your capability there, considering your track record with everything else.")

"You must do a lot of studying, then." Ms. Rachel commented, continuing along seemingly unaware of the effect of her prior words.

"I do." Mari confirmed with a small nod, trying to force down that slight bitterness and move on. With questionable success, perhaps, but she'd ignored worse feelings. "...In fact, my grades are actually good enough that I made it into the school's college prep program. Which means I take some extra classes in the evenings as well." she added, speaking as the words occurred to her.

"Oh, well done!" Ms. Rachel congratulated her brightly. "I know that program – there's several schools in the state that do it." she informed. "I hear it's pretty exclusive and they make kids work hard to stay in it, so you must be proud, right?"

Mari paused, blinking once. "...I wouldn't say that?" she replied, frowning once more. Then she quickly held up one hand, trying to make a vague "wait" sort of gesture. "I mean, I really appreciate the opportunity!" she hastened to clarify, not wanting to sound ungrateful. She knew that it was a privilege to even have access to a program like that, something mom had reminded her of very pointedly when she'd first been accepted. "I just don't think it's anything to brag about it either... I've really always needed to work hard so I can get into a good school, that's all." she tried to explain.

That was the truth, too. It wasn't a matter of pride, she didn't take those classes – or make such an effort to keep her grades up in general – because she was trying to... to show off or anything like that. Despite what a few teachers and even other kids at school seemed to have mistaken her for a few times over the years, Mari wasn't some sort of genius or prodigy. It was the opposite of that, and there was probably nobody in the whole world who knew that better than she did. She didn't keep up near-perfect grades because it came naturally... she kept them up because it didn't. Privately, she was all too aware she wasn't a great student, or even really a particularly good one.

She got distracted easily in class, zoning out or focusing on whatever random fake problem her mind had invented to obsess over that day, which made it easy to miss parts of the lectures or get tangled up and confused with the reading... That was why she often had to stay up late studying at home, going over the material until she'd hammered whatever she'd missed that day into her head the old fashioned way. (Much to Sunny's chagrin, she knew, as he'd found her dozed off at her writing desk on multiple occasions.)

But... mom and dad wouldn't have been happy with her if she let those problems cause her to fail. Mom had always been very insistent that she go to a prestigious college one day. The exact memories were vague, long-faded, but there was still a distinct image in the back of her mind of her mother's face, scowling at her from over a report card with a pair of Cs among the As and Bs... So, no, it wasn't really right to call it a point of pride at all. It wasn't about Mari's feelings, it was a matter of obligation. She didn't think she deserved a prize just because she could meet the bare minimum that was being asked of her, and especially not when she felt like she was dragging herself by the fingernails to get there half the time...

But Mari didn't say any of that.

("Nor should you. Because it's not anybody else's problem.")

.

.

"Hm." And there it was again – that odd, flat hum in acknowledgment. Obviously Ms. Rachel was expressing something with that sound, it was too careful and intentional to not have a meaning. Especially now that she'd done it twice in the exact same way, there was no chance that was an accident. Yet Mari was still lost as to what. Her first instinct was still to call it unimpressed or skeptical somehow, not quite approving of what they'd been talking about, but once again, that made no sense. Because just like earlier, Mari hadn't been lying, her stated reason of wanting to go to a good school was the truth. Not providing the whole context behind that desire, but true nonetheless. And it wasn't like the woman knew Mari either, her only info on Mari's life so far would have been the things she'd read in whatever government files and medical records she had... and the things Mari told her. So what information was she even thinking of that she could be doubting? Maybe Mari was getting too defensive, her mood was so odd right now that she was having a hard time telling what her feelings were supposed to be, but something about that precise hum just itched at her.

"...Getting into a good college is important." Mari reiterated, though the words came out rather lamely, less assured of a simple fact like she intended, and more sullen. And if Mari herself was having to resist the urge to cringe at her own voice, there was no way Ms. Rachel hadn't noticed the tone as well.

However, she didn't call Mari out on it. Instead she just gave another one of those little, dismissive waves of the hand.

"Oh, of course it is." she agreed – or appeared to agree – easily. "I was just thinking, that's a very responsible outlook." she said. There was an odd emphasis there that Mari didn't really get. Before she could even try to decipher it, though, Ms. Rachel cut through that train of thought with a sudden laugh. The sound was loud and, honestly, more than a little jarring, whether it was meant to be that way or not. In fact... it sounded a lot more like the sort of "laughter" one might expect from the other Ms. Candice, oddly high in a way that somehow rang unnatural. "Really though, if a lot of kids your age acted so mature, it'd make my job quite a bit easier!" she joked. Or at least Mari was assuming it was supposed to be a joke.

(Would it be rude to say that she really didn't see what was supposed to be funny there? ...It definitely would, but that didn't stop Mari from staring at her in mildly bewildered silence for a moment instead.)

Ms. Rachel coughed slightly. Then quickly scribbled another note down on her notepad before looking back up at Mari. "...Anyway, though, grades aside. Are you involved in any kind of extracurriculars? Besides the extra classes, I mean." the woman asked, seemingly keen to move the conversation on again. Not that Mari would object to that either.

"Not for school, if that's what you mean." she said, shaking her head. Then she paused for a second. "I used to be on the softball team, but... there was an accident. That was the first time I broke my leg." she added, her voice dropping a little as her eyes trailed down towards her knee. It was almost funny how much this still reminded her of back then, despite everything being so different.

"Right." Ms. Rachel acknowledged, and for just a moment there was something odd in her voice again, but once more it vanished before Mari could think on it. "Well, we'll come back to that part later, since I understand it's related to yesterday's incident." she decided briskly, not really giving Mari any room to object. It wasn't like it was an unreasonable request, the prior accident did give more context to the current one, so it made sense to treat them as one subject for the purposes of conversation. Mari could see the reasoning. "...But you said 'not for school'? Could you tell me more about that?" Ms. Rachel asked, leaning forward slightly as if in curiosity.

"Well, I play piano. The school's music program doesn't really cover that." Mari replied, giving a small shrug. Faraway High wasn't exactly the richest school in the country, and much of its budget for extracurriculars went to the sports teams. If you wanted to play an instrument, the only real option was the marching band, and that didn't have room for a pianist for... obvious reasons. "So I used to get private lessons, there's a little music school on the other side of town, but... eventually the tutors said my skills were growing so quickly that I didn't need them looking over my shoulder anymore. I'd do better with self-guided practice." she explained – she wasn't sure if that information would be useful or not, but she'd been asked to talk about her day-to-day situation, and this was a very significant part of it.

"Oh?" Ms. Rachel had taken on that surprised tone again, the one that was probably supposed to come across as impressed. "You must be quite the blooming savant, then!" she commented. The bright tone indicated it was almost certainly meant as a compliment. Yet...

"...That's- what my tutors said." Mari's voice hitched slightly as she replied, though she wasn't quite sure why. Her hands crossed over her chest, rubbing at her arms, suddenly feeling that vague chilly sensation in the air again. The hospital really needed to turn down the AC a little bit, if you asked her, because she kept noticing these unpleasant drafts. That must have been it. Ms. Rachel raised her eyebrows slightly, obviously having noticed the odd hesitance in Mari's tone, but said nothing. So Mari elaborated – though not before taking a second to try to swallow. "They told mom and dad I was a prodigy. They recommended me for a music foundation that sponsors... talented kids. I don't know all the details, though." she explained slowly.

Mari hadn't been privy to how those negotiations had gone down, exactly. The adults had – probably wisely, considering how unlikely it was for her to even keep up with the conversation, much less have anything to contribute – hashed things out themselves, mom and dad signing off on the relevant agreements in her stead (naturally, as she was still a minor). But the cliff notes version was that Mari would have to periodically show her piano skill at these scheduled evaluations. As long as she continued to perform well enough, the foundation would sponsor her for any public music recitals, as well as entry into state music contests. And those would offer all sorts of opportunities in return. Placing high enough and winning awards would not only look extremely good on a job résumé, depending on the field, but it could also put her in line for scholarships from some very prestigious colleges. Mari hadn't been in any such competitions yet, but she knew mom had been angling for them...

She knew better than to actually believe any of that "prodigy" talk, though. She could understand how that mistake had happened, but it was a mistake. It was like... in a heist movie, where there's a precious diamond (or whatever) locked in a safe. Mari would not be the brilliant master safecracker who could pick up on a few minuscule clicks of the tumblers and tap the lock in such a way that it instantly opened, like a magic trick. She was just the burglar who was hardheaded enough to brute force the lock by tediously going through combination after combination until it opened. Sure, to an outsider arriving after the fact, who hadn't witnessed the process, the final result was the same: an open safe. No doubt that was where the confusion had come from.

But putting that slightly overwrought analogy aside... being stubborn and self-absorbed enough to fool people into thinking she was a genius, did not actually make her a genius. No more than she was with schoolwork. The soreness in her wrists and the stiffness in her knees after every practice session made her very keenly aware that she really, really wasn't. But because people had seen those results that looked like true talent, it was expected of her to continue to progress, for her skills to continue to grow until they were perfect. And in theory, she should have been able to. It wasn't unreasonable to assume that since she'd succeeded before, she could continue to do so. Playing the piano wasn't a matter of luck, it wasn't a roll of the dice, it was a technical skill. The same action would always produce the same sound (as long as it was tuned properly, of course). So with sufficient practice it could be gotten down to an exact science, a perfect performance every time.

Or, that had been the theory, anyway. Mari knew, now, that the reasoning had been flawed from the beginning. That even if her assumption was correct and powering through practice often enough, for long enough, would eventually produce the perfect result... it wouldn't be worth the cost. It worked as an abstract, as a thought experiment, but in reality spending her time that way would inevitably exact a price in other ways, and not just from herself, but from those around her. How stupid of Mari to not realize how that ideal of practicing was hurting Sunny... She shouldn't have needed to have it explained to her, it was so obvious in hindsight...

But at the same time, she didn't hate playing the piano. She loved it... or, she had loved it, as it was at the start. When things were light and fun, and playing a beautiful song for the first time made her feel like she was on the moon. If she could just go back to that, how it felt, then maybe it would be right again. She had to hope her compromise with Sunny for more reasonable practice times would work, but could it really be enough?

.

.

.

"-an you hear me? Are you alright?"

What?

Mari startled, her shoulders jerking suddenly enough to rattle the bed, a jolt racing through her heart. Almost in instinct, she pulled in a sharp breath through her nose, her eyes casting about in alarm for just a second before settling on Ms. Rachel still sitting in front of her. The woman was leaning forward over her notepad, peering at Mari with careful eyes, her polite smile having been allowed to drop at some point.

"...What?" she repeated her first thought dumbly, blinking a couple times, feeling faintly and inexplicably like her head was starting to spin, still trying to make sense of what was going on now that warranted this abrupt shift in mood. What had the woman been saying, again, before that flinch had cut through Mari's train of thought?

Ms. Rachel, meanwhile, leaned back slightly at the sound of Mari's voice, sitting up a little straighter in her chair once more. But her frown only appeared to deepen – though it was so subtle that it was an equal chance Mari was just imagining it.

"I said, are you alright?" Ms. Rachel repeated, and Mari's confusion must have shown, because she immediately went to clarify unprompted. "We were talking about your piano lessons, and you just stopped responding!"

"...Huh?" Mari blinked once more. "I- oh. Oh."

And then the realization hit her. A wave of something unpleasant washed over her, grimy and cold as it settled into her gut. Her face burned, and she was sure her cheeks must have been visibly inflamed from the sheer embarrassment that flooded into her. So great was the sudden flare of mortification that it – for just a moment – overrode even the faint haze at the edges of her mind from the painkillers that had been dulling everything else this whole time. It didn't just hit her so much as crash into her like a freight train, feeling like it reverberated down her spine. It was taking all of Mari's will not to just curl up into a ball right then... or at least, attempt to. It wouldn't have worked anyway, she couldn't exactly pull her knees in with one of them splinted, but the urge to try was still gnawing at the back of her mind all the same.

She'd zoned out. Not just momentarily, but long enough to actually be seriously noticeable. To completely miss whatever the woman had been saying – no, to not even register that anything was being said at all, to just completely forget that she was actively in the middle of a conversation for at least several seconds. Not processing any words, not having any sort of reaction to anything, not even paying the slightest bit of attention to where she was. Like it just slipped her mind. She'd zoned out while an adult was talking to her. That wasn't... there was no way that was acceptable. Moments like that were humiliating enough when it was just happening with her friends. For all that they said they understood, Mari really wanted to minimize those instances as much as possible. It just wasn't polite. But to let herself do it in the middle of a conversation with an adult who she didn't even know personally, a professional here on important business whose time she was wasting?

("Even for you, that's way over the line.")

"I'm sorry..." she said, lowering her eyes to stare at her hands. "I... got distracted." The words sounded lame even in her head, but how else was she supposed to describe all... that... in any way that wouldn't sound like insane rambling?

"Don't apologize, sweetheart." Ms. Rachel denied right away, clicking her tongue. There was an undercurrent to her voice, was that... annoyance, maybe? Mari wasn't sure. "But I need you to tell me if something's wrong, alright? Do you need me to call a nurse?" she continued, her eyes seeming to bore into Mari with that same cautious stare.

Mari's own gaze snapped back up at that question, her brow furrowing as the embarrassment in her gut warred with welling confusion. "A nurse? What do you-" But she cut off her own bewildered question as the words really clicked and the answer became obvious. Of course, the woman was visiting her in the hospital. She was sitting here having just gotten done with an urgent surgery just last night, a surgery painful enough that she had an IV bag full of glorified elephant tranquilizers and she could still feel her knee throbbing dully from time to time. Obviously the first assumption if she started acting weird and going non-responsive would be that the meds were getting to her – or worse, that there was some sort of complication that might require urgent attention. Her just being so inattentive and self-absorbed that she got caught up in her own thoughts rather than paying attention to the conversation was not the first thing anyone would guess. Not when there were far more logical and justifiable concerns in this situation.

"...No, I'm fine. It's not anything like that." Mari said, trying to assuage the woman's concerns and not worry her needlessly. But she couldn't muster up the energy to actually make her voice sound reassuring or positive, so it simply came out flat. Her shoulders hunched a little, almost instinctively. "This just- this just... happens sometimes..." she admitted, quietly, shamefully.

"Happens?" Ms. Rachel repeated, her eyebrows knitting for a moment, but then- "...Oh." she said, a sound of realization not unlike the one Mari herself had made a minute ago. "I see." she commented simply, crossing her hands in her lap. Those two words said all that needed to be said for Mari to understand what it meant.

She knew... Of course she knew Mari was autistic. Obviously. The woman was a social worker here to investigate Mari, her family, her living situation... something like that was almost certainly listed among the files and medical records. It would be truly baffling if it wasn't one of the things the woman had checked, especially since she was contacted due to the events of yesterday. Mari being the way she was... was critical to understanding that whole incident, it was arguably the key point, there would be no chance it wouldn't come up at some point. So yes, Mari had known – or at least suspected – all along that Ms. Rachel was already aware of that. But having it confirmed this way, after being caught completely and blatantly zoned out like that...

This was mortifying.

It wasn't like Ms. Rachel was the first adult outside her family to know or anything, obviously not. Even putting aside the rumors that the elderly ladies who routinely attended the church were apparently still circulating about her if Basil was to be believed (and Mari had no reason to doubt it)... There were also of course the usual authority figures like the school faculty or – appropriately enough, given where she was – medical staff who had access to her records. So maybe Mari was overreacting and this degree of embarrassment wasn't really called for. But that thought didn't actually seem to help much.

.

While Mari was busy wishing that she could simply shrink into a speck of dust, however, Ms. Rachel simply continued talking.

"-ll, I wouldn't want to upset you." the woman was saying. "It's alright if you're feeling just a little bit confused by all this, Mari." She'd gone back to that polite, "nice" tone of voice again, the one that Mari still couldn't tell if it was meant to be genuine or not, though it sounded a bit less overtly cheery this time at least. "So if you want, we can put a pin in this for now, I can come back later." she offered, placing her hands on the arms of the chair as if readying to push herself up should she need to.

"...What?" Mari replied dumbly, her brain working through the words oddly slowly for a moment, her train of thought derailed. "Come back later...?" she repeated, confusion bleeding into her voice again before it finally clicked what she was saying. Her eyes went wide.

"Wait! I mean, no, you don't have to do that!" Mari babbled out, the words all but spilling out in a hurry, only just barely managing to moderate her tone to not outright shout at the woman. At the same time, she held up her hands with her palms out in a "hold on" sort of gesture – though not raised too quickly or too high in front of her chest so as not to tug at the plastic IV line running from one wrist. It wasn't quite long enough to allow for a full range of dramatic movements.

Ms. Rachel visibly paused, blinking at the outburst. "...Pardon me?" she replied, sounding confused herself now. Or maybe taken aback. Mari couldn't really tell the difference, but she was pretty sure it was something along those lines, at least.

"You don't... have to leave yet." Mari clarified, taking a deep breath and making an active endeavor speak more calmly and understandably. Which... mostly worked. "I really was just distracted, we can keep going." she said, crossing her arms over her chest slightly uncomfortably.

There was a long pause before Ms. Rachel replied, peering at Mari with that same small frown on her face, the same focused stare in her eyes, though what exactly she was thinking about was still as unclear as ever.

"Are you sure?" she finally asked, in a way where Mari really felt unsure if it meant the woman had seen... whatever she was looking for... or not. "It really is alright if it's too hard for you, you know?" she added.

"Y-yeah." Mari replied, even as part of her wanted to swear at the momentary stutter for undercutting her. That wouldn't be appropriate in front of an adult, though. "I'm fine, really, and I know this is important." she said.

It wasn't entirely the truth, of course. Even putting aside the multiple obvious reasons why Mari didn't qualify as "fine" at the moment – her splinted knee seemed to twinge on cue – there was also the way she could feel that sense of shame still burning at the back of her mind. The sheer embarrassment had not faded so much as just been forced down. It helped a little that Ms. Rachel hadn't seemed inclined to openly call her out on it, even though she knew the reason. Small mercies and all. But it would be a lie to say that Mari was really any happier about it. Part of her really, really wanted to agree with the suggestion and call the meeting off here, simply to try to escape the uncomfortable moment... But it wasn't an option. They hadn't even gone over the incident yesterday, the truly important part, they were still just discussing Mari's life... Sending Ms. Rachel away now, wasting her time by making her come back again just to get what she was actually here for? Not only was it unhelpful, it was beyond rude. Even someone like Mari had to have a limit somewhere on how entitled and selfish she could be.

("It's probably too late to start having standards now, but better than nothing...")

.

"Well, alright, if you're feeling up to it..." Ms. Rachel decided at last, settling back a bit in her chair. Her frown didn't appear to have lessened any, though. "You need to tell me if you want to stop though, alright sweetheart?" she added, and Mari recognized something in her tone: that distinct air adults often used when they didn't seem to really believe whatever Mari was saying, even if they were still ostensibly agreeing. She didn't fully get why, the thought making her frown in return... but at least they were moving on anyway. She'd take what she could get, so she nodded once in agreement.

.

"So where were we...?" Ms. Rachel said, seemingly more to herself from the way she was murmuring, glancing at her notepad once more and tapping it lightly with her pen in thought. "Oh, right. What you usually do after school. You were telling me about your piano practice – which is very impressive, by the way! Did I already mention that?" As she spoke, she quickly fell back into that upbeat tone that was probably supposed to be conversational. Mari was starting to think it really was just the default for her, wasn't it? The question was clearly rhetorical, though, as she shook her head to herself without waiting for a response. "Well, anyway, before that, ah, little moment... I was just thinking that it sounded like you were awfully busy after school, with prep classes and piano. Isn't that a lot?" she wondered.

Mari considered for a moment, brow furrowing. "It's not... that bad?" she replied, though it came out far less certain than she had intended. She had been pretty occupied this last year in particular, that wasn't wrong, but... "It is a lot of work, but I can manage it." (She had to manage it, she didn't say.) "I set my own hours for piano practice, and I get all my homework in on time, so..." she trailed off, shrugging slightly.

She was deliberately not mentioning the part where she hadn't been properly moderating her practice sessions for quite awhile, letting them run to absurd and unfair lengths without realizing it... That was beside the point. They were supposed to be discussing her general living situation, not every horrible mistake she'd ever made. Just because Mari herself had been screwing things up like that, didn't mean the idea of her piano practice was flawed. It was a perfectly tenable situation in theory that only became unreasonable because she was doing it wrong. But she'd already realized the error there – even if it shouldn't have taken her nearly so long – and was taking steps to at least try to fix it. That wasn't something that required any outside interference, it was nobody's business but Mari's and Sunny's. Well, and arguably their friends, they were affected by the siblings' absence too. Regardless, though, she'd already decided on the new practice schedule, there was no need to drag adults into this... as long as it worked.

But she didn't want to get caught in that spiral of thinking about it again. It would be fine. It had to be fine.

Ms. Rachel's eyebrows had raised subtly, but visibly, at the mention of Mari being in charge of setting her own practices. But whatever the woman was thinking would be completely opaque... though it was apparently something worthy of noting down, because that was exactly what she did, her pen scratching a couple lines down on her notebook before returning her full attention to Mari. Whatever sorts of things she'd been writing this whole time, she didn't seem to be in any rush to share with Mari. But it would also be rude to pry, so Mari didn't. (Even if she was getting increasingly curious.)

"...Alright, I understand. So let's move on to the evenings, shall we?" Ms. Rachel said after that pause, apparently having decided not to press any further on that. "I'm assuming your parents get home around then?"

"Uh... Sometimes?" Mari hedged, giving another vague shrug of her shoulders. She knew it wasn't an especially helpful answer, so she continued. "Like I said before, they're pretty busy. They work long and... pretty inconsistent hours, and I think they both tend to take on a lot of overtime too. So sometimes they get home in the evening, but sometimes it's later." she tried to explain.

Ms. Rachel was frowning again. "How much later do you mean?" she asked, sounding... oddly serious for some reason? This really wasn't a big deal, was it?

"Well..." Mari began, thinking it through. "...Again, it's inconsistent, and mom and dad have different jobs so it's not even the same for both of them... Sometimes they get home around dinnertime, but a lot of the time it's a bit after. Usually not later than about... eight-o-clock, I'd say, but there have been a few really late nights too..." She felt like she was rambling, just babbling out her train of thought as it came to her. But she also didn't know if she really had any better options – like she was saying, it really wasn't consistent for either of her parents, there was no convenient singular time she could easily point to. And in the absence of a good solid answer, she just had to string together vague generalities and estimations and hope it came out coherently.

"Wait, hold on." Ms. Rachel interjected, holding one hand up as if to say "stop". "You're saying that your parents are routinely out of the house until after dinner?" she asked, seemingly to confirm what she was hearing, and... yep, if Mari hadn't been sure before, there was definitely a serious edge there, though the reason why was still unclear.

"Yes?" Mari replied questioning, meeting the woman's frown with her own. "I know how to take care of meals for me and Sunny, if that's what you're worried about." she added. That odd defensive feeling was back, prodding uncomfortably at the inside of her chest again.

"...You take care of meals?" Ms. Rachel repeated, almost disbelieving for some reason. Privately Mari was starting to get a little tired of what felt like everything she said being second-guessed, so her nod in reply was a little sharper than it might otherwise have been. "So would you say that you do most of the cooking for yourself and your brother in your household, then?" the woman pressed, leaning forwards again.

"I guess that's fair to say, yeah." Mari confirmed, nodding once more, though she definitely didn't know where this was going now. "I can cook pretty well-" She didn't mention the part where she usually needed a strict recipe to follow. "-or sometimes, if I'm too busy to make something, I'll order takeout for us. Or we'll just heat up some leftovers... It's not a problem, is what I mean." she tried to clarify, ticking off options on her fingers as she spoke.

"And how often would you say this happens? How many nights a week are you left to handle dinner, on average, do you think?" Ms. Rachel simply continued to question. There was no doubt in Mari's mind she was driving towards some sort of point. There seemed to be no choice but to just go along with it, though.

"I'd say... maybe five?" Mari estimated. Mom and dad theoretically each got two days off a week – though almost never the same days, it felt like – not accounting for overtime. Though, they were both so busy that sometimes they had more work to do at home and couldn't cook even on said days off, so Mari was probably lowballing the number a bit. But she really wasn't in any state to be trying to work out the exact math, even if she'd known a full breakdown of the statistics off the top of her head (which she obviously didn't), so just saying five felt close enough.

"...I see." Ms. Rachel hummed, turning her eyes down to her notes to scrawl down another few lines, her writing hand appearing to move with even greater urgency like... whatever this was had hit upon something important.

.

The lack of explanation was... really starting to get a little frustrating. If Mari's feelings weren't being filtered through a painkiller induced haze, it probably would have been genuinely very annoying by now, the type of annoyance that would be making it look more and more tempting in the back of her mind to do something she knew was rude and impulsive. The sort of urge she normally tried to tamp down for being unacceptably impolite.

In fact...

"Is this a... problem?" she wondered, just a little pointedly. It may not have burst out quite as demanding as she was imagining, but even dulled like this, that urge to know still made her ask before she could stop herself.

Ms. Rachel looked up, blinking. "Huh?" she said, looking at Mari for a second before actually seeming to process what was said. She gave Mari another one of those smiles from before. "Oh, no, it's not an issue you need to worry about right now, sweetheart. You haven't said anything wrong." she replied, seeming to be... trying to reassure Mari?

But it didn't escape Mari's notice how that wasn't actually an answer. In fact, it sort of felt like dodging the question.

"But there is an issue." Mari pointed out insistently, unwilling to be deterred that easily. Maybe it could be blamed on the drugs making her not think as much of how disrespectful she was probably being... Or maybe it was that weird feeling in her chest, or the coldness that seemed to be chilling the air, telling her this was something she shouldn't ignore that easily... It could even be both, actually.

Ms. Rachel's brief attempt at bringing her smile back dropped again just as quickly, and the woman was silent for a long moment. Her brow was furrowed like she was seriously considering something, looking at Mari carefully as if silently evaluating her.

.

.

And then the woman let out a small sigh. "Alright." she conceded, and Mari exhaled a breath she didn't know she was holding. "Please don't take this too seriously, because it really isn't something you need to be worrying about, it's not a problem on your end." Ms. Rachel prefaced, speaking much more deliberately like she was choosing her words carefully. The warning was unnecessary, in Mari's honest opinion – if it was something about herself or her family, then that felt like it was pretty much the definition of her business – but she didn't argue, staying silent and letting the woman say whatever she was going to say.

"I'm not a child psychologist, so this is just my opinion right now, please remember that... But there's this idea called 'parentification'. It's exactly what it sounds like, children having to step up and fill in for a parent's role in the family." Ms. Rachel explained, her voice dropping into something almost grim for a second.

Mari swallowed. She suddenly had a suspicion where this was going.

"I'm not saying what you've told me is exactly like that, but..." Ms. Rachel shook her head as she continued. "You're responsible for getting yourself and your brother up in the mornings, you make your own breakfast, you get both of you to school on time... You're expected to handle all your own studying while keeping perfect grades. You're in charge of managing your own schedule for piano practices and homework, while also looking after your brother. You have to make sure you're both eating properly in the evenings..." she listed out, her voice sounding a little sharper with each listed point. "...And then the next day, you get up and do it all again. Is anything I just said wrong?" she asked pointedly.

Mari shook her head mutely. Yes, she was pretty sure she knew roughly what the woman was going to say next... That didn't make waiting for the penny to drop any more pleasant.

"With your parents being so busy... It sounds to me like you've been acting like your own guardian, and for Sunny as well."

"That's-" Mari began to say, but stopped.

Could she really say that was untrue?

It wasn't like anything Ms. Rachel was saying was incorrect. Or even shocking. She was literally just repeating back things Mari had told her in this very conversation. The only new information was that specific word, "parentification", that Mari had never heard before, but that was just a technical term, and debating whether it fully applied or not would be beside the point. Everything else was true, it had been true when Mari said it, so logically it was still all true being pointed out to her in return... She'd just never strung it all together like that. But now, hearing it laid out, she was... she was kind of forced to agree, wasn't she?

Getting up on time, getting the kids to school on time, managing cooking for them and planning out schedules and afterschool activities... Those were typical "parent" things to do, weren't they? And in fact, there were even more things Mari could think of that fit into that idea that she hadn't even mentioned yet – she just hadn't made the connection before. Like cleaning up the house, for one. She was the one who took care of the lion's share of the household chores between herself and Sunny; dusting, sweeping the floors, vacuuming, laundry, scrubbing out the bathroom, you name it. And mom and dad rarely had time for any sort of big dedicated cleanup effort themselves...

But Mari was a teenager. Teenagers were normally expected to do that sort of stuff, right? Babysitting younger siblings, chores, homework, that was all just being responsible. Hero did all those things too.

Except... except he didn't do them all the time now did he? Mari knew he didn't. Even with his parents pushing him to be responsible and go to a good college, just like hers did – he'd certainly mentioned that a few times in private conversation – he still always seemed to have more free time than she did. It wasn't Hero who'd spent most of the year skipping out on picnics and hangouts constantly due to responsibilities...

But Mari did. Mari was Sunny's big sister and, to her, that meant having to juggle all her responsibilities constantly. Day after day. Mom and dad were busy, so busy, and Mari understood, so she did her best. She hadn't... thought that was weird, but... It was all true.

And if she did it wrong, if she let... how she was... get in her way, then what she'd been taught was... nobody would-

.

.

.

*clack!*

Ms. Rachel flipped her notebook shut, almost deliberately, the sound seeming to pierce the air like a gunshot.

"...I'm sorry to drop that on you, Mari, I know it must be... difficult. What you've told me has been very helpful, I think, but... I really do think we should take a break for now." she decided, standing from her chair without giving Mari a chance to argue this time. (Not that Mari was even sure if she would have. Her head still felt like it was spinning, trying to make sense of- of that-)

"Maybe just for an hour or so, to cool off... And then we can sit down and discuss the incident if you're feeling up to it, alright?"

Chapter Text

If Mari hadn't been convinced before, she definitely was now: she was really starting to hate this hospital room. It was an odd feeling, something she noted with an almost detached sort of air to it, a slight disconnect in a way that didn't feel fully real. Like she was reading a book where the main character really disliked something, and Mari sympathized with them, but it wasn't her. She wasn't sure if that was the haze of the painkillers acting up again, or just stir-craziness from this place starting to get to her... It could even be both, she supposed, those things weren't mutually exclusive.

Objectively speaking, it wasn't like she'd even been cooped up here that long – it had been less than twenty-four hours, in fact, as she'd been admitted sometime late in the afternoon or early evening yesterday, while it probably wasn't even one-o-clock now. So maybe she didn't really have much right to complain. There were people who had to stay in the hospital for weeks, months, years, and Mari was whining to herself after less than a day? Selfish, of course... But that thought wasn't enough to actually make the feeling go away either. Idly, she couldn't help but wonder if those longer-term patients got nicer rooms with a bit more decoration. She hoped so. People would be going mad otherwise. There had to be some reason the interior designers apparently disdained the very concept of colors, but as it stood, Mari was pretty sure she was going to be seeing beige floor tiles in her nightmares at this point.

She was repeating herself, she knew. But that was sort of the whole problem: she was stuck with practically no choice but to go over the same points over and over in her head. Being here in this hospital bed was the longest Mari had been confined in one place in years. Even her most unreasonable piano practice sessions didn't compare – and at least with those, she knew she was always capable of getting up and doing something else at any time, even if she didn't actually do it. It wasn't even the immobility itself that bothered her, not really, even if that wasn't necessarily her favorite thing either... But the sheer lack of anything to do was rapidly becoming a far bigger problem. Not having practically any sort of task or activity to occupy herself with meant that she had no choice but to just sit there with her thoughts... And being alone in her head was the last thing Mari wanted.

An hour's break, Ms. Rachel had said, ostensibly meant to give Mari a chance to "cool off"... But with each passing minute, Mari was only becoming more and more convinced that it would have been easier if they'd just kept going. At least then she could focus on getting it over with. But no. Maybe she was being uncharitable – obviously it wasn't the social worker's fault that Mari was the way she was. Taking a break like this probably would be a helpful strategy for a lot of normal kids... It wasn't fair or reasonable to expect anyone to pander to her own overly-specific problems compared to that. But all the same, that didn't do anything to change the fact that, for Mari, it was having the exact opposite of the intended effect. Rather than a nice calming reprieve where she could move on and put the previous discussion out of her mind... she was instead left with nothing to do but endlessly circle around within her mind.

It would've been easier if she had someone here with her... She understood, of course, why Mrs. Rodriguez hadn't returned with Kel, Aubrey, and Basil in tow. They were probably trying to give her and Ms. Rachel plenty of time to go over everything and get things sorted. If they came back today at all, it would most likely be later in the afternoon or sometime this evening, when they could be sure they wouldn't be interrupting anything important. There were privacy laws to consider and all that, they couldn't just come bursting in when there might be sensitive things being discussed, even if Mari would've personally been glad for their presence. It made sense, and Mari could see herself agreeing with the decision if she was in their shoes, though she might not necessarily be happy about it. Knowing all that... didn't make it any more pleasant to be left alone, though.

She... she really missed Sunny right now. He was an immediate family member, aforementioned privacy issues would be more lenient for him. And even more than that... just having her little brother here with her would make this all so much easier. Not just because she'd always appreciate his company – though that was also a very important part – but because it'd give her something else to focus on. Maybe it was a selfish thing to think, but if she could help Sunny work through all this, she'd be able to get out of her head and actually do something useful. Like when he'd come huddle up in her bed after a nightmare – being able to focus on comforting him gave her something to distract herself from her own frequent bouts of sleeplessness. It ended up helping her sleep too, when she knew her little brother was safe and happy and she could focus on that. Because if there was one thing Mari had a lot of practice at, it was helping Sunny with things...

.

.

But that just brought her right back to the problem she'd been trying to dance around acknowledging.

Mari had always taken care of Sunny. That was how it had been ever since he was born. Not that there had been much she'd been able to do for him in the early years, as a little kid herself there hadn't been a lot of options to help. But even then, she'd tried to do as much as she could, hugging when he cried and so on. And as they got older, and she started to learn to take care of herself, it only stood to reason that she would look after Sunny too. Little things at first; helping him brush his teeth, reading stories at bedtime, nothing she would consider extraordinary. And the trend just continued like that, year after year: as Mari got older, she naturally became increasingly capable – even if she didn't pick up on certain things quite as quickly as a normal kid might, she'd usually figure it out eventually. And once she did, then logically that extended to the things she could help Sunny with too.

Once Mari knew how to walk to school safely (and get there on time), of course she'd take charge of leading Sunny there. Once she knew how to clean up cuts and scrapes, of course she'd help him put on a band-aid when he fell and skinned his knee. Once she knew how to keep semi-reliable studying habits, of course she'd volunteer to help him through figuring out his homework. Once she knew how to prepare food, of course she'd fix meals for them both in the mornings or the evenings when their parents were unavailable. Of course, of course, of course. Of course she was responsible for him. It was the simple, obvious conclusion. Always. Mari had never entertained for a second the thought of doing things any other way.

But now she was supposed to believe... that wasn't how it should be? Just because mom and dad had become so busy so often these days, so Mari had to step up and be even more responsible, why would that make a difference? She was still just doing the same thing she had always been doing, wasn't she? If cooking and cleaning and scheduling were what let her best ensure Sunny's happiness and wellbeing, why did it matter if some of it was "parent" things to do? It felt like such an arbitrary distinction being made. Sure, she could admit in hindsight that she might have been doing more than she'd expect of Hero or other normal kids... but why did that have to be a bad thing? Why did Ms. Rachel seem to think it was a problem? If Mari herself didn't mind it, why did her just honestly answering questions warrant such odd reactions? And shouldn't someone at least ask Sunny for his opinion before just deciding anything?

...Mari didn't know the answer to any of those questions. This whole thing just felt... weird. It was going around and around in her head – which she supposed she ought to be used to by now, but she just couldn't seem to figure out how she was supposed to be thinking or feeling about this. Far from "cooling off" and getting things nice and neat and leveling out her mood... each repetition only seemed to make her feel kind of frustrated and confused.

But to make things even worse... she had a sneaking suspicion that today wasn't going to get any better from here.

.

.

A nurse came in to bring Mari lunch before the "break" hour was up. Which she probably should have seen coming, in hindsight, since Mrs. Rodriguez had ostensibly been planning on taking the younger kids out for lunch themselves when they'd left. Of course, while they were probably just going to a fast food place or something of the sort, Mari was instead stuck with a tray full of hospital food that looked just as bland as the previous meals last night and this morning. If someone had told Mari before all this that she would actually envy the prospect of greasy fries and overcooked hamburgers, she wouldn't have believed it... but here she was. She would happily have taken overly salted burger chain food over this fare that didn't seem to believe in salt at all... And the smell. The smell! Why did even the meals seem to have a hint of that nauseating, sterile medical scent that permeated everything else? Why was she not allowed to escape it even with this? Had it really been this bad last time? Was she losing her mind?

("...Do you actually want the answer to that last one?")

Though, unappetizing as it may have been, and even though Mari really didn't feel very hungry at the moment regardless... that didn't stop her from eating as much from the tray as she could stomach all the same. She of all people certainly knew the importance of meals to keep one's energy up – while there were multiple reasons why so many of her outings with her friends tended to be made into picnics, that was a major one. Sitting in a hospital bed wasn't exactly as intensive as, say, trying to keep up with an excitable Kel (obviously), but the point remained. Her personal habits aside, though, there was also the fact that Dr. Astora would definitely not be pleased if Mari didn't eat... She had already made his job more than enough of a hassle, with having to arrange the last-minute surgery and all that, so it wouldn't do to burden him by being uncooperative. No, she could ignore the unpleasantness of the food. She could ignore much worse unpleasant feelings than that. (She wouldn't make it through an average week if she couldn't.)

The bigger issue was mostly just how the utter blandness of the food made it so completely uninspiring that Mari could hardly bring herself to care about it. She ate it more by rote than anything, going through the process completely mechanically without even really tasting it, barely noticing until her stomach protested and she looked down to see the tray nearly empty. At least if the food had been good, it might have given her something to distract her from her thoughts for a little while. But no. It couldn't even do that much. There was the moment of initial dread for the taste (and the smell), but nothing beyond that.

And so she was still just stuck here, in her own head, swirling around the same thoughts over and over until they were more nauseating than anything.

.

.

.

*KNOCK KNOCK*

Mari's head whipped up at the sound of sharp knocks against the sliding door, so quickly that she actually felt a small twinge in her neck, though she paid it no mind. She couldn't be sure exactly how long she'd been sitting there staring blankly down at the mostly-cleaned food tray in her lap. It could've been five minutes, or fifty, and she wouldn't have known the difference. Too long, either way. The prospect of someone, anyone, arriving was enough to send a jolt up her spine – but it wasn't a bad feeling. Despite (or perhaps because of) her murky state of mind, having somebody to talk to, even if it was just a nurse or someone who'd only be here for a minute or two, sounded like a breath of fresh air from this suffocating stillness. Even though she knew logically that it was nonsensical, part of Mari was almost starting to feel like she was completely alone in this whole building... The chance to prove that part wrong was more than welcome.

Ironically, she was so caught up for a moment in that surge of eagerness that it completely slipped her mind that she ought to actually call out to whoever was outside to tell them they could come in. Fortunately for her, though, they didn't seem to notice her unwelcoming negligence – or at least, if they did, it wasn't enough to deter them – as after a brief pause, they simply opened the door themselves, and-

*click-shunk*

-Oh. Mari wasn't entirely sure why she was remotely surprised to see it was just Ms. Rachel returning.

In hindsight, it was blatantly obvious. Though Mari was awful at keeping track of time, the given hour had to be just about up by now, if not already more than passed. The woman had said she would be back after that, so she was, simple as that. And if that weren't enough of a reason to predict it by itself, there was also the knocking. Mari herself had observed the way Ms. Rachel had knocked when she'd first arrived earlier, because it was unusual for people visiting her to do that. The hospital staff certainly didn't seem to bother as they came and went whenever they had something to attend to. The social worker had in fact been the only person to knock before entering. Of course, the knocks had been longer the first time, and she'd waited for a response before showing herself in, but that was probably just for a polite introduction. Now that she'd met Mari already and was just here to continue the prior discussion, knocking was more formality than a necessity. It made sense when put like that.

(Even with all that in mind, was it bad that part of Mari couldn't help but feel a little let down...?)

"Oh, Mari!" the woman greeted brightly as she entered, looking down at Mari with that ever-present smile once more. She sounded... almost surprised for some reason, even though they both obviously knew exactly why she was coming back in here. Mari blinked, not knowing for a moment how to reply – or if she even should reply. Fortunately, Ms. Rachel put a swift end to that dilemma by speaking again, perhaps having noticed the confusion. "I wasn't sure if you'd be awake, or if you might have dozed off on me." she explained in that same cheery tone, even adding a small laugh at the end of her sentence like she'd said some kind of joke.

Rather than finding anything funny, Mari just immediately felt even more confused.

"Dozed off...?" she asked blankly, feeling rather dumb even as she said it. But it was the middle of the day, and she wasn't near as prone to napping as Sunny was. Even if the social worker didn't know her that well personally, why would it be the assumption...?

Ms. Rachel's smile seemed to flicker for a second, like she'd seen something in Mari's expression (though Mari hadn't the faintest clue what, as she didn't think she was making a face).

"Ah, I didn't mean anything by it!" the woman said quickly – and perhaps a little too loudly, as Mari twitched slightly at the sound of her voice. Though maybe that was just oversensitive hearing again... "I was just thinking, there's not much to do in the hospital, and I'm sure you must be tired after all this, so I don't think anyone would blame you for feeling like a nap." Ms. Rachel continued, either not noticing Mari's discomfort or else thinking it was best to simply move on without acknowledging it.

"...Oh, I see." Mari said slowly, lying. That explanation didn't actually help her to understand at all. Maybe it was just her mind working too slowly again, but... Sure, it wasn't like Ms. Rachel was wrong, there wasn't anything to do like this, and she probably should be tired, just coming off her surgery last night and all. But she hadn't been feeling like sleeping right now, the thought hadn't even really occurred to her. So why bring it up out of nowhere now? It just seemed like such a random way to start a conversation, especially when the woman had only just returned less than a minute ago.

Ms. Rachel must have noticed the doubtful tone, and- yep, this time her smile definitely faltered. "...Just a bit of small talk, don't worry about it." she said, sounding almost dismissive as she shook her head. Assuming Mari was interpreting that right, anyway, which was far from a given. Getting a read on Ms. Rachel hadn't magically gotten any easier in the interim. Still, though, Mari could feel herself frowning... Small talk? That... That made perfect sense, didn't it? With the... uncomfortable note their prior conversation ended on just an hour ago, it was absolutely reasonable to expect there to be some tension upon her return and want to break the ice. The woman was just being polite. She was being polite, and Mari was being the opposite of that with her blank staring and refusing to engage.

("Oh wow, you're being rude to someone who doesn't deserve it. In other breaking news, water: it's wet!")

.

After a few moments of awkward silence, once it became apparent that Mari didn't know what to say (or if she should even say anything), Ms. Rachel blinked a couple times – almost looking like she was trying to refocus herself or something of the sort – and then spoke once more.

"Well anyway, Mari..." she began, gradually approaching Mari's bed as she talked, coming around the side to stand in front of the chair where she'd been sitting earlier, though she didn't actually settle down into it yet. "...Do you think you're ready to get back to our discussion?" she asked. Mari felt herself pause for a second, but Ms. Rachel didn't actually wait for her to answer before she continued. "It's alright if you're not feeling up to it!" she added quickly.

Once again, Mari found herself frowning. The woman was ostensibly offering an out, but... was she really? Mari had gotten the impression from their earlier conversation that "no" wouldn't actually be considered an acceptable response when she made requests, like calling Mari by her first name or discussing her circumstances leading up to this. Sure, they were theoretically posed as questions, but it hadn't felt like there was actually any real choice, the woman was just assuming Mari would go along with it. Even if nobody admitted that out loud, Mari was convinced it was true. So if that had been the case before, why should she assume it would be any different now? Offering her a chance to not talk about it was far more likely to just be out of politeness, or a sense of obligation, than to actually be a legitimate option. Telling Ms. Rachel that no, Mari wasn't going to let her do her job right now, was obviously not the correct answer and they both had to know that. Maybe she didn't really have a right to complain about this, but... it'd be so much easier sometimes if adults would just say what they really wanted instead of her having to guess...

Not that Mari particularly wanted to take the supposed out regardless. She'd wanted to just get things over with earlier, and the "break" had done absolutely nothing to settle her nerves. She couldn't imagine how dragging things out even longer could possibly help. There was no way this conversation would be pleasant, no matter how the woman approached it, but... all the more reason to just grit her teeth and do it, right?

"No, we can go ahead and talk now. I don't mind." she said, trying to put as much honesty into her voice as she could, realizing that Ms. Rachel was still watching her intently, waiting for her to actually say something. Despite the words, though, the woman just kept looking at her for a moment, not moving to sit down yet or anything like that.

"...Are you sure?" Ms. Rachel asked at last, letting her smile fall into a slight frown for a second, though Mari didn't have much clue what she was frowning at exactly. Why would she be displeased? It was a truthful answer, and more to the point, wasn't it the one she wanted? "You don't need to push yourself if this is difficult for you, sweetheart, I can come back another day if you'd prefer that..."

Mari's own frown only deepened at the words, her hands in her lap tensing almost unconsciously, balling up the blanket a little between her fingers, feeling the fabric brushing against her skin. It was almost enough to make her shudder – almost, but not quite. It wasn't that there was even anything wrong with the woman's words, objectively. It was clearly and obviously intended to be reassuring... Maybe it was even part of her job to offer that sort of thing? She did work with children, after all, there probably were a lot of kids who'd be easily intimidated by this sort of situation. So reassuring them it wasn't an obligation to talk did make sense...

But something about the way she said it just felt- Mari didn't even know what to call the feeling, but somehow it set her teeth on edge. It was in the inflection, the way she spoke, particularly how she emphasized the word "difficult" like that. It was... Ms. Rachel obviously had no way of knowing this, Mari got that, but it was... almost exactly like that habit mom had, where she would always very specifically enunciate "difficult" or "difficulties" whenever she was talking about Mari.

...It was stupid. Mari knew full well she had no right to be bothered by such a small thing that wasn't even done. Ms. Rachel hadn't even actually met mom yet, it was very literally impossible for her to even remotely be doing the same habit on purpose when she didn't even know that habit existed! But even so, despite the blatantly straightforward logic, Mari couldn't get the feeling to go away. It was like an itch at the back of her mind, something small but noticeable enough to be really distracting if she tried to focus on it, yet slippery enough that she couldn't just grasp it and put a clear name to it. It was almost... frustrating, and for just a second, part of Mari almost wanted to agree with Ms. Rachel, to say she didn't want to have this conversation right now, just on the hope that maybe the woman leaving would take that uncomfortable feeling with her...

("No.")

...No.

No, that was a ridiculous and unreasonable thought. Mari wasn't even sure exactly where it came from, why would she have such an awful idea...? Not only would it be absurdly rude and unfair to take advantage of Ms. Rachel's attempt to be considerate to send her away like that... but it also flew completely in the face of what Mari herself wanted! She'd literally just been thinking about how she didn't want to drag this out any more than it already had been! And yet now she was being tempted to do exactly that just because, what? She felt irrationally uncomfortable over a single weird enunciation of a word, that she was fully aware didn't even mean anything?

What was wrong with her? ...Maybe the painkillers really were messing with her head worse than she'd thought...

("And how many times are you planning on using that excuse?")

.

Shaking her head in a (vain) attempt to clear it, Mari looked back up at Ms. Rachel, who was still standing next to the bedside looking down at her, posture almost... tense, somehow? Or maybe it'd be more accurate to call it anticipatory, she looked like she was waiting for something. Probably for Mari to get out of her head and answer, considering the circumstances. That would make sense. (Though it seemed a little weird that she didn't even try to prompt Mari despite what must have been a noticeable silence, like she'd done when Mari had zoned out before... What would make this any different from an outside perspective? Mari didn't have any idea.)

Mari exhaled a soft breath, barely audible. "I'm sure..." she said at last, her shoulders slumping a little and rustling her hospital gown subtly in the process. "I'd prefer it if we just move on... Please?" she added, trying to pour some of her regular politeness back into her voice when she realized how tired and surly it must have sounded. "I really don't think waiting would make it any better." That at least was honest.

.

There was another long pause as Ms. Rachel continued to stare at Mari in silence, scrutinizing her for... something. Yet again, no matter how Mari tried, she couldn't seem to figure out what the woman was looking for, exactly. Which admittedly wasn't that surprising when dealing with someone she didn't know that well, let alone an adult, but still. Whatever it was Ms. Rachel seemed to be searching for in Mari's expression, though, she apparently found it, as she slowly nodded her head.

"...Alright, Mari. Of course we can do that if you think it will be easier, sweetheart." she conceded. Then she paused, holding up one hand in a matter-of-fact sort of gesture. "But be sure to tell me if you change your mind, alright? We can stop anytime." she added.

Mari didn't have any intention of doing that – and Ms. Rachel surely had to have known that too, right? With how they'd just got done establishing that Mari was indeed sure getting on with it was what she wanted and all. But still, at the social worker's expectant look, she nodded her head obediently to show she understood.

With that confirmation, Ms. Rachel at last seemed sufficiently mollified for now, as she finally broke her gaze away from Mari for a moment and backed off a little from the bedside. She didn't go far, of course, just a step back to reach the armchair behind her, which she promptly lowered herself into without any further fanfare. Mari waited patiently – or at least, mostly patiently, her fingers had idly found a loose thread at the edge of her blanket in the meantime – for the few seconds it took the woman to get herself settled, seating herself upright all prim-and-proper-looking just like she'd done earlier. She took out her notepad once more, and from the brief glimpse Mari was able to catch of the top page, it seemed to have had a fair bit more written on it during the "break"... though she wasn't able to read any of these new additions before Ms. Rachel set it down on her lap, where Mari couldn't really see it properly without craning her neck (which would of course make it far too obvious she was peaking). Clearly the notes weren't meant for her eyes... which she'd figured before. But that didn't stop the nagging curiosity.

*clap!*

Mari winced, her ears ringing from the sharp sound of Ms. Rachel clapping her hands together to refocus herself. It probably wasn't even really very loud, in reality – Mari was just oversensitive as always – but that fact didn't make it any more pleasant in the moment. It was the third time Ms. Rachel had done that in their brief acquaintance. But Mari didn't say anything about it, trying to pretend it didn't bother her, knowing that her complaining about such a harmless habit would be a lot more troublesome than the clapping itself. Especially when it was really just a problem on her end and not a reason to bother an adult by kicking up a fuss anyway... She curled the loose thread around her index finger while she waited for the woman to speak.

"...Okay!" Ms. Rachel announced, and just like that, her voice had snapped back to her standard cheery tone again, her polite smile back in place, almost like the seriousness from a few moments ago had never even happened. If Mari hadn't already seen her act like this earlier, it would've been pretty jarring... Actually, no, it was still a bit jarring, it was just as hard now to tell if the cheerfulness was real as it had been every other time.

"During our little break, I had a chance to talk with your doctor a little, and he told me some... interesting things." Ms. Rachel began. Mari wasn't overly surprised by that – going to Dr. Astora for more information was just a sensible use of the time, so she nodded again in understanding. "Now, I think we said we were going to come back to your old softball accident, and that goes along with what the doctor was saying, so that sounds like a pretty good place to start, don't you think?" Ms. Rachel suggested.

It was obviously leading, but Mari didn't disagree with the reasoning. "Well, I guess I already mentioned how I used to be on the school softball team..." Mari began. It wasn't really a question, she was more just saying it to set her mind on-track, but Ms. Rachel nodded along nonetheless. "That was... throughout all of middle school, and my first year of high school." Mari said slowly, brow furrowing a little in thought as she looked back on the memories.

"I see. That's a pretty good run! A lot of kids your age don't stick with sports that long, or else they only get their start when they're already in high school." Ms. Rachel commented. There was that tone again, the one that sounded rather impressed, just like when they'd gone over Mari's grades and piano skills earlier... and just like then, it left Mari feeling rather odd, more uncomfortable than flattered. She just couldn't be quite sure whether it was sincere or simply meant to pander to her. "So you must have been pretty good, huh?" Ms. Rachel continued, seemingly not noticing Mari's uncertain non-reaction.

"I was the team's darling by the time I reached high school." Mari agreed. Then she realized how that might have sounded and quickly held up one hand. "I'm not saying that to brag, though! That's just what the coaches called me." she tried to clarify at Ms. Rachel's curious look. "I don't know if I was actually the best, but apparently I was a really mean pitcher... Which, uh, 'mean' is actually a good thing in sports?" That had always confused her a little, but both the coaches and her teammates had always said it as a compliment – or at least Mari assumed it was a compliment, as they hadn't sounded angry at her (in any way she could tell) and in fact tended to encourage her to keep playing that way.

"...But now you can't play anymore." Ms. Rachel said. It wasn't a question, as obviously they both knew that already. Even so, however, Mari nodded her head.

"Yeah..." she agreed, her voice dropping lower for a second with the reminder, biting her lower lip unconsciously. This was old news by now, and Mari knew she should have been used to it. And on most days, it didn't bother her too much – she had new hobbies and other responsibilities to occupy herself, so it wasn't that bad. But today wasn't most days, and having it brought up by an adult like this, it... Well, for some reason it was bringing back memories of how people had reacted afterwards, having to explain what had happened... "The school decided it was too dangerous for me to participate in physical activities. That means I've got a free pass from gym and P.E. classes... but it also means I got kicked off the team." she admitted, crossing her hands in her lap again. It didn't stop the slight tremor she could feel.

Ms. Rachel must have noticed the touch of bitterness in her voice, because her eyebrows knit slightly. "You know they're just thinking of your safety, sweetheart." she pointed out softly, reasonably. Her tone was almost careful, in fact, as if she was trying not to agitate Mari or something like that.

"Yeah, I know that..." Mari admitted, her shoulders falling a little as she let out a small sigh. Of course she knew that was the reason, it was pretty straightforward, and she couldn't bring herself to say they were wrong. She knew better than anyone just how awful her knee had been even before this second accident... She couldn't play a game as simple as tag with her friends without falling – heck, she couldn't even walk upstairs without a twinge – so obviously any sort of sports were completely out of the question. It was the objectively correct decision and she'd known that from the start. Mari wasn't arrogant enough to actually think she'd be any good for the team anymore.

But agreeing with the reason didn't actually make it feel less disappointing.

.

Ms. Rachel was silent for a moment, just looking at Mari, though it (as usual by now) wouldn't be at all clear what she was hoping to see.

"Well, anyway..." the woman began at last, giving a small shake of her head. "That isn't really what I meant to talk about. Do you think you could tell me a bit about the accident itself?" she requested, that polite voice back once again.

Mari decided to just take the slight change of subject.

"The actual fall wasn't really a big deal?" she replied. Then her eyes widened and she quickly waved her hand, stopping when she felt it tug her IV line again. "...I mean, no, it was really bad! Obviously, since I broke my knee..." she trailed off awkwardly for a second. She was fully aware how lame and obvious that statement was. "But there wasn't anything... weird about it, if that makes sense?" she tried to clarify.

Ms. Rachel hummed quietly, as if to show she was listening, but didn't say anything or press any follow-up questions, seemingly just giving Mari time to try to get her thoughts together and explain what she meant.

Mari closed her eyes for just a second, taking in a soft breath as she tried to pull together her memories of the event. "It happened during a regular game... I don't remember what school we were playing against." she began. She didn't dwell on that part, though – it wasn't really important, since the opposing team weren't involved with her accident, so trying too hard to recall would just be getting sidetracked. "It was noisy, from the crowd in the stands cheering, and I got... overwhelmed, while I was running between bases." she admitted, glancing down to subtly avoid Ms. Rachel's eyes as she said that, knowing that the woman would understand exactly what she meant by overwhelmed... "So, I was distracted and I just tripped. It... falling shouldn't have been that bad, I'd seen the other girls stumble now and then, but... I landed on my knee exactly the wrong way."

("And look what that stupid mistake cost you in the long run. Look what it's going to keep costing you.")

Don't think about it.

.

The social worker peered at Mari in silence throughout her rambling, patiently waiting for her to finish. The blandly polite expression was still set on her face as usual, but unless Mari was imagining it, there was that feeling of something more scrutinizing behind her gaze again. She was watching Mari closely throughout her explanation, seemingly searching for something in Mari's description of the accident, but her eventual response would not make it any clearer as to whether she was finding what she wanted or not.

"Well, you know..." Ms. Rachel replied at last. "Even if it was just an accident, I'm sorry you had to go through that." she said, her smile dipping into that small frown again.

Mari just glanced away, not meeting the woman's gaze... She knew Ms. Rachel didn't mean anything by it. She was just expressing sympathy for what was, objectively, a really bad accident. It was just the polite thing to do, and Mari got that. But at the same time... she felt her hands clenching her blanket a bit too tightly. Something about hearing the woman say that, about hearing her apologize for something that happened years ago when she wasn't even involved, couldn't possibly have been involved... it just left a feeling like goosebumps, or maybe closer to insects crawling on Mari's skin. Something skittering and unpleasant, almost nauseating, just for a moment. Why did these hospital gowns have to be so thin? Why did the sleeves have to be so short? It was irrational, Mari knew, but she wished she had a large coat to bury herself in, or one of those flowy cloaks like they wore in fantasy movies, those always looked comfortable... Just something to shroud herself in and block the woman from looking at her like that-

No, it was nonsense, she knew it was nonsense, nothing Ms. Rachel said was even bad, and it wasn't fair to be irritated by it. But even so, Mari intentionally didn't reply, not trusting herself not to blurt out something stupid right now. She didn't like that feeling, why did everything have to be so weird like this...?

.

She was so distracted, in fact, that she almost didn't notice when the woman kept speaking – either not noticing or not acknowledging Mari's reaction – but only "almost". This time, at least, Mari wasn't so caught up in her head as to completely zone out, so to avoid that she shook herself a little, trying to force herself to refocus. Even then, however, she quickly found she still seemed to have missed the first half of the sentence.

"-ut for now, we'll move on... I'd really like to talk about what happened after, if that's okay with you?" Ms. Rachel was saying.

Mari blinked. After...? Oh. Oh, right.

After the softball accident. That... that made sense. Mari pretty much had to know this was coming, didn't she? Ms. Rachel had mentioned she'd heard something "interesting" from Dr. Astora, and this conversation tied into it... There was only one thing that could be referring to, it was pretty obvious with even a little bit of thought.

"...You mean how I was supposed to get physical ther-" Mari started to say.

But Ms. Rachel cut her off, waving one hand off to the side almost dismissively as she did so.

"Oh, no! Not just yet!" she said quickly, punctuating it with a shake of her head as well. Mari clamped her mouth shut abruptly, almost biting her tongue as she stared at the woman in mounting confusion. "I would like to go over that, of course, but we don't have to jump right into it." Ms. Rachel thankfully continued before Mari could get too bewildered. "If you wouldn't mind, could you tell me a little about... how your parents reacted, besides that part, first?" she requested.

Mari paused, her shoulders tensing – just ever-so-slightly – as she felt another surge of... something almost like annoyance start to well up in her chest. She knew it was rude and unreasonable and uncalled for, so she immediately tried to tamp it down, but... At the same time, did Ms. Rachel really have to keeping dragging things out and dancing around the topics that they both knew they really should've been focusing on the most...?

She knew there had to be some good reasons for all the delaying, obviously there were. In this particular case it even made sense, because the social worker was here to investigate her home life, so wanting to know mom and dad's reactions to such a major event did make sense, Mari could see the connection there. And it felt like a pretty fair assumption that all Ms. Rachel's questions and shifts in the conversation were like that. She must have been trying to gain specific bits of information each time, things that would logically aid her in doing her job one way or another – even if it was really hard to tell how any of it was beneficial from the outside. Mari understood all that, she did. She wasn't vain enough to actually think she had any grounds to be acting like she could do Ms. Rachel's job better, that was a patently ridiculous suggestion.

Yet... Part of her still wished they could just get to the point. They could've just... talked about the incident yesterday from the start, no winding, confusing conversations poking and prodding at what felt like every little part of Mari's life and making her feel like it was wrong-

("Focus.")

-Mari exhaled a sigh, letting the hitch in her shoulders fall, trying to literally breathe out the tension. It... didn't really work, something uncomfortable still bubbling in her stomach. But oh well. It would have to do for now – if she demanded herself to feel perfectly content and comfortable before speaking, she'd never say a word in her life. It wasn't a question of what she was happy with, it was a question of what she could power through, and she could get through this.

She noticed that Ms. Rachel hadn't prompted her again, despite what most have been another far too long delay (though she couldn't tell how long exactly). But then, she had told the woman earlier about her getting distracted happened sometimes... so maybe Ms. Rachel knew what to expect now, so she was just waiting like that, hands folded over her notebook in her lap, until Mari could get it together and quite wasting time.

("And what a hypocrite you are, criticizing her for not getting it over with.")

"Mom and dad-" Mari began, but stopped herself. Perhaps it was just in her head, but she was worried some of her irrational agitation might have been bleeding into her tone. She swallowed and tried again, with what she thought was a more neutral tone. "Mom and dad weren't happy about it, of course. The accident caused a whole lot of trouble, so they were... pretty upset." she said. She was aware it was a rather vague answer, but she wasn't sure exactly what Ms. Rachel was looking for here either.

The words did seem to pique Ms. Rachel's interest, though, as she intently sat forward a little. "Upset?" she repeated, something odd – almost sharp, but not quite – underlying her tone. "What do you mean by upset, exactly?" she pressed.

Mari frowned at that, once again not really knowing what the woman was driving at, even though she very clearly had something in particular in mind. Something she wanted Mari to get to explaining... or maybe leading up to some sort of point she wanted to make herself...? Speculating on it wouldn't really do any good here, when Mari clearly didn't know her well enough or have enough information to guess her specific goals for this conversation. ...Or perhaps Mari had been given enough information, but was simply failing to see it or put it together. That was equally likely, knowing herself, not that the distinction really mattered right now anyway. It felt like the only thing she could really do right now was to just keep answering the questions as they came, and hope it would start making more sense at some point.

"Well, I mean... upset?" Mari replied, even as she knew it was a stupid thing to say, her brow furrowing as she tried to think of how to better explain. "They were really... disappointed in me after that." she admitted. A whisper of old shame curled in her gut with the word "disappointed", and she had to stop herself from wincing on instinct at the unpleasant reminder. Even now, she could still imagine the feeling of eyes boring into her- Not helpful right now.

"Disappointed?" Once again, Ms. Rachel was parroting what Mari just said. She looked at Mari with one eyebrow tilted up slightly. And, if that odd undertone hadn't been noticeable before, it definitely was now. Maybe sharp was the right word for it after all? Not that the woman seemed to be in any rush to explain it. "Not... worried, or anything like that?" she continued, wondering.

Mari paused at that.

Worried...?

Her first instinct was to say that of course mom and dad had been worried about her after she'd broken her knee. In fact, she probably would have immediately said that if you'd asked her just a few days ago... It should have been the obvious answer, shouldn't it? Mari may not have been a parent herself, even if she was supposed to believe she'd been put in a position to act like one, at least according to the social worker-

No. Don't think about that. Not the point right now. What was important though was that she was, at least, a big sister, and a friend. If it had been, say... Sunny... or Aubrey, or any of the others – heck, even Hero, even though he was far more capable at taking care of himself than she was – Mari would have been incredibly worried about them, if it was them breaking their leg rather than her. There was no question about that, because she loved them. And obviously loving parents would be just as worried then, right?

But, even though those words should have been on the tip of her tongue... she hesitated.

Had her parents ever actually... said they were worried...?

Mari herself wasn't very... subtle when she was worrying about someone. If anything, she had the opposite problem – too frantic, too demanding, too pushy. It had to be pretty obvious. So even if her family were better at restraining themselves than she was, she had to assume it was the sort of feeling she'd at least notice a little, either from things that were said or just their behavior. And Sunny had been worried because of her accident! Mari remembered that much. Yet when she tried to think of any moments where she'd noticed similar hints with her parents... nothing was coming to mind...

(There was also an insidious whisper at the back of her skull, a prodding reminder that "loving parent" wasn't truly the right word – especially not for mom. Mom certainly hadn't seemed at all worried about seeing Mari yesterday, even in such a dire situation when she was just coming off hypothermia, and her knee was broken even worse that it had ever been. That whole... encounter had only reinforced the feeling that what mom was looking at Mari with was the opposite of love... So why even expect her to be worried at all, with these more recent injuries or back then with the softball accident? That didn't make sense.)

Mari's breath shuddered, her skin feeling cold. She didn't like thinking about this.

.

.

"I... Assumed they must have been worried, I suppose...?" Mari forced herself to say, slowly, when she realized she'd fallen silent and Ms. Rachel was staring at her again. Her voice was weak, the words felt like only a step above a lie – it was technically true, she had been assuming that before, but it didn't mention the creeping realization eating away at her now... She didn't like thinking about this. Ms. Rachel surely must have noticed the dishonesty, Mari wasn't sure she could make it sound more unconvincing if she tried, there was no way it wasn't immediately apparent. But the woman didn't call her on it.

"...But?" she prompted instead, seemingly picking up the questioning lilt in Mari's reply.

"But I mostly just remember how much I upset them." Mari admitted, staring down at her hands. They had always been pale, of course, but... had they gotten paler since yesterday? Or was she imagining that? Maybe it was the white lighting of the hospital room making it look a little washed out, but now that Mari was really looking, her skin appeared... almost papery, blanched and fragile in a way that bordered on sickly. It... it had to just be the light, but... Mari didn't like looking at it. She pulled her hands away from her lap, resting them at her sides instead so she could stare intently at the bedsheets without them in the way.

"Mari, sweetheart?" Ms. Rachel's voice rang out again, sounding just a little closer, and a glance from her peripheral showed Mari that the woman had leaned forward a bit again. It made sense, of course, with a moment's thought. Even if Ms. Rachel knew what to expect with Mari by now, and was trying to give her some level of grace when she got distracted, having her repeatedly lapse into prolonged silences within just a few minutes had to be getting concerning. The social worker did have a job to do, and having to put up with Mari trailing off constantly must be tiresome...

Mari wasn't Sunny, after all. She wasn't comfortably quiet in the way he so often was. With Sunny, you could still generally trust that he was listening to you and understanding – as long as he wasn't caught up in his head daydreaming, of course, but even then all you had to do was get his attention. He was just like that, somebody that could be trusted to be a good listener, so he didn't always need to be very talkative, he was just fine the way he was. But not Mari. For Mari, this sort of thing was... unnatural. She wasn't supposed to be zoning out, wasn't supposed to be distracting herself with random tangents and avoiding talking by staring at her hands. It was jarring and abnormal, not to mention rude to be wasting time and dragging out the conversation – the very thing she had the gall to be annoyed about.

But everything just felt so... off, right now, that it felt like it was taking so much more effort than usual to keep herself focused.

("And you were never even very good at that to begin with.")

"I-... Sorry. I'm getting distracted." Mari apologized, though she still didn't meet Ms. Rachel's gaze. She did cast her vision up just enough to catch a glimpse of a frown on the woman's face, though. "But what I was I was saying was... I remember a lot about mom telling me about how much I'd... let them down-" There was a hitch in Mari's voice. She tried to swallow it. "-and how many problems I'd caused, breaking my knee like that. She just scolded me about how much I'd disappointed her and dad, and how much I might've ruined things for my future..." she explained.

A shiver ran down her spine – it was still too cold in here – and she brought her hands up almost on instinct to rub at the goosebumps starting to form on her arms.

Yet, for as little as Mari really wanted to be dredging up those memories... somehow saying it wasn't as uncomfortable as she'd been dreading? It still... hurt, obviously it did. The thorn of guilt that jabbed in her chest, the feeling of vines coiling around her innards when she thought back to how she'd felt then... Sitting there, in a hospital bed just like this one, wishing she could just disappear and not have to her mother's disappointed glare, while it was spelled out to her just how much damage her mistake had done- Yes, that was still there. That was one of those memories that was always there at the back of her mind, it felt like.

But at the same time, talking about it was... just uncomfortable? Mari had been half expecting it to be one of those overwhelming feelings, the type that left her heart beating at a thousand miles an hour, that dragged her down like rocks around her limbs and left bile in the back of her throat... And it just. Wasn't? It was unpleasant, but a more... normal type of unpleasant, insofar as Mari knew what any "normal" feelings were really like. The sort of thing that was awkward and distracting and that she didn't want to talk about, but... she'd been expecting it to be painful, to have to claw every word from her throat.

Maybe it was just because... the memory wasn't that exceptional anymore. Before, it had been one of the standout moments of how badly Mari had let mom down, but now... Now she knew what mom's rage could really look like, could really sound like... It was just a matter of proportion. This nagging reminder that it could have gone so, so much worse.

And so Mari swallowed again and looked up at Ms. Rachel to continue.

"Mom really wanted me to get a sports scholarship, you know? There are some pretty good colleges in the state that have really generous athletic programs, if you can qualify for them." Mari explained, to clarify what she had meant by "ruined things for her future". Ms. Rachel nodded along, not seeming at all surprised to hear that reason. But then, she'd been familiar with the college prep program earlier, so maybe she just knew enough about how schools ran that this wasn't news to her. Either way, Mari carried on talking. "That was the main reason they wanted me to stay on the softball team into high school... If I kept up being the star player, I'd be practically guaranteed one of those scholarships... or at least mom thought so. She said she was already making preparations to line me up for one, getting in contact with scouts from some of those schools..." she trailed off for a second.

"...But breaking your knee put a quick stop to that." Ms. Rachel finished for her. It wasn't a question – it was the only possible conclusion, after all, since they'd already been over how Mari wasn't able to play anymore. A sports scholarship to someone with no capacity for sports anymore? Not happening.

Mari bit her lower lip and nodded. "Yeah. So... I understand why mom was mad." she admitted quietly. "Really, I do. It's not like she was wrong. I did have an opportunity... and I did throw it away." Mari shrugged helplessly, not really knowing what to say besides that. It was the simple fact of the matter, after all. Even if mom hated her, that didn't make her chastising back then false – the truth was still the truth, wasn't it?

Ms. Rachel didn't seem to agree, however. In fact, the woman had that slight frown on her face again, the exact same one she seemed to wear whenever she thought something Mari said was noteworthy or concerning, though her standards for judging that still felt just as opaque to Mari as they had this whole time, no amounting of talking with her seemed to be helping to figure out what would bother her. At least this time Ms. Rachel apparently decided to actually say her objection instead of just making Mari play guesswork with it, though, so that was something...

"I wouldn't say you threw anything away, sweetheart... It was an accident, remember?" she pointed out, with a matter-of-fact note as if she was reminding Mari of something obvious, crossing her hands over the notebook in her lap as she looked over expectantly with that frown still in place.

Mari's fingers curled around the edge of her blanket, just a little too tightly. There it was again, that feeling of irritation rising in her chest... She knew it was irrational, she should know that, but... something about the social worker's voice there... Mari took a deep breath. In through the nose, and out through the mouth. This shouldn't bother her, there was no logical reason for it to bother her, they were just having a discussion, and Ms. Rachel was saying something that she believed made sense, it was all in good faith. Mari was fully aware of all that, she just needed a second to breathe, that was all.

"Nobody else on the team hurt themselves like that. Only me." she replied finally, meeting Ms. Rachel's frown with one of her own. And oh, that time bitterness was definitely leaking into her voice. "I didn't do it on purpose, but I was careless. That's... not any better." she added. "Getting into a good college is important, it's so important-" Mari knew she was repeating herself, she'd definitely said that earlier, but it needed to be emphasized. "-and we had a plan. Something I should have been able to do, and... it all went wrong."

("Back then, it could have been perfect. Today, it'll never be anything at all.")

.

Ms. Rachel's expression had only grown even odder, her eyebrows pinched together. "Mari, you would have been, what, thirteen? Fourteen? Back then?"

"...Thirteen and a half?" Mari replied, her frown shifting to a more nonplussed one as she had to question the seeming non-sequitur.

"Exactly." Ms. Rachel nodded sharply, that matter-of-fact edge back once more. "Do you remember what we talked about earlier, about parentification?" she asked. But it was evidently a rhetorical question, as she continued talking before Mari could so much as nod. "How it sounded like you've been dealing with a bunch of adult responsibilities that should've been handled by your guardians? Well, this is another one." she said, crossing her arms and raising her eyebrows pointedly.

"Another... what? I don't see what you're talking about?" Mari babbled out before she could stop herself, blinking in confusion. Internally she wanted to swear at herself for undoubtedly having just sounded really dense, almost giving the impression that she wasn't listening – even though she was trying to. But that didn't make her question false either, she really wasn't seeing the connection between that and what they were talking about... it would probably be obvious to anyone besides her, but something simply wasn't clicking.

"Another responsibility." Ms. Rachel repeated patiently. "Of course there's nothing wrong with wanting to go to college, but a kid that age shouldn't have to be planning for it with everything they do. You should have been allowed to play sports just because you wanted to, for fun." she clarified, shooting Mari that smile of hers once more, almost as if satisfied with the point she'd just made.

That crawling feeling like insects skittering across Mari's skin was back. She almost felt nauseous.

Was the woman really trying to make excuses for her...? Why? What would even be the point? They both had to be aware that Mari wouldn't, couldn't, actually believe that, right?

("Maybe it would be true for someone else... But not for you. Never for you. 'Responsibilities', more like 'necessities'... because if you can't do your best, can't show some real value to prove that you're worth the trouble of keeping you around-")

Don't think about it.

Don't think about it.

Don't. Think. About. It.

Don't. Think. About. It.

.

.

"...Can we just move on...?" Mari mumbled, trying (and failing) not to sound as sullen as she felt. She was pointedly trying to cease the way her hands were shaking in her lap, tremors running up her arms until her shoulders quivered. Silently, she was willing – almost pleading – for Ms. Rachel not to call her out on it, though she undoubtedly must have seen. It wasn't subtle.

There was another long pause while Ms. Rachel stared at her. Very long. Almost too long, enough that the silence was starting to feel like a suffocating weight in the air.

And then, at last, the social worker appeared to concede, letting out a small exhale through her nose and taking a moment to scribble another quick note down in her notebook before looking back up at Mari. It almost felt like Mari had won some sort of contest of wills or something like that... even though it wasn't like she was actually trying to prove anything to the woman, she just really wanted to get through this discussion already. She'd known logically that they had a lot to go over, but this was a lot-a lot. Even if most of the topics they had to cover were basically the ones Mari expected, it was taking a lot more energy – not to mention time – than she'd been imagining. She couldn't blame Ms. Rachel for just doing her job thoroughly, but... It was really getting... tiring.

"...Of course." Ms. Rachel finally agreed, nodding her head and smiling at Mari, and- if it hadn't looked somewhat forced before, it definitely did now. Obviously she must have been aware of Mari's growing surliness... That wasn't good, Mari was being rude and grouchy to an adult now, enough to be visibly bothering them, she needed to get herself back under control... "I can't promise these next questions are going to be any more fun, though." Ms. Rachel added, as if Mari didn't already know that. "Please remember that you can tell me any time if you need to stop, okay?"

Mari didn't reply beyond just shaking her head. They both knew that her agreeing to the "out" wasn't really an option before, right, so why would she take it now?

Ms. Rachel gave her an unreadable squint, but proceeded all the same. "So, when I was talking to your doctor, it was mostly about your injury yesterday and the surgery you needed for it, of course... We'll get to that. But first, he also mentioned something else pretty concerning. I think you know this bit, since you brought it up earlier. Could you tell me what you know about the physical therapy for your first knee injury?"

Mari knew that was coming.

She shook her head again. "I barely know anything about that at all, probably not much more than you do." she replied honestly, shoulders rising in a small shrug. Ms. Rachel didn't appear particularly surprised by that answer, simply waving one hand for Mari to continue. Which she did. "I had never even really considered it might be a problem until I heard from the paramedic yesterday..."

"Hold on, sorry." Ms. Rachel stopped her, tilting her head in some sort of interested or confused gesture. "Paramedic? You don't mean doctor?" she wondered.

"No, the woman in the ambulance that picked me up... I just realized I didn't get her name." Mari corrected quickly. "She didn't mention therapy specifically, but when I told her about my leg pains, she got worried and told me that wasn't normal... she said my knee probably healed wrong because it didn't get the right care... But that was the first time I'd heard of that, I swear."

"Ah, that explains part of the suspected abuse report..." Ms. Rachel muttered, nodding along. Mari wasn't sure if she was actually intended to hear that remark or not – it was said almost under the woman's breath, after all – but it'd be rude to call attention to it, so she kept it to herself.

"And then Dr. Astora, well, I assume he told me the same thing he told you? That my old doctor recommended physical therapy after the accident, but I never got it because I was checked out of the hospital right away?" Mari continued instead, looking at Ms. Rachel questioningly to confirm they were on the same page there. The woman nodded. "I'm sorry, I wish I knew more, but those two times yesterday really were all..." Mari added apologetically, unable to quite shake the feeling that she was wasting the social worker's valuable time even though she was answering honestly.

"Hmm." Ms. Rachel hummed thoughtfully, tapping her pen against her notepad for a moment, though she didn't immediately move to write anything this time. "You're sure your parents didn't say anything about it?" she pressed.

"Not to me." Mari replied, with yet another shake of her head. "I- no, I think mom might have mentioned once or twice that she wanted me home as soon as I could... or something like that? Sorry, I... can't remember exactly what she said, it's hazy... But there wasn't anything about skipping treatments or whatever, I'm sure of that much." That was the truth, too. She crossed her arms over her chest, eyes trailing up towards the white ceiling for a second as she tried to recall. But while the precise wording still wasn't coming to her, she was absolutely certain the words "physical therapy" had never been mentioned to her back then.

"That's alright, sweetheart, don't try to strain yourself." Ms. Rachel said, already in the process of scratching down her next note to herself even as she spoke. "But, going back to that chronic leg pain you mentioned, would you mind telling me a bit more about that?" she requested, shifting subjects.

Mari paused, blinking in slight confusion at that question.

"It's... what it sounds like?" she said, her brow furrowing uncertainly. That answer was probably a little rude, pointing out a "duh" sort of moment to an adult, but Mari really didn't mean it that way, she genuinely felt like she wasn't quite getting the question here. "I mean, it's pain from my knee. Apparently because my kneecap wasn't allowed to heal right... though again, I didn't know that until yesterday. I just knew it hurt, and I thought that was normal after an accident like that." she tried to explain.

"Of course, sweetheart." Ms. Rachel agreed patiently, giving Mari an almost expectant look. It was a rather obvious statement at this point, after all, they'd already established all that. "But what I meant was, how bad do you think it is? How much does it hurt, and how often?" she clarified.

...That made slightly more sense.

"Well, how badly it hurts kind of varies." Mari hedged with a small shrug. But, realizing that wasn't a very helpful answer, she immediately went to elaborate without needing to be prompted. "Sometimes it's not too bad, I can just about ignore it, but other times it really, really burns... It sort of depends on what I'm doing, too. Sitting at my piano for too long can set it off, so can walking up or down the stairs." she explained. She deliberately didn't mention what tended to happen when she tried to run – given the circumstances, Ms. Rachel had to know that part already. "Oh, and the weather can affect it too, it tends to sting a lot more noticeably when it's colder out." she added as the thought occurred to her. (And it was just her luck that it had been a pretty chilly autumn so far, wasn't it?)

Then Mari paused again, noticing that Ms. Rachel was still looking at her, but hadn't commented, seemingly waiting for her to answer the second half of the question.

"...I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'how often', though?" Mari admitted, tilting her head a little, curiously. "Are you asking how often it gets really bad, or how often it fully buckles so I fall, or...?" she trailed off. Part of her knew she must have been sounding pretty clueless right about now, anyone else probably would've been able to figure out the question themselves, but... well, here she was. The only way she could see to move the conversation along was to try to ask for more clarification, so it wasn't the time to be prideful...

("As if you even have any pride left to swallow, let's be honest here. This isn't exactly a dignified situation.")

Ms. Rachel was frowning again. "...No, I meant as in, how regularly are you dealing with this pain at all?" she asked, speaking noticeably more slowly now, almost... wary, or cautious somehow? Though Mari couldn't begin to figure out why.

"I... still don't understand the question." Mari admitted, fingers idly picking at the loose thread of her blanket again. She was starting to feel really stupid now, having to keep pushing for more clarification over and over. If she hadn't been convinced before that there was something pretty blatant here that she was missing, then it was undeniable at this point.

"I'm asking... how often you feel it? I'm sorry, sweetheart, I'm not sure how else to phrase this." Ms. Rachel admitted, but that odd tone to her voice was still there. If anything, it had only grown even more obvious. Mari almost wanted to call it concerned now, but that couldn't be right... While she was confused by that, however, the woman shook her head. "So, how about this?" she suggested, seemingly having thought of something. "Remember earlier, when I asked you about how often you cooked dinner? Could you answer something like that again? Like, how many days a week would you say your knee hurts? Or, hours out of each day, maybe?"

...Well, that was certainly a question. Mari finally thought she understood what the social worker was asking... but at the same time, she still didn't? She could see what sort of thing Ms. Rachel was angling for, but she didn't really get why? It felt like they were talking past each other, at least one of them not really grasping the context of what they were talking about properly. Which, to be fair, when somebody was misunderstanding something, it was usually Mari's fault directly or indirectly, so it wasn't like she could blame the woman for it. But all the same, she needed to try to set the record straight anyway, didn't she? Acting like she could correct adults was usually rude, but it'd also be rude to not provide a proper answer, which Ms. Rachel was clearly waiting on...

"...All of them." Mari replied at last, her own mouth set in a frown to match the woman's as she looked up at her. "It's pretty much every day. If you're trying to ask when it stops, then it... doesn't, really. Unless you're counting when I'm asleep..." she said, trailing off uncomfortably at the way Ms. Rachel was staring at her.

.

.

There was a long, near-suffocating pause after that as Ms. Rachel all but gaped at Mari. The woman had gone very still, almost too still, her shoulders stiff where she sat slightly leaned forwards to listen, her hands frozen with her pen hovering over her notepad but not actually writing anything. There was no other way to say it, she looked outright stunned by Mari's words... for some reason. Mari herself had barely felt anything saying them, nothing more than a possibly-imagined needle from her knee as she acknowledged it. You could almost call it blasé. But Ms. Rachel certainly didn't seem to be agreeing with that feeling one bit.

"I'm sorry, Mari-" she apologized again. "-but are you saying your knee has been hurting almost constantly since that softball accident?" she asked, and again her voice had intensified, it almost sounded... shocked? Or maybe aghast was a better word? Like the way someone would sound after seeing something horrible on the news, or getting a shocking phone call.

Mari only found herself even more nonplussed at the reaction.

"Um, yes?" she replied, questioningly. She was confused as to why the woman was confused. Then Mari paused as something occurred to her. "Sorry, that sounds like I'm being melodramatic, doesn't it? But I'm not saying that to complain, I promise. I really mean it literally, it's just always sort of there if I focus on it." she tried to clarify, realizing belatedly how her words might have been taken. "It's usually not a big deal, though, I'm used to it. It's normally dull enough that it's easy to ignore it, most days I only really have to think about it if it flares up, so-"

"Stop!"

Mari bit her tongue as she flinched at the sudden sharp bark that echoed across the hospital room, the sound stabbing at her ears... even though it probably wasn't even that loud, it was higher than normal but not really fully yelling. Though it might as well have been to Mari in that instant, her eyes immediately snapping onto Ms. Rachel with a rush of alarm. The woman was staring at Mari even more openly than she had been before, her eyes wide with... something. Mari wasn't exactly sure what to call the impression that stare was giving her, but it made her feel like the skin on her back was itching – and not the itchiness from the hospital gown (though there was that too). She almost wanted to call the expression horrified, but surely that couldn't be right. Nothing she'd been saying was even that stressful, it wasn't difficult or upsetting to say, it was literally just factual, so she couldn't figure out what warranted this- whatever this was?

Perhaps noticing Mari's startled and confused reaction, Ms. Rachel visibly recollected herself – Mari could actually see the exact moment where she made an effort to wipe the expression off her face and replace it with her usual polite neutral look. Or at least an approximation thereof; it still appeared slightly off somehow, watching Mari a little closely still, though that might have been imagined.

"Ahem, sorry about that, I shouldn't have raised my voice. I didn't mean to scare you, Mari-" Ms. Rachel said, more softly. Even though she hadn't scared her? "-I just don't think you should... talk like that." she continued, noticeably hesitating in the middle of the sentence, like she wasn't sure how to phrase it, maybe?

"Why not?" Mari blurted out before she could think about it. "I was telling the truth..." she defended herself, once again coming out more sullenly than she really wanted.

"I know you were, sweetheart." Ms. Rachel replied, shaking her head again. "It's just that, well, this isn't a very nice conversation, is it? I don't want you to upset yourself." she explained.

"I... wasn't upset." Mari pointed out slowly, honestly. Part of her felt bad for directly contradicting an adult like that, but at the same time, she didn't want to give the wrong impression either. "That's what I was saying, this is normal to me."

Ms. Rachel pulled in an audible breath through her nose. "It shouldn't be." she said. Mari felt herself frown at that – of course she was getting that much now, with everything she'd heard since the ambulance had picked her up yesterday. But once again, she hadn't known that at the time, hadn't been aware there was supposedly some other treatment she was meant to get to make it easier. Hadn't they literally just gone over that? So on some level it just felt a little... unfair to be dismissing it like that, when she'd genuinely been trying to do her best with what she thought was her only option...

("But then, 'your best' was never good enough before, why would it be now?")

.

But for better or worse, she wouldn't have any time to dwell on that, as Ms. Rachel was already moving on, and if Mari truly wanted to stick with her goal of getting this done with, then she had to keep up.

"-ch do your parents know about this?" the woman was asking seriously. "Did you ever try to tell them you were feeling like that?"

"...Well, yes and no, I guess?" Mari replied. She knew she was hedging again. "I complained about it hurting a little at first, but it was my fault anyway..." she admitted. "And I told mom a couple times about things that set it off, but she always just... gave me weird looks and told me I was being ridiculous, so I... stopped when I realized I was being annoying." she said, noticing that Ms. Rachel had picked up her notepad again and started jotting down more lines while Mari was talking. "But we never really sat down and had a proper conversation about it, if that's what you mean? I didn't want to bother them."

"...Hm. I see." Ms. Rachel hummed. And there it was again, that distinct tone where it really sounded like she thought something was wrong with what Mari just said, but whatever it was, she was giving no indication of it. Mari had almost started to think she might have been overreacting, but... no. No, that vagueness was actually getting really annoying, she'd been right to be feeling fed up with it earlier...

Mari exhaled softly, near-silently. Just... power through it. She could do that. She was good at that, if nothing else.

.

"Well, thank you, Mari. I know this was probably a lot more than you were expecting to go over... Sorry about that. But everything you've told me has been... enlightening, I think." Ms. Rachel continued once she had finished adding a few more things to her notes. "I've got a pretty good idea of your situation. Or, good enough for the moment, at least." she said. And then she leaned forward again, folding her hands as she looked at Mari carefully.

(Mari couldn't help but tense slightly, feeling like she knew what was coming.)

"...So now that we've got all that context out of the way... I think it's finally time to talk about what happened yesterday." the woman announced.

.

...Huh. For a minute, Mari had almost forgotten that was what all of this had been building up to. Everything up to this point was just filling Ms. Rachel in on the relevant background details, and general overview of her overall circumstances... Mari still didn't really feel like she fully understood why all that information was necessary, it felt like they'd been spending ages just going over things that... weren't even the actual problem the social worker had been called in for? Yes, the basic idea of giving context leading up to the incident wasn't that unreasonable. She got that much. But so much of these discussions had seemed oddly specific. Pointed. Like the woman was digging for some very specific things and drawing some kind of conclusions just from that, all while not being in any rush to clarify what they were actually doing here...

But now... Now it seemed like Ms. Rachel had run out of other things to poke and probe at. It was time to actually get to the real reason she was here, the thing that had warranted her presence at all. The breaking point, if Mari wanted to be especially dramatic about it.

Heh. It was almost funny, in a weird way. On some level, she'd really been expecting to be dreading this conversation. For as much as she just wanted to get through this conversation already... Deep down, she knew it couldn't really be that easy. That when they actually got around to talking about the incident, she would not be comfortable with it. Because how could she be? It hung over her like a dark shadow, poised over her head like a guillotine blade. She should have been anxious about this, Mari knew herself well enough to be aware that something like this... something this bad... ought to be too much. It was way, way too much. So she should be freezing up, her hands shaking, her skin clammy...

But she wasn't. She wasn't really... feeling much of anything at all right now? The most prominent sensation, right that instant, was a vague confusion at the lack of sensations? ...Maybe it was the drugs. Or maybe she was too tired to even know what to feel, and she'd only just realized it. Or maybe she'd just finally gone crazy after all. But Mari felt... no different than she'd felt before Ms. Rachel said that. It was just part of the conversation. Still, she knew she shouldn't push her luck. Gift horses and all that... Best to take whatever small mercies she could, right? If this was an opportunity to get through this without freaking out, she should take it. It didn't really matter what was going on in her head, or how she felt about it, as long as she could keep it together outside. The semantics weren't important.

Looking up at Ms. Rachel, Mari nodded her head. "Alright." she agreed simply.

And so Mari talked. It was only yesterday, after all, for as much as that day had felt like it was stretching on infinitely in the moment. It wasn't hard to dredge up the memories in full, vivid detail – or at least, as full as Mari knew about. She'd spent a good period of time unconscious, of course, and another large chunk of the day had been spent in something of an overwhelmed daze. It wasn't her memory that was the issue, for once: she hadn't forgotten those parts, so much as simply never been a hundred percent aware of them to begin with. She couldn't remember details when she'd been out of the loop on them even at the time. But the parts that she could recall, that she had been aware of? Those, she tried to describe to the best of her ability, wanting to give the social worker as clear a picture as possible and not waste her time coming out here.

She started with the moment when mom had found her downstairs, having just finished her lunch. Mari meticulously went over all that she could remember of their conversation – having to stop for a second to clarify exactly why she had been grounded earlier in the week. She admittedly kept some of the details about the reason she wanted to cancel the recital to herself. That was between her and Sunny, she hadn't told mom the full reasoning either so it wasn't like it was relevant to their argument... Thankfully, Ms. Rachel didn't press her on the front either.

From there, though, was where things got ugly...

The way mom had been hostile to the very idea of Mari wanting to get out of the recital from the start. How mom had accused her of manipulating Sunny into agreeing with her, threatening to talk to dad about separating the two of them as punishment. How Mari had yelled at mom in return, and mom retaliated by grabbing Mari's arm.

Mom refusing to let go, only tightening her grip further and further, angrily refusing Mari's protests even as her fingernails cut into Mari's skin. Mari headbutting mom in an act of pure blind panic and fear, a last-ditch act to get her to just let go-!

Mom's screaming fury as her composure crumbled, unloading her hatred in her seething tirade. Mari remembered every word in clarity that surprised even herself.

The feeling of mom's hand beating against her skull once, twice... the source of the bruises that were strewn across her face now.

Mari running out the door. She knew, obviously, that she wasn't supposed to run on her bad knee, that it wasn't safe. If she'd thought about it for even a second, she wouldn't have done it.

How sheer adrenaline managed to carry her all the way to the park in her mindless haze before the reality of her situation reasserted itself and her knee gave way, sending her falling and shattering her kneecap against the ground – not that she'd realized that was what happened at the time.

Awakening to find herself laying in the mud, leg in too much pain to stand. Crawling for cover, only to freak out upon realizing the truth about mom and black out from stress, pain, and cold.

Only managing to drag herself back to consciousness when she was already in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. She didn't spend too long describing that part, partly because it was one of the hazier bits, and partly because she'd already told Ms. Rachel about what the paramedic had said about her knee.

Finding out at the hospital how Sunny had apparently run next door for help when she disappeared, leading to Hero and Mrs. Rodriguez finding her.

Mom showing up at the hospital, not acting like she even seemed to care how Mari was hurt. How Sunny had confronted her, and she'd seemed like she was about to hit him in return.

Mrs. Rodriguez pulling mom outside to talk to her. Mari didn't get into much detail about what they said, as Ms. Rachel assured her that she'd be asking Mrs. Rodriguez about that conversation personally. Only that Mrs. Rodriguez defended her and accused mom of hurting her.

Mari described it all almost dispassionately... oddly dispassionately, actually. There was that distinct nagging impression that she should have been feeling something about all this. It should have been difficult! She shouldn't be able to just sit there and talk about it calmly, she knew that was weird. That it wasn't the reaction she should be having. Even a normal person in her shoes would be having way more of a reaction than this, let alone someone like her...

It had hurt yesterday. It had hurt so, so much that she didn't even know if there was a word for it... And it wasn't like that hurt had gone away. She shouldn't have been able to talk about this.

Yet somehow, her voice barely even wavered as she spoke. She could have been going down the items on her grocery list for how unemotional she sounded, even to her own ears. It wasn't like Mari wanted to be freaking out or anything, obviously not. Objectively speaking, being able to keep a cool head and describe things as clearly as possible was only a good thing in this scenario. It was literally directly beneficial to her current goal, which was to get through the interrogation. Having to stop talking and desperately trying to calm herself from being constantly overwhelmed would be just about the least helpful possible thing she could do, it would be a massive waste of time and energy, both for herself and for Ms. Rachel having to deal with her. So avoiding all that and being able to describe it matter-of-factly was, from a practical standpoint, the best outcome.

But it was just so... weird. Unnatural. The more Mari spoke, the less she felt... anything, really. The less she felt like this conversation was even real and not just some bizarre drug-induced daydream. The only reason she didn't legitimately suspect that was because these painkillers weren't hallucinogenic. Otherwise it might have actually been a somewhat convincing theory, it just felt that surreal. At a certain point, Mari almost felt strangely... detached, like she was just an outside observer, as if just watching the discussion on TV... or perhaps more like she was there, but not involved, as if the real Mari was just something floating over her shoulder, watching silently as she talked...

It was only for a brief moment, just an idle thought really, she wasn't that out of it the whole time... But that didn't change the off feeling swimming at the back of her mind. Mari just couldn't shake the thought that something was wrong somehow, even though she didn't know what or why. It was... unsettling. Anxious. Like she was holding her breath, waiting for something to happen. Except, she held it, and held it, and held it, but the exhale never came. Yet at the same time, her face never turned blue, her lungs never burned from the lack of breath. All she could do was sit there holding it, waiting for the other shoe to drop... But it never dropped. And she didn't even have the faintest clue what it was supposed to be in the first place. Only that there was supposed to be something here, something happening, that wasn't. A hole where a feeling should have been, gaping and obvious in its absence.

.

.

.

...Ha. Mom'd been right all along, hadn't she? Mari really was overdramatic... Even when she literally wasn't having a problem, she'd found a way to make the lack of problems into a problem! That took a special kind of person, didn't it?

.

.

.

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"-ari?!"

.

"Mari!"

-Mari jerked violently, sitting up straight as a feeling like a hammer pounded against the inside of her chest- wait, no, that was her heartbeat, but... What? What was happening right now? Her breathing felt heavy somehow, like there was a weight atop her torso, or maybe wrapped around it, dragging her down like an anchor... even though that made no sense. She was sitting upright, and there was clearly nothing there, couldn't be anything there, she was just in her hospital bed still. Obviously. It wasn't like she'd gone anywhere. But what was- what was happening, then? Why did she feel so... dazed, like her head was spinning, why was it suddenly so hard to focus on anything? And her hands... huh, one of her hands was clenched around the collar of her nightgown, fabric balled up in a white-knuckled grip... in fact, her fingers almost hurt a little from clutching so hard at it. How long had she been doing that for it to get so sore...?

None of this made sense.

Mari blinked several times, looking around the room, seeing her surroundings but struggling to make out what had changed... had anything changed? ...Wait. Her eyes snapped onto Ms. Rachel, somehow only just noticing that the woman had stood from her chair at some point, and was now standing right at the bedside, staring down at her with a wide-eyed expression. So Mari hadn't imagined the sound of her shouting, then?

"What's going on...?" Mari said – or maybe more like mumbled. She knew it wasn't polite to mutter, but it felt odd trying to raise her voice right then. "What was I just..." she trailed off helplessly, looking up to Ms. Rachel as if the woman could enlighten her, but Mari didn't even fully know what she was asking. What had she been saying? What had she been doing? What had she been thinking?

She'd zoned out again, that much was apparent, but... it felt a lot worse than usual somehow. It wasn't just a moment of distraction, it felt like a... gap, almost. They'd been talking about- yes, they'd been going over what happened yesterday, of course. And Mari was thinking to herself how strange she was feeling, or maybe not-feeling, about discussing it, and then... What? What had she or Ms. Rachel said or done immediately after she finished? How long ago even was that? A few seconds, a few minutes, she couldn't tell. She'd zoned out alright, but zoned out to such an extent that it was just blank and fuzzy. Incoherent. A logical inconsistency. Like a damaged segment on a VHS tape, where the movie became garbled for a bit and then suddenly, jarringly snapped back to normal once it got past that part.

"...Alright, that's it, I'm calling a nurse." Ms. Rachel decided suddenly, not really answering Mari's confused mumble. Even as she spoke, the woman was already turning towards the bedside table, where a small remote sat.

Mari blinked, processing the words, and then- "Wait!" she exclaimed, holding out both hands in front of her. Ms. Rachel visibly paused, eyes snapping back to her at the outburst. "You don't need to do that!" Mari continued quickly. "I'm fine, everything's fine." she insisted.

(It felt like a lie.)

Ms. Rachel stared at her for just a second. "Sweetheart, you don't look well." she pointed out, lowering her voice to something softer... almost gentle? It almost reminded Mari of trying to soothe Mewo when she got spooked, that was closest comparison for the tone she could think of. "I don't want to scare you, but for a second it looked like you were barely breathing. I thought you were blacking out." the woman continued.

"...I'm sorry for worrying you." Mari apologized, almost on instinct. Had she really been about to pass out? That couldn't be right, but... she could see how it must've looked bad, she supposed. She shook herself, trying to clear her head a little. "But I'm okay now, really, I'm just a little out of it." she added, trying to will the social worker to believe her. It didn't work.

"...You're paler than these white walls." Ms. Rachel countered simply, quietly, looking over Mari with that same worry still in her gaze, completely unmoved by the reassurance. Mari paused at that, looking down at her hand to compare, and... Oh, just a hyperbole. Obviously her skin wasn't actually lighter than white paint, that made no sense. How stupid of her to even think for a second it was literal. Still, she supposed it did look pallid... but she couldn't really tell much difference between now versus the paleness she'd noticed earlier? Was it actually worse and she was just bad at gauging it? She had no clue.

"I'm..." Mari stopped momentarily, realizing she didn't actually know what she was arguing for a second, but quickly rallied as a counterpoint occurred to her after all. "I'm on a lot of painkillers right now, because I had surgery last night, remember? It's probably just that..." she suggested reasonably. It wasn't just an excuse, it legitimately seemed like the most likely theory now that she thought of it.

Yet that only made Ms. Rachel appear even more displeased?

"I'm not a doctor, but... Regular painkillers shouldn't be affecting you this much..." she replied slowly, as if realizing something. "I'm calling the nurse." she repeated, and this time she gave Mari no time to argue, immediately snatching the remote from the side table and pressing the circular button at the top. Mari vaguely recalled being informed yesterday that was there for patients to signal a nurse in case of emergency, so it made sense why the woman went for it... But not why she was suddenly so deadset on doing it at all? Fortunately, it didn't take long for the clarification. "You might be having a bad reaction to your medication, or something... We need to at least check." Ms. Rachel clarified.

A bad reaction...?

Mari stared at her in silence for a second, and then slowly looked down at the IV line in her arm. Was that possible? ...Of course it was possible, people had nasty unexpected reactions to medicine all the time, there was no big secret there. Mari'd certainly seen more than enough drug commercials with extensive lists of possible, sometimes horrible side-effects. This may have been an ambiguous fluid delivered straight to her arm rather than a bottle of colorful pills sold on TV, but the principle was the same...

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.

"So what happens now...?" Mari wondered, her voice coming out almost blankly. She was looking down at the bedsheets, not meeting Ms. Rachel's expression. She had no idea what sort of face the woman might be making right then.

It would still be a minute before the nurses arrived, after all, Faraway General was a pretty large building and from what Mari had seen, the staff were often busy. While pressing the button meant this would be a high priority in theory (that was sort of the whole point of an emergency call button), they couldn't just instantly materialize out of thin air either, they had to actually have time to get here.

"Now?" Ms. Rachel repeated, curiously. She went quiet for a moment, perhaps thinking it over. "...Well, actually, I'd just about asked everything I needed to for now anyway." she said, and just like that, her voice had snapped back to her neutral tone again. How did she do that so easily...? "Thank you for telling me all that, sweetheart. I think it will really help." she added nicely.

Mari paused, looking up at the woman slightly to see her giving her usual smile once more.

("Help with doing what?")

"...Help with doing what?" Mari blurted out before she could stop herself. "What's going to happen to me now?"

"...Well, it's too early to say." Ms. Rachel hedged, glancing away so as not to meet Mari's eyes. Not that Mari was really trying to make eye contact anyway. "I don't decide that all by myself, you know." she added matter-of-factly.

"Could you please just... tell me something, then?" Mari pushed, feeling herself frown at that answer, unsatisfied. "Whatever you can?" she requested. "I understand this is just... the start for your investigation and all, but I don't... want to be left in the dark either." she admitted plaintively, folding her hands in her lap.

.

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"Alright." Ms. Rachel conceded with a soft sigh. Mari's head whipped up in surprise, part of her honestly not expecting the woman to actually agree. "I know you might not believe this, but... you didn't deserve any of what's happened to you. If you wanted to know what I really think... that's it."

Mari said nothing.

What was there to say, after all? Ms. Rachel was right, she didn't believe that. Because it wasn't true. So many of Mari's misfortunes had been brought about by her own hand, directly or indirectly... trying to brush over that was just lying. She appreciated the thought, she saw what the woman was trying to do, but... lying to spare her feelings was still lying, wasn't it?

"And I think I can tell you that... at the very least your mother is almost certainly going to be in a lot of trouble after this. Your father, I'm not so sure what to make of him, it doesn't sound like he ever directly did anything to you?" Ms. Rachel's voice took on a questioning note at the end there, and Mari realized she was probing for an answer.

"...No, dad usually left... delivering punishments and talking to us up to mom." Mari confirmed, giving a small nod. She didn't mention the part where she couldn't remember the last time she'd had a full conversation with dad that wasn't about school or piano practice. Not relevant right now. "I always assumed he agreed with mom on that stuff, but... Last night Mrs. Rodriguez called him, and he apparently didn't even know what happened yesterday? Mom hid it from him? So I don't know what's going on there..." Mari added, the thought just occurring to her.

"I see. Well, thank you again... but I shouldn't be bothering you with more questions when you're not feeling well." Ms. Rachel replied. "I should go, get out of the way before the nurse gets here, alright?"

"...That's fine." Mari agreed quietly.

"Alright, then I'll see you again another day. Thank you again, sweetheart, I know this was hard for you. You're very strong, you know that?"

...Mari didn't feel strong. Mari just felt kind of ill to her stomach.

Chapter Text

"...Hey, are you sure you're really doing okay?"

Mari exhaled softly. "Yeah, Hero, I'm sure." she repeated patiently, for what felt like the dozenth time since Hero had arrived – which was maybe fifteen to twenty minutes ago, if Mari was guessing, though it remained just as hard to gauge time in this hospital room as ever. It definitely hadn't been half an hour yet though, she was at least sure of that much. "Really." she added, a bit more insistently, when she looked up at him and saw the small furrow in his brow. She was trying not to be a little exasperated with Hero repeating the question over and over, really she was. She knew that he was just honestly concerned about her, and she did appreciate his caring. It was one of his best qualities. But at the same time, even though he didn't mean anything bad by it... did he have to keep bringing this up and reminding her of it?

She really was alright... Or at least, as alright as she could be given the circumstances, however much that was saying...

It had been a couple days since that slog of a discussion with Ms. Rachel. Mari felt a twinge of guilt for thinking of it like that, knowing she was being uncharitable – obviously none of her problems were the social worker's fault, nor did she blame her for it – but that didn't make the whole thing any less unpleasant to sit through... Regardless, though, Mari hadn't seen the woman since then. It seemed fair to assume she was busy looking into other things now that she'd gotten what she needed from Mari. But if she was being fully honest with herself, Mari didn't really mind much either way – she was a lot more interested in the visits from her friends.

Apparently, Mrs. Rodriguez had actually tried to bring the younger kids back to continue their visit that same evening after Ms. Rachel had left... only for them to not be allowed in to see her. Mari was busy going through another round of blood tests and physical examinations – and even once those were done, Dr. Astora had forbidden her receiving any more visitors that day so as not to risk stressing her out... It would seem that pressing the emergency call button and telling the nurses she was having a severe reaction to her medication tended to be something the hospital staff would take very seriously. Which was obvious in hindsight, of course. But that didn't make it any less hectic for Mari having to deal with it all in the moment. Really, she was probably lucky her doctor had only kept visitors away for the rest of that single day while they evaluated her condition.

As it turned out, the social worker's guess had been close to correct. According to her bloodwork, Mari actually had a minor allergy to the particular kind of painkiller she'd been given. Nobody had caught it before because they'd simply never known to look for it: her previous hospitalization after the softball incident hadn't involved surgery, so she'd been prescribed less potent drugs that time. Supposedly, actual allergies to that kind of medication were fairly rare – less than one in a thousand. Mari always was the lucky one, wasn't she...?

Though she shouldn't complain. Dr. Astora had told her she actually was lucky since it was only a mild reaction. She hadn't had a chance to ask what a serious allergy would have looked like, but the doctor's grim tone had made her feel like she didn't want to know anyway. Adverse effects from medicine could get a lot worse than feeling dazed and zoning out a couple minutes' worth of memory.

Really, they weren't even sure if some of those effects might have just been in her head – "psychosomatic" was the word the doctor used – her body simply responding to the stress she didn't know she was feeling from that whole discussion... That would pretty neatly explain why she had started feeling more and more detached as she talked about mom, wouldn't it?

("How typical of you to get everyone up in arms about fake problems.")

Now, the dizziness and the pale skin, those were actually real effects from the allergic reaction, apparently it had caused her blood pressure to drop or something like that... Admittedly, at a certain point, the exact details had started to get mixed up in Mari's head, even with Dr. Astora trying to explain it all to her as simply as possible. It had been another very long day. But her takeaway was that, while it obviously wasn't great, it wasn't near as bad as it could be, and it was good they'd caught it now rather than later.

It was a pretty easy fix, in theory: if she was allergic to one type of medication, however mildly, just switch her to another. It also helped that they'd only been planning on keeping her on such a high dosage for the first day after the surgery anyway, so the new meds she was on now were in much lower concentration as well – reducing the chances of stumbling onto another bad reaction. Simple, straightforward solution. Really, it almost made the initial frenzy of worry and rushing to examine her feel like it was more stressful than it needed to be. But Mari understood logically why they had to do that – it wasn't like the hospital staff could afford to just assume things were being blown out of proportion, too little concern would be a lot more disastrous than too much. The exact same reasoning Mari herself used when forbidding Sunny and the others from going to the lake at the hangout spot, in fact, so she couldn't criticize the caution without being a hypocrite.

However straightforward the proposed solution might sound on paper, though, Dr. Astora was taking no chances. Mari's hospital stay had been extended by at least another couple days for observation. Just to make sure there weren't any other complications from the allergic reaction that weren't immediately obvious. Which made sense, she couldn't argue with the reasoning... but that didn't mean she was very happy about being stuck here for even longer. She wasn't going to burden the doctor or the nurses by complaining about it, that wouldn't be fair to them, obviously they didn't deserve it. But privately Mari was absolutely sick of this room. Another couple days added onto her time here felt... rather like how she imagined it'd feel to be handed a prison sentence. It was melodramatic, and she knew it was melodramatic, but telling herself that didn't make the feeling go away...

But at least, once things had settled down again, she was allowed visitors once more to break up the monotony. Mrs. Rodriguez had escorted Kel, Aubrey, and Basil over again yesterday, all of them obviously worried about Mari developing another problem, no matter how she tried to reassure them it was (mostly) fine. Aubrey in particular had been quite cross with her for giving them yet another scare – Mari was honestly surprised the younger girl didn't punch her shoulder again this time. She'd certainly looked like she was tempted. That had been a rather awkward conversation, Mrs. Rodriguez had to step in to stop the kids from badgering Mari too much about what had happened with the social worker that set her off. It wasn't that Mari wanted to keep information from them, that wouldn't be fair... but she didn't think she could handle going over that whole discussion again for the second time in as many days.

Mrs. Rodriguez had informed her, though, that Hero would probably be dropping by to see her the day after. The only reason he hadn't come that day was because he was busy... doing something to help his father? Mari might have, admittedly, missed part of the explanation and not wanted to bother Mrs. Rodriguez by asking her to repeat it. So she wasn't exactly sure what Hero had been doing. But the point was, he was planning to stop by. Which was what brought them to now: that "day after" was now today, and sure enough, Hero had shown up not too long ago. He'd looked rather nervous when he arrived, honestly, his forehead lined with worry... A feeling compounded by his barraging Mari with questions about whether she was okay.

She could understand where he was coming from, really. While Kel and Mrs. Rodriguez would have almost certainly told Hero that Mari was doing fine – or, as fine as she could be given the circumstances, for whatever that was worth – it did make a certain amount of sense that he'd be anxious until he could come back to visit her himself. Mari knew that if it were the other way around, her visiting Hero (or Sunny, or any of the others, for that matter), no amount of secondhand reports would be enough to settle her nerves. If she heard that something went wrong, like an allergic reaction to medications, then she'd absolutely be on edge until she could see them with her own eyes. Just telling her "it wasn't that bad" wouldn't be enough. So she couldn't begrudge Hero for feeling the same. That was why she was trying not to show the slight exhaustion from him constantly asking her. It was practically all they'd talked about since he'd gotten here.

Speaking of which...

"I know, I know..." Hero replied apologetically, almost sheepishly. He rubbed the back of his head with one hand. "I'm betting I'm annoying you with this, huh? I probably sound just like mamá..."

Mari clenched her fingers subtly against the folds of her blanket, trying to force herself to focus on the conversation at hand, and then shook her head. "No, no, you're fine!" she said quickly, and- ah, Hero's eyes had widened slightly, that may have been just a touch too loud. She took a second to clear her throat, trying to moderate her voice more when she continued. "It's fine, really. I promise I'm not mad or anything." she insisted, trying to put as much sincerity into it as she could, giving him a tired smile. Then she paused. "And I don't think you should talk bad about your mom, I can't blame her for caring either..." she added. If anything, Mari would say it was sort of nice that Mrs. Rodriguez would be so concerned, in a way (not that she wanted to be worrying anybody, of course not, but it was far too late for that).

"...No, you're right, that was a little mean, wasn't it?" Hero conceded with a small tilt of his head. "It's just, well, you know how she can be sometimes." he said, shoulders raised in a shrug as he tried to explain himself.

"Yeah, I understand what you mean, don't worry." Mari assured him. She hadn't really been offended by the remark or anything like that, her chiding was meant to be as mild as possible. As Hero said, Mari did know how the Rodriguez parents could get at times – Hero had confided some of his frustrations to her before, in private. They were nice people, and Mari certainly wasn't going to badmouth Mrs. Rodriguez in particular after the last few days and all the woman had done for her... but they could be pushy, especially to Hero. Heck, Mrs. Rodriguez had even admitted to being too smothering to him, hadn't she? So Mari could sympathize with what Hero meant with that comment, even if it came off a little ruder than he intended.

"Anyway, sorry I keep asking that." Hero apologized, closing his eyes and shaking his head as if to clear it. "When I heard you were having another problem, I-" He paused, and Mari could see him visibly swallow. "I thought it must be something really bad, and... it sounds like it still could've been? So I really just needed to see you instead of hearing it from somebody else, you know?" he explained, unknowingly confirming what Mari had just been thinking on the subject.

"I know." Mari agreed with a nod, because again, she could easily see herself in his shoes here. "And really, I should probably be the one apologizing, for worrying you with all that." she added.

("Worrying him yet again, you mean.")

Hero blinked. "What? No." he said, brow furrowing again, though it looked more confused than concerned this time. "You don't need to apologize so much, Mari, this wasn't your fault." he denied, frowning as he looked at her. "I mean, I don't think it was really anybody's fault. You said it was an allergy, right? Nobody could've known about that." he pointed out reasonably. "And, it's not like you decided what medicine they gave you either."

Mari met his frown with a smaller one of his own, but said nothing for a moment. Because, yes, obviously the stuff he just said was true. She appreciated Hero's efforts to be earnest in pointing that out to her, even if she knew it already. And it was sort of... nice, to be reassured that he wasn't annoyed at her, but... Well, it sort of felt like he was missing her reasoning a little. Yeah, she hadn't directly chosen to take painkillers she'd have an allergic reaction to – or indeed known that was an issue before now – but that wasn't really what the apology was for, exactly. It went deeper than that. She wouldn't have been in a position where she needed those painkillers if it weren't for her stupidly trying to run on a knee she knew full well couldn't handle it. Every worrying thing that happened to her after that could be traced back.

She remembered what Basil had said a couple days ago, about the difference between worrying about her versus worrying because of her. She did. But it felt a lot harder to believe this didn't count as something she caused when more and more problems were arising from something that was, objectively, her own action. It wasn't that either Hero or Basil were wrong, on the theoretical level Mari agreed with both of them... it was just that it didn't feel like the principle applied to her situation, specifically.

But she didn't say any of that, because she knew Hero wouldn't agree. And she didn't want to argue with him. That wouldn't be fair, when he so obviously meant well, throwing it back in his face – even with what she believed was a valid reason to contradict him – would just be rude, and that was the last thing she wanted. Hero, of all people, undeniably deserved patience and understanding, even if Mari didn't think she could truly agree with him.

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Silence reigned for a long moment. Not quite heavy enough to be outright suffocating – compared to some of the unpleasant conversations Mari had over the last few days, this was barely a blip on the radar – but enough to quickly grow more than a little awkward. Mari had glanced away, not wanting to just stare at Hero endlessly (and certainly not feeling up to trying to hold eye contact). But from the corner of her eye, she saw him shifting uncomfortably where he stood. He must be aware she didn't really believe him or agree with his deflecting blame from her, even though she hadn't said it... Mari had no clue what her expression looked like right now, but it wouldn't surprise her at all if it gave away her skepticism and discomfort. She had to remember normal people like Hero could notice a lot more subtle hints than she could, so if she failed to control her look, then it would make things uncomfortable. That was just the logical consequence.

.

Hero cleared his throat, and Mari's eyes snapped back to him at the sound. He was rubbing the back of his head again, and Mari recognized it as the way he often did when trying to collect himself or gather his thoughts.

"You know... You actually are looking a lot better today. I mean, uh, compared to when I saw you on Saturday."

...

Mari would take it. It was a very blatant attempt to change the subject because they were uncomfortable, and she could even see Hero cringing slightly the second the words left his mouth, like he realized how forced it sounded too... But she would take it. Honestly, heavyhanded or not, changing the subject seemed like exactly like the right thing to do at the moment. Mari probably would've done it herself eventually if he hadn't beaten her to it – it was just the matter of thinking of something to say that was holding her back, really. So she could appreciate Hero taking one for the team and saying something no matter how awkward it was. It was times like this that felt like one could really tell he and Kel were siblings, if you knew how to look at it... Hero might not have his brother's exuberant energy, but they both had a talent for knowing when to keep things moving, in their own ways. Mari appreciated that about both of them, it was a good quality... Especially compared to how herself and Sunny could both get caught up in their heads indefinitely if given the chance. (Just like she was doing now, actually.)

Mari tried to give him an appreciative smile to show she recognized his efforts, though she couldn't be sure if it came across or not.

"Oh, you mean it?" she replied curiously. "I haven't had a chance to see a mirror since I got here, but I figured I was still a mess." she admitted. Saying that, she brought her hand up to card her fingers softly through her hair, feeling them snag on tangles as she did. Mari liked having her hair this long, she really did, but it came with the tradeoff of being really high-maintenance to keep neat. Which was fine when she was at home on a normal day, but being here in the hospital didn't afford many opportunities for grooming... Sure, the attached bathroom had a shower so she'd obviously been keeping clean, but even that required help from nurses since she couldn't stand on her own yet. Not exactly dignified. So she had to imagine she still looked pretty disheveled. What she wouldn't give for a hairbrush...

("Is that seriously something you think is a real problem? How narcissistic can you get?")

"Yeah, it's not that bad." Hero said, unaware of her thoughts as he shook his head in denial. "The other night, you looked... Well, pretty miserable." he continued, bluntly, then winced again. "Sorry." he added preemptively (even though Mari wasn't really offended. That was undoubtedly just the truth.) "But now it's a lot better, your bruises have gone down and all..."

Mari stopped fiddling with her hair and, almost unconsciously, brought her hand to her face instead, gingerly touching two fingers to the side where mom's hand had struck... It didn't immediately flare with pain at the contact, so that was indeed an improvement. Of course, she'd already noticed it getting better somewhat, since the swelling had gone down over the last couple days. The simple fact she could now actually have both eyes fully open, instead of half-squinting from the bruised right side, was a blessing she hadn't even realized she missed until she got it back. Still, given it had only been a couple days, she had to imagine that half of her face was still shaded in purple (and not the pretty sort of purple she enjoyed)... but if Hero said it looked better, she'd take him at his word.

Not that she would pass up the clear opportunity to rib him a little, though.

"...Are you sure?" Mari wondered slowly, leadingly, as she lowered her hand. "You're not just telling me what I want to hear, are you, mister?" She tilted her chin up slightly as she said that, trying to put on an expression like a faux-pout. She would've put her hands on her hips to really sell the effect, if it weren't for her position sitting in bed making that awkward.

"What? No!" Hero sputtered quickly, waving his hands in front of himself as if to ward off the very idea. "I mean it, really!" he insisted. "You still look good. I don't think anything could really make you too bad, Mari..." he said, only to pause. Realization of what he'd just said hitting him. Mari thought she saw his face reddening, his eyes widened slightly. "-Wait, no, I mean... Uh-"

Mari cut off his flustered stumbling by holding up one hand for him to stop, to which he immediately clamped his mouth shut. Perhaps just to avoid digging himself any deeper... And, yeah, his face was definitely red now, if she hadn't spotted it a second ago then there'd be no missing it at this point.

"Well now I know you're just being nice. We both know that's not really true..." Mari replied with a rueful shake of her head. "But thanks for trying." she added, attempting to soften her wry smile into a more genuine one. She did appreciate that Hero cared enough to flatter her, since she knew it was coming from a sincere place. That sort of considerate nature of his was one of the things that made him such a good best friend, she really did lo- like that about him. She didn't feel like she had to constantly second-guess whether he was just being polite out of obligation – or at least, not as often as she had to with a lot of other people. But at the same time, she was fully aware she looked a bit off even on a good day, so she ought to take those compliments with a grain of salt even though he was legitimately being nice.

("A bit off is an understatement. There's a reason people always compliment your hair, and not your face.")

But that was fine.

Hero, however... didn't look very happy with her response. From the way his brow was furrowed all of a sudden, his lips turning to a slight frown, Mari got the distinct impression that she'd misstepped somehow. That her frank reply wasn't what he wanted to hear. But noticing that didn't do anything to actually tell her what she'd done wrong, and Hero was just looking at her silently rather than actually saying whatever he disagreed with... Was he disappointed with her? Unhappy with her contradicting him like that, even if she hadn't meant anything rude by it? That seemed like the only thing she could think of, but really, Mari had no clue. Feeling the silence start to close in awkwardly once more, however, she decided that agonizing over it wasn't getting her anywhere. It'd be better to just try to move on, Hero clearly would've said something already if he wanted to, right?

So it was Mari's turn to change the subject this time. Repay the favor from a minute ago.

"...But that's enough about me." she said, giving a quick shake of her head to try to recenter her thoughts. "I've been meaning to ask, how have you been?" she wondered, looking at Hero curiously. That wasn't a lie, she had been intending to ask him how things had been going for him the last couple days when he'd arrived, she'd just gotten distracted by his repeatedly asking after her before getting the chance.

There was a pause, and Mari heard Hero exhale softly, the set in his shoulders softening a bit, his whole posture almost visibly relaxing at her question... Though whether he was actually put at ease or simply acting like it for her sake, Mari couldn't be entirely sure.

"I've been fine." Hero replied, shrugging once more. "It's been a bit hectic, what with all..." He trailed off, waving one hand around to indicate the hospital room. Mari nodded, understanding what he meant (and trying to ignore another flare of guilt for causing his stress). "But I mean, other than that, it's been going alright." Hero added quickly. He gave Mari a small smile. "My driving lessons actually went pretty well yesterday, I think."

...Driving lessons! That was what Hero had been occupied with yesterday! Now that he said it, Mari actually did remember Mrs. Rodriguez mentioning that after all. It wasn't that she hadn't heard the explanation, she'd just forgotten about it. (As usual.) It made complete sense, too... Hero had legally been able to get his learner's permit since his last birthday, but it had been a fairly busy year so it had taken him until just a couple weeks ago to actually do it. And since then he'd simply been waiting for a good time when his father could take him out to start practicing – with Faraway being such a small town, there were plenty of nice open backroads outside town that didn't see much traffic, so they wouldn't be having to worry much about other cars before he could get the hang of it. It was a solid plan, Mari had been fully in favor of it when Hero had first told her, it was just dependent on Mr. Rodriguez actually being available.

Mari returned his smile. "That's great!" she said brightly, trying not to show any of the awkwardness she felt at having forgotten that until now. "I know you're just starting out now, but I bet you'll get it quickly. I think it'd suit you, you aren't the type to be a reckless driver." she told him thoughtfully.

"Heh, you think so? Thanks." Hero replied modestly, but Mari could tell he was pleased with the compliment all the same. Then he paused, his eyebrows knitting slightly like he'd thought of something. "Actually, I think papá might disagree, he kept telling me I was being too careful." he admitted. "Hesitating too much, you know? He didn't say it, but I think it was getting on his nerves a little by the end."

Mari felt her own smile dim and shook her head. "I don't think you should worry too much about that." she tried to reassure him. "I really did mean it, Hero, I know you'll be good at it. Being a little too cautious is a lot better than not cautious enough." she said, trying to will him to hear the sincerity in her voice.

Truth be told, Mari could admit to herself she found the prospect of learning to drive a little intimidating. She hadn't gotten her own learner's permit yet, her year had been even busier than Hero's, what with school and piano and everything else... The original plan had been to look into it sometime after the recital, if she remembered, but... Well, that would certainly have to be delayed now. Maybe indefinitely. There was no way she'd be allowed behind the wheel of a vehicle with her leg like this, not without explicit certification from her doctor that she'd recovered well enough to be capable. And who knew when – or if – that would happen? It should have been an upsetting thought, yet, on some level Mari felt a bit... relieved? Maybe that wasn't quite the right word for it. But she'd be lying if she said she'd been really looking forward to learning before all this.

At least with her piano, if she missed a note while practicing, she could just run through the song again, no harm done besides the lost time. (Though that was certainly no small cost either, she reminded herself.) But driving a car? Even the simplest little mistake at exactly the wrong time could come with a terrible price. Maybe a small fortune in car repairs, or maybe... something much, much worse, for herself, for her passengers, for the people in other cars... The benefits of being able to drive were obvious, from a practical standpoint she completely understood why adults tended to consider it a basically necessary skill, but the risks from doing it less than perfectly were astronomical. So if Hero's biggest "problem" while learning was being overly careful in trying to make sure those mistakes didn't happen? Mari could honestly say she didn't blame him one bit.

"Yeah, I know." Hero agreed, but Mari could hear the small sigh in his words. "I shouldn't let something like that get to me..." he said. His tone was... odd, slightly, like he was trying for his normal confidence. But not quite there. It was subtle, in the way that somebody who didn't know him well probably wouldn't notice it – Mari might not have noticed if her attention wasn't focused exclusively on him, in fact. But it was, and she did, and that was enough to make her own frown deepen with a twinge of concern.

"I'm sure your dad didn't mean anything by it." she told him honestly. She may not have known Mr. Rodriguez that well, she hadn't interacted with him as much as his wife, but he'd never been unkind to her and Sunny when they came over, and she knew Hero and Kel both highly respected him. Even if Kel occasionally liked to grumble about his parents being embarrassing. Maybe Mari was the wrong person to be speaking on this, to be trying to gauge somebody else's family when she couldn't even understand her own, but... For once, she didn't feel like she was wrong, so she rallied herself in the face of Hero's bemused expression and kept going. "After all, you said it still went pretty well besides that, right?" she pointed out. "I know you, Hero, I know you wouldn't have been feeling happy about it a minute ago if your dad was really bothered by anything." That was the truth, too, Hero was far too considerate to ignore somebody's feelings to act all pleased with himself, Mari was confident anyone who knew him would say the same.

"I-" Hero started to say instantly, but paused, his brows tilting thoughtfully as he looked at Mari, really considering her words.

.

He was silent for a moment, but Mari didn't push – she'd already made her point, there was no need to try to force it, that'd just be unnecessary and rude. Hero could take as much time to think as he needed... Though it turned out he only needed a second, and then-

"...Heheh." Hero chuckled softly to himself, shaking his head. It was a light sound, airy and genuine, not forced or awkward at all, and for a second Mari thought she felt something flutter in her chest from hearing it... When Hero looked at Mari again, his smile was back, and she couldn't see anything strained in it, so she assumed it was real. "You're right." he admitted. "It did go well, that was the only thing papá chided me for at all, and like you said, it's not a bad problem. We had a good time, and I feel like I learned a lot." he said, nodding to himself certainly. Mari wasn't entirely sure if he was really talking to her, or more just affirming it to himself, but she didn't interrupt. "It was a good day, I just... got caught up in my head for a second, I think. Sorry about that, Mari."

"Hey now, you don't have to apologize for that, mister." Mari replied immediately. She said it jokingly, trying to put on a frown and speaking with a mock-scolding air as if to tease him for being ridiculous. She heard Hero exhale another soft chuckle, dipping his head a little, suitably chagrined. But then Mari met his smile with one of her own. "Really, you don't, I understand." she told him softly, sincerely.

And she really did understand. Hero might not have said it directly, but she was pretty sure she knew what he was feeling. Even if it was just for a moment, even if his driving lessons had otherwise gone great like he claimed... There was a little part of Hero that couldn't help but be disappointed that he'd bothered his dad a little with his careful attitude. Not because of anything his dad said or did, not really, but just because he got caught up in thoughts about how it didn't go quite how he wanted. That was the impression Mari was getting, anyway... and she'd be the last person to blame him for that. She understood that feeling of wanting things, especially things you've been looking forward to, to go right. To go perfectly. And really, the fact Hero was able to laugh it off and refocus on how well it'd turned out, to be content with that... Honestly, that put him several steps up from her already.

("...Well, at least you're self-aware.")

"Well, thank you anyway." Hero replied, grinning endearingly at her. He was using the charming, easygoing tone again, but it sounded more real this time, at least to Mari's ears. More like... him, for lack of a better term. "I think I just needed to talk about it out loud for a sec, hear it from someone else to really get it, you know? So thanks for helping me keep my head straight." he said earnestly.

"You're welcome, anytime. I really don't mind." Mari acknowledged with a small nod. Privately, she didn't really feel like she'd done anything that warranted thanking... but Hero seemed content, so she didn't want to contradict him. His happiness was what was really important here, he didn't need her bringing down the mood by throwing his gratitude back in his face, even if she hadn't done anything special to deserve it. This wasn't about her.

"...I'm really glad you're my friend, Mari, you know that?" Hero continued after a slight pause, his voice dropping slightly quieter – though it was still an audible volume, not to the point of whispering or murmuring or anything like that. Just a little softer than usual. He averted his eyes from her, and once again, Mari could swear she saw his face reddening as he spoke. "I feel like I don't tell you that enough." he admitted.

"Hero-..." Mari began, but trailed off, finding herself at a sudden loss for words. There it was again, that feeling like wings fluttering inside her chest, as if a handful of moths had taken roost under her ribcage. It was bizarre, ringing almost like a wave of nausea, but without the clinging, sticky feeling that made such a thing so unpleasant... This feeling was airier, rising up like a soft breath from deep in her lungs. She knew Hero was her best friend – obviously – and he'd always been good to talk to, but something about hearing him say it so outright, in a voice like that, it felt... different from the usual lighthearted teasing and general friendly conversations they would normally have. She just couldn't quite put a name as to why it felt different. But it left her taken aback enough that she didn't know how to respond, falling silent and suddenly feeling an urge to tear her gaze away and stare intently down at her blankets instead.

("Now if only you were someone who actually deserved his kindness.")

...

She tried to shove down the creeping feeling in the back of her head. Just this once, even if she knew she was a fake, she was going to try to ignore it. To pretend she was actually allowed to have this, even if it was only for a moment. Sure, she'd have to go back to the real world soon enough, Mari couldn't afford to get caught up daydreaming like Sunny could, she had to keep herself grounded in reality as much as possible – who knew what nonsense her mind would conjure up if she let it run wild and unfocused for too long? But she'd try to enjoy this feeling for a second longer at least, it was... a nice moment, and she hadn't gotten a lot of those in the past few days.

.

.

The two continued talking for awhile after that. A sort of... peaceful air had settled over the room, Mari wouldn't call it relaxing, exactly – it was rather hard to feel relaxed when she was still here in this hospital bed with itchy blankets and everything reeking with that sterile smell – but at least for those few minutes, things seemed more at ease. Hero appeared to have noticed it too, since as if by some unspoken agreement, neither of them were eager to break the tranquil mood. They mostly kept to light, pleasant topics for awhile: bits of smalltalk about schoolwork or the cold weather that week, funny anecdotes about something ill-advised Kel had done recently, weird rumors Aubrey had mentioned... That sort of thing. Carefully avoiding the heavier topics still hanging over their heads.

There was still a lot going on, after all, for as much as Mari felt like she was spinning her wheels powerlessly here. But just for now, they weren't talking about them, and it felt like that was okay. No mentions of her knee surgery, no mentions of walking with a cane, no mentions of medication allergies, no mention of mom... Mari would say she particularly appreciated Hero not pressing her for more details about how her discussion with the social worker had gone the other day. It wasn't like what they'd talked about was a secret or anything, but she didn't really want to have to go over all that again right now.

But even if they were deliberately not acknowledging those serious issues for the moment, the conversation didn't feel forced. Or at least, it didn't to Mari, she could only assume Hero didn't mind humoring her either. But he looked like he was enjoying himself so far as she could tell. There was something... relieving about it, really, to be able to just have a lighthearted conversation about nothing important for a little while. It was the sort of thing Mari had always enjoyed when her friends were around, whether she was engaging with the discussion herself or just sitting back and listening to the others chatter, she'd be perfectly content... Not for the first time, she wondered how many peaceful moments like this she'd missed out on over the last year. Shutting herself away in the piano room to practice had felt so much more important than hanging out making idle smalltalk at the time, but now... Now she felt stupid for ever thinking that.

.

Yet, all good things come to an end and all that...

As much as Mari might have liked to just be able to chat casually with Hero forever, realistically she knew it wasn't an option. Even putting aside the obvious things like the basic passage of time and the real world continuing to move along outside this room... there was still something important she felt like they needed to talk about. Critical, even. In any other situation, Mari would've been pressing to find a chance to bring it up a lot sooner than this, really. It was only the fact that Hero and Kel and their family were involved that allayed her worries enough to put it off for a bit – she trusted that, if anything truly bad had happened, they would tell her right away. Hero wouldn't be sitting here chuckling at some corny joke she made if there were an emergency. But still, she needed to know.

So, when the conversation fell into a lull of silence for a minute, Mari looked at Hero – who had finally come over to sit in the chair at her bedside after she'd teased him about making her anxious standing around the whole time – and swallowed silently to steel herself.

"Hey, so I've been meaning to ask..." she began, and Hero must have sensed something more serious in her voice, because he sat up a little straighter. "...How's Sunny been doing? He hasn't come back to visit me since that first night, you know?" Mari asked, trying to keep a note of worry out of her tone even as she felt it rise in her chest.

Hero visibly paused, tensing up – subtly but noticeably, any lingering trace of lightheartedness immediately wiped from his expression so far as Mari could see. His mouth opened slightly and Mari could hear him suck in a sharp breath, her hearing precise enough to even catch the sound of the air hissing faintly through his teeth as he grimaced, seemingly almost on reflex. It would be a lie to say this reaction was really unexpected, quite the opposite really, objectively speaking it was probably the most likely outcome one ought to expect... but even so, Mari could feel her heart sinking, her own shoulders growing more tense in mimicry of Hero's posture. Even if she had known something like this was probably coming, there had been part of her that still hoped for some good news. But when was she ever that lucky? ...No, she shouldn't be making this about herself right now, hearing Hero's answer was more important, so she tried to force herself to focus.

"He's doing... about the same?" Hero hedged, looking like he was wincing slightly in discomfort (or maybe sympathy?) at the words. Mari felt her frown deepen, and Hero must have misinterpreted the reason for it, as he hurried to speak again before she could reply. "Nothing bad's happened!" he added quickly – though Mari already thought as much (again, he would've told her before now if it had). Then Hero stopped and let out a low exhale, perhaps to steady himself. "But, well... Kel probably told you how Sunny was when we got home Saturday night, right?"

"Yeah, it came up the other day." Mari replied with a nod. She was pretty sure she knew exactly what Hero was going to say next, but she still watched him patiently, waiting for him to confirm it.

"Unfortunately nothing's really changed on that front." Hero said, unsurprisingly, as he closed his eyes momentarily and shook his head. "He's just been staying cooped up in the corner of me and Kel's room, he won't really look at us or talk to us even when we're in there. I've told him he can tell me what's wrong when he's ready, I didn't want to push him... But honestly I don't think he's said ten words to anybody in the last two days." he explained, looking at Mari with a deep frown and shrugging his shoulders almost helplessly. Mari didn't doubt that he was telling the truth about not pushing Sunny – Hero was always considerate, and certainly knew better than to try forcing Sunny to talk – but unfortunately letting him stew probably wasn't really a much better alternative.

"He's been eating, but only because mamá's been bringing food up for him, we can't get him to come out for meals or anything." Hero continued, to which Mari nodded along with a frown of her own. She pretty much knew all that already – as Hero said, it was basically the same as what Kel had told her on Sunday. "And about him visiting... We have tried to talk to him about it, but it's only seemed to make him more upset when we mention it. I actually hoped I could get him to come with me today, but..." Hero trailed off, but he didn't need to elaborate further. Sunny's absence spoke for itself.

Even though Mari knew it was coming – because why else would her little brother not be visiting her when she was in the hospital after that first night – but something about hearing it said still... kind of hurt. Having it so directly confirmed that Sunny didn't want to come see her, was actively refusing to come see her, whatever his reasons... It made her feel like something was jabbing at her chest, her mind conjuring images of thorns from some gnarled bush digging into her skin, right over where her heart should be...

("Not that you don't deserve it.")

.

.

"...I wish I knew what the problem was." Hero said, looking genuinely dismayed for a moment, his brow furrowed heavily with worry. "If there's anything I could do to help..." he trailed off, but he didn't need to finish the sentence. Mari knew he would probably do anything in his power if he thought she or Sunny needed it, Hero was the kind of guy to always try to be helpful (sometimes a little too much, if anything). He obviously wouldn't be faking his worry at not being able to aid Sunny, not that Mari had ever suspected that to begin with. "Do you-" Hero started to ask, looking up at Mari.

"-I don't know either." But Mari cut him off immediately, giving a sharp shake of her head to punctuate her denial. She didn't feel great about interrupting him, but as soon as she'd realized what he was going to ask, she'd needed to nip it in the bud. One hand, the one that didn't have the IV line going to the wrist, came up to tug uncomfortably at the collar of her hospital gown. It was already fairly loose-fitting, but with her nerves fraying, she just couldn't seem to stop herself from worrying at the fabric around her neck all the same. Though maybe it'd be more accurate to say she barely tried to stop herself. "All I know is from what you and Kel told me. Sunny's clearly hurting, but I don't know why, if I..." Mari felt a lump forming in her throat as she spoke, stopping to try and force it down, but no amount of furious swallowing seemed to be helping. When she finally gave up and went to finish her sentence, it came out sounding a little raspier than it should.

"...If I knew what I did to upset him, then I could help, but... I don't. I really don't." she admitted, a jolt of frustration arising from nowhere and itching beneath her skin, not that she would acknowledge it. It wasn't like any of this was Hero's fault, so taking it out on him wouldn't be fair. "And I don't know how to try to make it right when I'm not sure what 'it' is."

Hero was looking at her oddly, his forehead creased. "Wait, hold on." he said, holding up one hand as if to stop her. Mari paused, meeting his curious gaze with her own – though just for a second before she averted her eyes again to stare somewhere near his chin, her gut lurching unpleasantly from the attempt to hold eye contact. Hero had almost looked and sounded confused, but Mari in turn was only confused why he'd be confused... "Why do you think it was something you did? I mean, we don't know that, do we?" Hero wondered, not unreasonably, his head tilting slightly as he continued looking at her. "Did... something happen with you two?" he asked slowly, sounding openly concerned now, if he hadn't already.

"Well, what else could it be?" Mari replied without hesitation, her voice coming out slightly more barbed than it was meant to be. She stopped, forcing herself to take a deep breath, in and out. Again, it was herself she was agitated with, not Hero, he shouldn't have to hear it. But she did still need to explain herself. "Think about it, about when Sunny started acting like this. It started on Saturday, but it wasn't just from me running off, or from me getting hurt. He was... he was scared-" And Mari had to choke down another surge of guilt welling in her chest from that too. "-but he was still talking a bit, in the ambulance and when he first got here." she pointed out. Hero didn't interrupt, letting her explain her full point before speaking, but she could see that he looked to be thinking carefully back on what she was saying.

"It was later in the evening, just a bit before you guys had to go home, that he really shut down like this, right? It's... I can't really remember everything, that whole evening feels all jumbled up in my head, but I'm pretty sure it was a bit after we found out about how I'll-" Mari's voice hitched unexpectedly, and she swallowed. She was fine. She was fine talking about this. It was just a fact. "-how I'll need a cane."

Hero, thankfully, didn't call attention to that hesitation, Mari really didn't want to talk about that right now – she'd been doing her best to not think about it whenever possible, and she was in no rush to go into it now either. And especially not when they were supposed to be talking about Sunny, he was unquestionably a much higher priority than Mari's own (self-inflicted) problems...

"Hold on." Hero instead said for the second time in as many minutes. "You said after you... got that news? That sounds about right." he mused thoughtfully. "So that's got to be it, right? If hearing that is what's bothering him, that'd make sense, I can't really blame him for being spooked. Maybe we should've realized he was still so upset by it, but that's not really your fault." he suggested, sounding like he was working through the reasoning as he spoke. Which he probably was.

But Mari was already shaking her head. "It's not just that." she denied. "I mean, he was upset hearing that, but..." Everyone was, went without saying. "...It was only after Dr. Astora left the room that something set him off and he stopped saying anything to anyone... And besides, if he was just worried about me being okay, why's he avoiding visiting me?" She was trying to keep the hurt out of her voice with that last question. This wasn't about her feelings. That wasn't important right now. (Her fingers still tightened around her collar.)

"That's-" Hero started to say, only to stop himself. Perhaps realizing he didn't actually know what he was going to say. His mouth turned down into another frown and he looked to be averting his eyes, shifting them off to the side in what could only be discomfort... Mari had him there. She knew she had him with that question; if there was some obvious reason she was overlooking – well, that was entirely possible knowing her, but if that were the case, Hero would be pointing it out. And instead he'd fallen silent. She had a point, and they both knew she had a point.

If Sunny was simply upset about her injury, he'd typically want to be by her side more, not less. In fact, that was exactly what he'd been doing when they'd first gotten to the hospital, he'd spent a good chunk of the evening literally clinging to her side! Not that Mari would blame him for that at all, he'd clearly needed the comfort and she was happy to provide (plus, she was self-aware enough to recognize that she would be more clingy if their positions were reversed)... But that only made Sunny's absence over the last couple days all the more conspicuous, Mari would logically expect him to be taking every chance to be here, but instead Hero had said the suggestion of visiting seemed to upset him more... Something had to have changed to cause this shift. And whatever it was could only be Mari's fault, there were no other options that made sense with when this started. She just didn't know what she had said to him.

Though, in truth, Mari wished this was an argument she didn't win. She didn't like seeing Hero unhappy like this – and he clearly was unhappy, his arms crossed over his chest, his posture sagging a little in his seat, though she knew he'd probably deny it if she asked. Scoring some... petty point by arguing against him wasn't at all what she was trying to do. She wasn't any happier about being right than he was, she wanted there to be a better alternative so she could be wrong about this. She just knew she wasn't. Being wrong would be so much easier, so much simpler for all of them, than being right... If Sunny walked through the door in the next couple minutes and told her he wasn't mad at her, nobody would be happier than Mari, even though it would make her look really foolish for being so pessimistic. But that wasn't going to happen, and she and Hero were both fully aware of it.

.

"...Listen, there must be something else going on." Hero finally broke that awkward pause, visibly pulling himself up a little straighter and giving Mari what was... probably meant to be a determined gaze? She couldn't really tell, it just looked sort of uncomfortable. "I'll keep trying to talk to him here and there, okay? We'll figure this out." he tried to reassure her.

But Mari knew lying to make her feel better was still a lie.

She exhaled a soft breath, almost a sigh. "Just... keep an eye on him for me, okay?" she requested rather than directly replying to Hero's statement. She finally pried her grip from her collar and lowered her hand, folding her fingers together in her lap and staring down at them for a second. "If he doesn't want to talk, don't try to make him, I'm just worried he'll... forget to take care of himself." she tried to elaborate, to make sure Hero knew what she meant. "I know you said your mom was making sure he got meals. But while he's staying with you guys, can you remind him to shower, brush his teeth, get to bed on time, that sort of thing?" Mari asked, looking back up at Hero and failing to keep the hint of worry from bleeding into her tone.

Hero looked at her with an odd expression for just a second, as if he wanted to say something, but then it softened and he quickly nodded. "Of course, Mari. You didn't even need to ask." he said, his voice dipping a bit quieter than usual.

"I-" Mari swallowed, the feeling of weight pressing in on her chest lightening by a hair. "-...Thanks." she breathed out, her fingers worrying and tapping together idly. "I just- I know Sunny's not a little kid anymore, but I... worry about him." she admitted. "I'm supposed to be able to look after him, but I'm stuck here and he's not visiting so I... can't. It's- I don't know the word, but..." She was babbling. She knew that. Yet Hero appeared to understand all the same.

"Hey, hey, I get it." he was quick to reassure her. He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. "If it was me here, I'd be pretty anxious about making sure Kel was holding up, I think. He'd probably get annoyed at me babying him-" Hero paused to smile, a distinctly rueful edge to it. "-but hey. Not like that's stopped me before, right?" he joked slightly.

"Heh." Mari chuckled softly. But her heart wasn't really in it – whatever lightness there had been in their conversation earlier, she'd snuffed it out pretty effectively by dragging all this up. Still, she appreciated Hero trying. "...Anyway, thanks, Hero." she said – even though she'd already thanked him a second ago, it bore repeating. She wanted him to know she meant it.

"You can count on me, anytime." Hero replied without a second's hesitation.

.

.

Silence lapsed over them again, yet despite how there was still the problem of whatever upset Sunny hanging over their heads, not to mention everything else that had happened the last few days... Somehow, for just a few moments, it felt a bit less suffocating. Maybe Mari was just seeing what she wanted to see, but still, she'd take what she could get...

*click-shunk*

Mari and Hero both looked up almost in perfect sync, snapped from their thoughts by the door sliding open. A nurse with blonde hair – who Mari recognized, she was one of the frequent ones who'd been tending to her and regularly delivering meals over the last few days, but Mari hadn't ever gotten her name – stood in the doorway. She cleared her throat softly, but the sound carried clearly over the quiet room (as it was presumably intended to, a way to politely get Mari's attention).

"Excuse me, Ms. Takahashi?" the woman began, and Mari – after only a split-second glance at Hero – nodded slightly to show she was listening. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but we need to cut this visit short." the nurse continued, apologetically. "It's time to get you fitted with your cast." she elaborated.

...Her cast. Of course. Mari had been aware the whole time that the splint currently affixed to her knee was only a temporary measure after the surgery, and she was going to be put in a proper cast in short order. Actually, it was supposed to happen yesterday, but everything had been pushed back on account of the medication scare. But now that she was thinking about it, Dr. Astora had told her they'd be doing it this afternoon when she'd last seen him that morning. So she knew, or should have known, this was coming... It was hardly the fault of the nurse or any of the other hospital staff, Mari couldn't blame them for the interruption when they were just sticking to the schedule (not that she would be eager to cast blame at them regardless, she wasn't that ungrateful when they were working hard to help her). She'd just gotten so caught up with Hero that she forgot about it.

Speaking of Hero, Mari looked back to him, starting to open her mouth to speak-

-But he beat her to the punch.

"It's fine, Mari. It's... probably getting around time to call for mamá to pick me up anyway, I did promise to be home by five." he said quickly, trying to put on a casual tone. But Mari could see the slight hesitance in his expression.

(She couldn't blame him. She wanted him to stick around as long as possible too.)

(But they both knew that would be unreasonable.)

And then, suddenly, Hero leaned forwards, close to Mari. She started slightly at the abrupt proximity, feeling her cheeks burn against her control from seeing his face suddenly being closer like that without warning...

Then Hero, after only a brief heartbeat of hesitation, wrapped his arms around her shoulders, pulling Mari into a sudden hug.

"We're gonna get through this, Mari. Everything will be okay, I promise."

The words were just a breath, barely a whisper, for her ears only. In fact, even with her ever-sensitive hearing she just barely picked it up. If he wasn't pulling her so close, she might not have caught it.

And then, before Mari could even raise her own arms to hug him back, Hero was already pulling away, rising to his feet from the chair he'd been sitting in. It was abrupt, but familiar somehow, in a way that... reminded her of that first night here in this hospital room, when he'd kissed her on the cheek and then retreated before she could say anything.

(Was it bad that part of her wished he would do that again?)

Hero was already hurrying out of the room, not looking back, passing by the nurse who politely stepped aside to let him through the doorway.

And then he was out of sight.

Chapter Text

The hospital's outdoor garden was... underwhelming. That was the first impression that came to mind as Mari gazed around from the wheelchair she was currently seated in.

Perhaps her standards were unreasonably high in that regard, since when Mari thought of gardening, her mind went to Basil's house, always surrounded by soil plots and planters stuffed with a myriad of blooms of all colors, selected to fit the seasons and cultivated with the utmost care... And even inside the house was only more of the same, every room filled with flowerpots and hanging planters and shelves with more planters still. Every inch of the space, inside and out, clearly said that Basil and his grandma were gardeners to their core. One wouldn't even need to listen to them talk about it to recognize their shared passion for it. The two of them loved gardening, genuinely, nobody who'd ever met them could doubt that. And that love showed in their home, in the effort they put into it. It wasn't ostentatious or extravagant – Basil would be far too embarrassed by something like that. But there was something to be said for the thought and care that was put into every single plant.

Tranquil. That was the word Mari would pick if she had to describe Basil's house. It was beautiful, not in a way that was loud and flashy, but in the sense of being calming and peaceful. It was hard to imagine anything bad happening there. If Mari really wanted to be fanciful, she could say it was like their garden itself reflected the gentle personalities of the ones who had made it. Yet it also showed their dedication: it took a lot of effort to achieve and maintain something like that. Even the handful of times Mari and Sunny had come over to help Basil with gardening had made it clear just how much work went into it. Its beauty was well-earned.

The hospital's garden was... not that.

It was really more of a courtyard than a garden, if you asked Mari – which sounded like a ridiculous nitpick to make even in her head, but there was a legitimate distinction, she thought. With a garden proper, the plants themselves were meant to be a focal point, usually the focal point. Again, like Basil's house. The care was towards the plants themselves. This, on the other hand, was really more of just... an outdoor space. Essentially just a big flat square of grass segmented into four by concrete footpaths. Waist-high hedges ran around the perimeter, and at their base were small flowerbeds dotted around, though there wasn't much in them, perhaps on account of the autumn season and how unusually chilly the past couple weeks had been. There were a few stone benches scattered along the paths where visitors could sit, and a small fountain bubbled away in the center of the square.

It wasn't bad by any means. Mari didn't want to disrespect the efforts of the people the hospital employed to maintain this place, who clearly put work into it. Everything was impeccably neat, the concrete well-swept and the bushes trimmed, it was just... She'd been hoping for more flowers.

Still though, she understood why it was the way it was. The garden was mostly just a place where patients could come to relax. Those who were able to walk under their own power could stretch their legs a little, others could sit and read a book, or chat with other patients, or even just take a moment to enjoy some fresh air... That was certainly something Mari was fond of right now. This was perhaps the one place in the vicinity of the hospital that wasn't completely suffused in the scent of disinfectant. That by itself was a blessing. Simply being able to have a few minutes where she could breathe through her nose without the sterile smell assaulting her made coming out here worth it. Not to mention a change of scenery to break up the monotonous white and gray of her hospital room. At least the green grass and bushes gave a little color. Yes, the more she thought about it, the more Mari could appreciate the value of this garden after all, even if it wasn't quite what she'd envisioned.

Today was supposed to be her last full day at the hospital. She'd be discharged sometime tomorrow, or so Dr. Astora had told her, assuming nothing else came up. Technically speaking, there wasn't really much more they needed to do with her right now. With her leg now tightly bound up in the cast they'd affixed yesterday, there wasn't much more progress that could be made. Not until she'd had time to recover, which would take at minimum six weeks for an injury of this severity... Given the invasive level of surgery required, the cast could need to stay on for up to eight. They wouldn't know right away. And it was only once said cast was off that Mari would be returning for physical therapy – and Dr. Astora had been quite emphatic that she would be getting that therapy this time, no matter how much he had to browbeat her guardians into agreeing.

(Privately, Mari couldn't help but wonder how much physical therapy would actually help, since by the doctor's own words, even in the best case scenario she wasn't going to be getting full mobility in her leg back. Ever. So it seemed a bit too little, too late to her... But she'd kept that complaint to herself. It was her own problem anyway.)

So really, she was in a sort of limbo right now, and that probably wasn't going to change for quite awhile. They could have discharged her yesterday, as soon as the cast was on, or sometime this morning, and it wouldn't have affected her medical standing much. If at all. But Dr. Astora had ultimately decided to keep her here for another day (or really, perhaps more like a day and a half) for observation. Just in case, he'd said. Supposedly there could occasionally be complications with casts, particularly ones as extensive as what Mari needed. She glanced down at the wrappings of rigid fiberglass now securing her leg outstretched in front of her, running from her foot all the way up to her thigh. It was called a long leg cast, fittingly since it went along the whole leg, designed to keep the joints pretty much completely immobile. Which made sense for a knee injury, obviously, but still. Knowing why it was like that didn't make it any more comfortable... But Mari had been through this part before.

But more to the point, apparently there was a chance – not an overly high chance, but a chance – that having her whole leg bound up like that could cause dangerous swelling or circulation issues. It wasn't a huge risk for somebody Mari's age, in generally decent health, but it could happen. Or so said her doctor, anyway. So it was prudent to take just a bit more time in the hospital to keep an eye on her and make sure nothing like that was going to come up. Better safe than sorry, a reasoning that Mari couldn't bring herself to disagree with, even if she admittedly wasn't thrilled with the thought of having her stay extended again. But now was the last day, so really, it wasn't too bad... And besides, with her cast on, she'd finally been deemed safe to move, so she could get permission to leave her room – albeit only in a wheelchair. The doctor had ordered her not to start with walking on crutches until she was discharged.

So, with her being allowed to leave her bed at last, Mari's immediate priority had been convincing a nurse to wheel her out here for some fresh air. She just... needed to see something other than those same soulless white walls for a little while. Any opportunity to get out of there was worth its weight in gold. Mari truly couldn't imagine being a patient in long-term care, even the thought of it made her shudder... She'd been here less than a week, and was already at the point of never wanting to see a hospital room ever again. She knew she was probably being melodramatic thinking this – as usual – but it genuinely wouldn't surprise her if white walls started featuring in her nightmares after all this.

But just being out here like this was... nice. Relaxing was maybe not quite the right word, but it was close. Decent enough that she wouldn't mind staying out here until a nurse came by when it was time for her to go back, whenever that would be. Of course, it wasn't like there was much to do out here – the garden was empty of any other patients at the moment, leaving her the only one there, so chatting with anyone was out. (Not that she knew any other patients anyway, but it wouldn't hurt to be polite.) But hey, sitting around with little to occupy herself was the exact same as what she'd be doing in her room, so... better out here than in there regardless. If Mari were smart, she would've remembered to ask Hero or Mrs. Rodriguez to see if they could stop by her house to fetch her a book to read or something, but it'd slipped her mind yesterday.

...Though, actually, now that she thought about it, that might not have worked anyway. What book would they even be able to bring her...? Besides looking over the occasional Spaceboy comic with Sunny and their friends – which was always a treat – Mari couldn't remember the last time she'd actually read for fun or leisure. The only books she could recall picking up in the last... few months, at least... were for school. She'd always used to enjoy poring over a good novel, but she'd been so busy lately, there was just never a chance anymore. Her perfect grades wouldn't keep themselves up, and that wasn't even mentioning the required reading for the college prep classes. No, these days the only reading Mari was doing was with her textbooks. Which was important, obviously. But right now was hardly the appropriate moment for it – even if she felt up for studying, how would she know what parts to study when she wasn't aware what subjects her classes were covering this week?

The mountain of makeup homework that would be waiting for her when she finally got back to school was undoubtedly going to be a nightmare...

("Though really, going back to school is the least of your problems.")

Don't think about it.

.

...It really was quiet out here, wasn't it? Mari's fingers tapped idly at the arms of the wheelchair for a moment, the faint clicking of her nails against the plastic the only sounds she could hear. Or at least, the only ones nearby, if she really listened she could hear cars from the parking lot and the road on the other side of the hospital. Perhaps an ambulance pulling up to the ER. But here in this little outdoor garden, she was the only thing making even the slightest noise. It was almost funny, in a way... Right inside the building, just a short ways away, was a nonstop flurry of activity. A hospital was a constantly busy place by necessity. All that was separating Mari from a cacophony of hectic rushing back and forth was a single wall. If she looked over, she could even see in through the glass double doors that led out here. It'd probably only take a few seconds of looking before a harried nurse would scurry past, or a gurney being wheeled by at high speed due to some emergency... Not that she was actually interested in watching that right now, but it would be a safe bet.

Yet out here, everything was calm and quiet, and not even in the stifling way that the hospital room was. Actually... why was Mari the only one out here enjoying this right now? It was a nice enough day, the sky was a clear blue, devoid of the clouds that had been cloaking it earlier in the week. And the air wasn't too cold, a pleasant change from how chilly things had been for awhile. There was a certain briskness to the breeze that told Mari the chill would probably be back again in a day or two, but for now at least, there was a pleasant reprieve. So why wouldn't other patients want to be out here enjoying it too? That was what the garden was here for. She couldn't be the only person who would get stir-crazy stuck in one of those rooms too long, right...?

...She was overthinking it. It was probably just convenient timing, she happened to pick the exact moment when nobody else had chosen to go outside. Other patients could come along at any moment – if she stayed out here long, it would be pretty much guaranteed, sooner or later. And really, Mari shouldn't complain. Even if she didn't have much to do to occupy herself, she could still appreciate this moment of peacefulness for what it was worth. Sure, she wouldn't want to be alone for too long... absolutely not, she couldn't quite stop herself from shuddering at the thought... But having a few minutes out here to herself, able to just sit in relative privacy without the suffocating air of being stuck in the room, that wasn't terrible...

.

.

Mari blinked once, realizing that her eyes had started to become unfocused, not really looking at the bushes she'd been staring at for the past couple minutes. Unbidden, a soft yawn arose from her throat and she brought a hand up to stifle it – even though no one was around to hear it anyway. Was she getting tired? She hadn't thought she was, but then... Actually, maybe bored would be more accurate? The lack of activity getting to her after all. How long had she been out here, now that she was thinking about it? How long had she just been sitting there, staring blankly into nothing while she was lost in thought? She had no clue. It could've been a few seconds or a few minutes or more. Obviously it wouldn't be too long, the hospital staff would've come to get her and bring her back to her room if she'd actually dozed off or otherwise lingered too long, but that only narrowed it down a little.

Ah well. Maybe she-

"Oh, Mari! There you are!"

Mari's head whipped up, her shoulders jerking just slightly in surprise at the sudden call. How had she not noticed anyone approaching? ...They must've come out here when she was zoning out, of course, but it was still embarrassing... Her cheeks burned a little, unable to stop a rush of feeling, almost like she'd been caught out doing something she shouldn't. (Even though she had permission to be out here.)

Still, the voice had undeniably been familiar, and sure enough, as she turned her head to see, Mari was somehow feeling both surprised and kind of unsurprised to see Rachel Candice striding across the concrete footpath towards her at a slightly brisk (but not urgent) pace, the woman's typical smile visibly etched on her face even from a distance. The woman was dressed very similarly to how she'd been the other day: a pencil skirt and blazer. If the skirt weren't gray instead of black, and the jacket a slightly darker blue, Mari might've wondered if it weren't the exact same outfit.

"Hi, Ms. Rachel." Mari greeted, raising one hand in a small wave as the woman reached her, stopping a few steps away. "Nice to see you again." Mari tried to smile politely as she said that... though in truth, the words rang a little false. It wasn't that she had anything against the social worker – she didn't want to be rude – but at the same time, she couldn't help but feel kind of anxious about why Ms. Rachel was here. Though Mari did notice she didn't appear to be carrying her notebook or the manila folder full of paperwork she'd had before. So she... probably wasn't here to continue the interrogation from the other day?

If Ms. Rachel noticed the hint of hesitance, however, she didn't show it. "Good morning, Mari!" she replied brightly instead, nodding her head once as she looked down at Mari. She took a second to glance over Mari's form seated in the wheelchair – Mari saw the woman's eyes noticeably linger on the cast supporting her leg, attention naturally drawn to it – before stopping to look around at the garden for a moment. "...It is a lovely day out, isn't it?" she commented thoughtfully.

Mari recognized the attempt to make idle conversation for what it was, and part of her was immediately tempted to ask to just cut to the chase. Because obviously the social worker wouldn't be visiting her just because, there had to be some sort of important business, presumably related to the CPS investigation... It would definitely help Mari's slowly mounting nerves if she knew what. But again, she didn't want to be rude either, especially when Ms. Rachel was clearly intending to be polite. So instead she swallowed the demanding urge and decided to return the small talk.

"Yeah, it's nice enough out here." Mari agreed, folding her hands in her lap for lack of anything better to do with them and mimicking the woman's action of glancing around. "I finally got permission to move around, so I really wanted to come out here for some fresh air." she added by way of explanation, tipping her head vaguely towards one side of the wheelchair to indicate it.

"Oh, I bet." Ms. Rachel agreed with a light laugh, nodding her head again as she smiled at Mari. "I've had to have surgery before too, so I know what you mean. Staying in those stuffy rooms gets pretty intolerable, doesn't it?" she said.

"Mmhmm." Mari hummed in agreement. Of course, she was well aware her particular gripes with the hospital room were probably different from the ones Ms. Rachel was thinking of. A normal person probably wouldn't be nitpicking every little bit of the décor or obsessing over irritating smells the way Mari did – in fact she was all but certain they wouldn't. But it was still nice to know that at least the general idea of getting tired of being stuck there was understandable, that it was unpleasant for other people too... That it wasn't just her inventing problems out of nowhere.

("For once.")

"Anyway, you look like you're doing a lot better than the last time I saw you!" Ms. Rachel observed cheerfully, unknowingly echoing pretty much what Hero had said the day before. Not that Mari could hold it against her, given the way their previous meeting had ended. "So I take it your recovery's going pretty well now?" the woman continued, politely wondering.

"That's right... About as well as it can." Mari said with a small nod of her own. She knew she probably sounded like she was hedging a bit with that answer, but it was the truest one she could give. There wouldn't be any perfect recovery for her, Dr. Astora had been quite clear on that, so settling for the best that was actually feasible at this point was the only option. "Everything seems to be going fine since they changed my pain medication, so... I'm actually supposed to be discharged tomorrow, if nothing changes." she explained. It was sort of funny how she'd just been thinking about that a couple minutes before Ms. Rachel arrived. At least the subject was fresh on her mind.

"Really, so soon?" Ms. Rachel sounded legitimately surprised, eyebrows raised and smile beaming wider. "That's excellent news!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands together once as if to punctuate it. (Mari tried not to twitch at the sharp sound so close to her, knowing Ms. Rachel wasn't trying to bother her.)

Just as quickly as it had come, however, the woman's smile soon dimmed, something appearing to shift subtly in her posture – maybe Mari was imagining it, but it looked like she was standing slightly more stiffly. Formally, perhaps? Like she was preparing to say something serious.

And sure enough... "Although, now that you mention that... Since you'll be going home soon, this has to do with why I was looking for you." Ms. Rachel began, her voice noticeably shifting to the more businesslike, straightforward tone Mari recognized from their last meeting. Mari could feel herself tense up in response, almost instinctively, shuffling and straightening her back a little (as much as she could while seated in the wheelchair like this). Now they were obviously getting down to business, and Mari couldn't help but feel a spike of anxiousness. Especially with how the previous encounter had gone... She couldn't stifle the creeping suspicion that this was going to be something uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry to be springing something on you again." Ms. Rachel added, lowering her voice slightly, perhaps having noticed the shift in Mari's mood – while she wasn't sure what her expression looked like, it wouldn't surprise her if her apprehension showed through. "But you're aware how I've been interviewing people you know since the last time we spoke, right?" the woman asked, to which Mari nodded. She'd figured that was how the social worker would be spending the week, there was a lot to investigate and talking to her was just the first step. "Right, well, I met your father on Monday. And, well... It's a complicated situation, but from what you've told me and what I've gathered, he wasn't involved in the incident on Saturday, and he never harmed or threatened you before then. Is that right?"

Mari felt herself frown. She... supposed she should have seen that topic coming, right? "...Yeah." she confirmed quietly. "Dad never did anything like-" Mari paused, swallowing, a feeling like a lump in her throat. "-like mom. If that's what you're asking." she said. She was pretty sure she'd already told Ms. Rachel something like that before, but since the question came up, it wouldn't hurt to repeat it. Just to be clear.

"Well, the reason I bring this up is because... he's been asking to see you." Ms. Rachel replied, and if she hadn't been serious before, she definitely was now, any trace of her usual smile having vanished, her mouth set in a line. "And, since he doesn't seem to be an active danger to you, we've tentatively decided to allow it." she explained, crossing her arms. For some reason, she broke her gaze away from Mari, eyes flicking over towards the direction of the doors leading into the main hospital building. But before Mari could wonder over that, the woman continued. "He's here now, just waiting for me to talk to you first... Do you think that would be alright with you, sweetheart?"

.

Mari felt herself all but freeze, body going stock-still as she processed the words. She stared up at Ms. Rachel, but she wasn't really looking at her... not really looking at anything in particular, for that matter. She was just trying to focus, to make sense of what she'd just heard. It wasn't... it wasn't complicated or anything, she obviously knew what the woman was saying but...

Dad was here to see her? He was here right now?

...Mari had known, logically, that something like this was coming. Of course she had. She couldn't avoid talking to dad forever, it wasn't like she would just stay here at the hospital forever and never see him again. That was never a realistic possibility – and she wouldn't have wanted to even if it was! Absolutely not. Staying here by herself forever would be one of the worst things she could imagine. So it was always sort of a given that eventually she'd leave the bubble she was basically stuck in right now, and seeing dad would obviously be a part of that. He was her dad, it sort of went without saying. But she hadn't really... dwelt much on what that would actually entail. Hadn't considered when or how that confrontation (was confrontation the right word? She didn't even know.) would play out. Everything Ms. Rachel said made sense, Mari just hadn't seen it coming here and now. She was... really getting tired of feeling blindsided by things...

"-ri?"

Mari blinked, snapped from her thoughts by the sound of Ms. Rachel's voice. The woman was looking down at her, brow visibly knit. Right... Mari shook herself subtly – or at least it was supposed to be subtle, the slight-but-audible rattle of the wheelchair probably gave it away. She'd come dangerously close to zoning out completely there, she really needed to get it together, especially since Ms. Rachel was still awaiting a response. Before Mari could so much as open her mouth to give one, though, Ms. Rachel preempted her by speaking again.

"Mari, you're allowed to say no, alright?" the social worker said, speaking in that lower tone of voice again. "If you wouldn't feel comfortable seeing your father yet, then that's just fine. This isn't an obligation, it's your choice. You have control of this situation, if you don't think you're ready, nobody can hold it against you, okay?" she urged softly.

...Ah. Mari felt her frown deepen, her brow furrowing a bit. So that was what this was... Ms. Rachel was doing that thing again, just like with their last meeting. Giving Mari an out when, realistically speaking, there wasn't actually one. She didn't want to be ungrateful, clearly an effort was being made for her sake here, more patience than she probably deserved. But what would be the point? She would have to see dad sooner or later – and most likely sooner, given that she was presumably going home tomorrow, assuming nothing else changed. Logically speaking, what would putting it off by – at most – a day actually accomplish? Nothing. In fact, if anything, it would be actively counterproductive: dad was already here at the hospital, waiting. He'd know if Mari decided to spurn him, which would surely serve to make the inevitable conversation even more awkward when it rolled around, right?

It wasn't a question of what Mari felt comfortable with. She'd be uncomfortable either way, so her feelings weren't important in the first place. Something that wouldn't change – couldn't reasonably be changed, not by her – and that was only her own problem to begin with... was not something anybody else should have to worry about when making decisions. No, it was instead a question of whether she needed to do it anyway, and the answer to that was obviously "yes".

"...It's fine. You can tell him I... want to see him today." Mari replied slowly. It twinged as a bit of a lie – the word "want" was certainly a bit strong here. But it wasn't fully dishonest either, since it wasn't like she could think of any good reason she shouldn't want to either. "I was just surprised he was here, I wasn't thinking of asking you to send him away or anything." she tried to explain. That part at least was more generally true.

Ms. Rachel eyed her for a long moment, expression unreadable, and it dragged out for what felt like just a heartbeat too long, long enough for Mari to wonder if she'd said something wrong and displeased her...

But then the social worker nodded her head once.

"Okay, sweetheart. I can go and get him if you're really sure about this." she offered, looking at Mari expectantly. Mari gave a nod of her own in return. "But remember, please don't try to force yourself. I'll give the two of you a little privacy to talk, but I won't be going too far, alright? If you need me for any reason, just call for me." she instructed, her voice growing noticeably heavier. Like she was trying to impress something serious onto Mari. "If he says or does anything that you don't feel comfortable with, or even if you just want him to leave for any reason – any reason – you can speak up and we'll cut it short immediately. My job is to make sure you're in a safe environment, okay? If you feel like you're not, even for a second, tell me right away. Understand?" she said, putting her hands on her hips.

"I understand." Mari agreed quietly. Something about Ms. Rachel's posture and the odd hardness in her expression gave the feeling that this wasn't something Mari should try to nitpick or disagree with. It was... sort of like how Dr. Astora had forced mom to leave, now that she thought of it. Yes, that was exactly what this reminded her of. Which made sense, no doubt the same child protection laws that the doctor was acting under would apply to CPS agents as well. It made perfect sense now that Mari actually considered the obvious similarities. Ms. Rachel was clearly making such a big deal of that point due to the obligations of her job, that was all... Which meant there wasn't really any grounds to disagree, whether Mari thought it was necessary or not.

"...Alright, then I'll be back in a moment." Ms. Rachel replied after another brief moment of watching Mari critically. And, with that said, she briskly turned to walk away, Mari's eyes following her anxiously as she retreated across the courtyard towards the glass doors back inside, where dad was presumably waiting.

.

.

In reality, it was only maybe two or three minutes before Ms. Rachel returned with dad in tow. But from how it felt to Mari, it could've easily been ten times that. Every passing second seemed to be dragging themselves along through a lake of molasses for how agonizing slow it felt. Even the air itself had appeared to freeze, the gentle breeze having petered away to nothing and left only stagnant stillness in its wake. The small garden had been placid and silent to begin with, but now it seemed all but petrified, locked in a single unchanging state, pressing from all sides like walls collapsing inwards... Ironically, despite how it was precisely what she'd come out here to get away from, the thing Mari would compare this feeling to the most was the thought of being stuck in her hospital room. Its colorless walls and suffocating smell utterly unchanging, no matter how she wished to get away from them. The previously-calm outdoors suddenly felt just as overbearing...

Or at least, so Mari imagined. She knew, logically, that nothing had changed. It wasn't anything about the environment acting up, it was just her. Her nerves flaring up, her teeth set on edge, her overdramatic mentality swinging into full gear... It was just an anxious fit, her mind conjuring fake problems where there were none. But somehow, telling herself that didn't do anything to make the feeling go away. (Not that she had truly expected it to. She knew better by now.)

She was nervous. Which was obvious, of course, she'd already known that – she'd been a bit nervous since Ms. Rachel had first arrived, and it only intensified tenfold when she found out dad was here. She knew she was uncomfortable, that she would continue to be uncomfortable when she agreed, but it was unavoidable. She'd established that already, no need to repeat the point... But even so, the way it intensified like this still took her by surprise. Or maybe... No, it hadn't intensified at all, not really. It was more like Mari was just forced to acknowledge how nervous she really was now; without the conversation with Ms. Rachel to focus on to distract herself, she was left alone with her thoughts again. And with those thoughts free to swirl in on themselves unhindered, she was forced to admit one simple fact.

She had no idea how this was going to go. And that was... terrifying. More terrifying than she would ever want to burden anybody else by admitting.

Mari felt like she was in unfamiliar territory. One might think she ought to be used to feeling like she was completely out of her depth – for all that her teachers at school praised her as "put together", she knew better than anyone how often it was the opposite, when she was desperately scraping and studying long into the night, week after week, to keep up... But familiarity didn't help. Walking blindfolded across a tightrope, not knowing which step might send you plummeting into the ravine below, would never be pleasant no matter how many times she did it.

How would dad react to seeing her? How would she react to seeing him? Was she even actually ready for this?

...

Did it even matter if she was? Surely it'd only be another minute before-

"Mari!"

Mari's head snapped over about as fast as she could manage without giving herself a crick in her neck. The sound of footfalls crunching across the grass met her ears, and she felt her eyes start to widen at the figure rapidly striding towards her – fast enough that it was like he was barely restraining himself from breaking into a run until he reached her.

.

Dad looked like... kind of a mess. That was the first (coherent) thought Mari managed to put together while she stared up at him as he came to a halt a couple feet in front of her wheelchair. It was rude, she knew that, having to clamp down on her tongue to stop herself from blurting the thought out on instinct. But it was also the truth.

It wasn't like he was outright ragged or anything, but it was obvious even on first glance that he was a bit unkempt. And that was shocking enough by itself, given how he normally needed to hold up a standard of professionalism for his job (just like mom in that regard, really). But looking at him today... His face was usually kept either clean-shaven or, at most, adorned with carefully-trimmed "handsome" stubble – like the kind he sported in their old family portrait hanging in the living room – but today he was sporting a heavy five-o-clock shadow across his jaw. Like the sort you'd see on a character in a TV show when they were supposed to be exhausted; an overburdened office worker or a hardboiled detective who'd been up all night on the case. An impression that definitely wasn't helped by the noticeable bags beneath his eyes, magnified by his round glasses. And even his hair. It wasn't a total rat's nest, but it looked to Mari like he'd just run a comb through it once or twice in a hurry rather than the meticulously neat parting he usually sported. (And Mari felt like she knew a lot about combing hair, for obvious reasons, so she could spot a hasty job.)

("Like you can judge anyone for being tired when they have to deal with you.")

It was only a second later that Mari realized that dad was staring at her in much the same way she was staring at him. Or at least, that was what she assumed he was doing, it wasn't like she really had any clue what was going on in his head. Out of all their family, dad was probably the one Mari had the least luck with reading – even Sunny, as quiet and closed-off as he could be, was easier to figure out with all the experience Mari had dealing with him. And right now, the only thing she was getting from dad's face was the tiredness she'd already noticed. But he was definitely looking at her intently.

Before Mari could wonder on that anymore – or try to think of anything to say, dad suddenly moved again, starting to take a step towards her, raising his arms...

For a moment, just a single instant, Mari's mind went back to mom. How she'd advanced on Mari, bearing down on her, grabbing her arm to hold her close so she couldn't get away... How she'd refused to let go, even as she dug gouges into the skin... Her screaming voice, the fury on her face, her hand striking across Mari's eye... It was like a flash, a slideshow running across Mari's vision at a thousand times speed, yet each moment still just as vivid as it had been then. It was her imagination, she knew it was her imagination, the very second the thought occurred to her, she was already trying to quash it. None of it was real – or rather, it was real, but not anymore, it wasn't happening now. Those memories shouldn't matter now, she shouldn't even be thinking of them, but-

Mari flinched, a sharp jolt that jarred her wheelchair, the sound of rattling plastic and metal slicing through her thoughts and dragging her vision back to the present just as abruptly.

.

Dad had stopped sharply mid-step, frozen for a mere instant before he awkwardly lowered his arms back to his sides again, staring down at Mari once more. Mari chanced a glance up at his face – though she didn't try to make eye contact – and saw the corners of dad's mouth had turned down, a noticeable crease forming beneath his brows. She wanted to call the expression almost pinched... It wasn't hard to guess why, either. Obviously he must've seen Mari's reaction to his approach, with how harshly she'd startled, it'd be all but impossible not to. Her heart was still thrumming loudly in her ears from the jolt, it honestly wouldn't surprise her if dad could hear the strained breaths she was pulling in through her nose, trying not to outright hyperventilate... Yes, it was quite clearly her reaction that had stopped him. Which... Mari didn't know how she felt about? On one hand, she felt bad for having clearly upset him already (because why else would he be frowning?), but on the other... she'd be lying if she said she really wanted him to hug her as he'd seemingly been trying to do right now. Not... Not with those images of mom still fresh behind her eyes...

A hint of movement somewhere behind dad caught Mari's eye, breaking her from her thoughts again. Casting her gaze past him across the garden for just a moment, she caught sight of the familiar figure of Ms. Rachel some ways away, on the other side of the courtyard. The woman had seated herself on one of the stone benches lining the footpath, legs crossed casually as if just minding her own business. But even with the distance, it was pretty obvious to Mari that the social worker was watching the two of them intently. Clearly holding true to her word: putting enough distance between them to not be eavesdropping, but still keeping an eye on them in case things escalated... Not that Mari thought it would escalate, dad didn't look like he was mad at her. He mostly just seemed like he didn't quite know what to say or do, pausing for a second in awkward silence.

Not that Mari could blame him, since she was doing the same thing.

Eventually though, after that long pause (or, in reality, only a second or two later, but it felt incredibly long), dad cleared his throat softly and crossed his arms over his chest as if to steady himself.

"...Hey Mari." he said at last, his low voice rumbling with an odd note... Mari almost wanted to call it hesitant.

"Hi dad." Mari replied, equally simply, continuing to keep her gaze fixed to his arms rather than his face. She wasn't surprised to notice that her own voice sounded perhaps even more stilted to her own ears. Not quite forcing the words out, but not fully natural either. She had absolutely no doubt dad must've noticed, but he didn't call attention to it.

"It's... good to see you." he murmured instead, and now Mari was sure of it, there was a slow, uncertain cadence to the words. Wrongfooted, maybe. Dad shifted a bit where he stood, fingers tapping against his elbows idly – or perhaps nervously? Mari couldn't tell, it was strange seeing dad like this... "I heard about the surgery you had to go through." Dad continued, head shifting as he glanced down, presumably looking at Mari's casted leg. "But are you... doing alright now?"

"Yeah." Mari replied, her voice coming out sounding almost distant. More than she intended. "I'm doing... about as well as I can." she said. That was practically becoming her default answer at this point, and she felt like a broken record saying it again... but how else was she supposed to respond? She was being honest. She wasn't going to sit there and lie to dad's face by claiming everything was perfectly fine – they were both more than aware that wasn't the case, it was blatantly obvious from even a glance at her here in this wheelchair with her leg in a cast, never mind whatever dad'd heard about the operation. Plus lying would just be rude, she didn't have any good reason to do that, so giving the most honest answer she could was the only option, repetitive or not.

"Good, good, I'm glad... That's better than nothing, right?" Dad said lamely. Mari immediately felt a bit guilty thinking of it like that, but she couldn't say the description was incorrect either. The lack of conviction in dad's voice was only getting more apparent with each passing second. If he hadn't given the impression before, he most certainly was now: he seemed to have no idea what to say or how to act here and was just resorting to platitudes. Not that Mari wasn't guilty of doing the same thing, of course – she did it all the time – but, well. That was sort of the point. Dad was coming off just as clueless and uncomfortable as Mari was with this, if not even more so. It was an uncharitable judgment, but she couldn't interpret it any other way.

It was... really, really weird for him to be acting like that. For all the trouble Mari had reading him, she'd nonetheless always believed dad was a straightforward, no-nonsense sort of man (an impression Hero certainly agreed with as well, she knew). She wasn't sure she'd ever seen him acting so... so awkward, definitely not at any point she could remember. If you'd told her before today that she would see dad, of all people, behaving so strangely, she wouldn't have believed it. The mental image would've been almost laughable in its absurdity; dad acting more tongue-tied than Mari? Be serious. Yet here he was right in front of her...

Mari was so offput, in fact, that for a moment she completely forgot she ought to say something in response, simply sitting there staring at dad for a couple seconds until he spoke again.

"...Anyway, I'm sorry I wasn't able to come see you before now." Dad grunted. He finally uncrossed his arms, instead shoving his hands into the pockets of his pants. He looked away from Mari, glancing off towards one side of the garden – or at least acting like he was doing so, though Mari got the feeling he was still watching her from the corner of his eye (though what he was looking for, she had no idea). "I wanted to be there the day after your surgery, but..." he rumbled, only to trail off at the end.

Mari was pretty sure she knew what he was trying to say anyway. "It's... fine, dad." she told him. It sounded just as awkward as... well, this entire conversation, really, but she did mean it. Or she thought she did. Not that it made it feel any less weird to be the one trying to reassure dad right now... "I know it's not your fault, Dr. Astora told me about how I'm under the hospital's care and all. They're legally required to worry about safety risks and stuff." she said. Then, as soon as the words had left her mouth, she realized how it might have sounded and she felt her eyes widen a bit, holding up her hands quickly. "I mean, I'm not saying you are!" she tried to clarify hurriedly. "Just, they thought you might be, because of-"

But dad interrupted her. "Because of Rin." he said, his voice grim. It wasn't a question. Mari blinked up at him, taken aback by the note of... she almost wanted to call it venom... that had entered his voice all of a sudden. A look at dad's face revealed that his eyes had narrowed, the corners of his mouth tightened, akin a to a scowl. But it was only there for a second, Mari only just had time to realize what she was seeing before it was gone. Dad closed his eyes and exhaled a long, low sigh, visibly letting out some of the tension in his posture with the breath. "Yeah, I got that." he said simply. Opening his eyes again, he looked up towards the sky. "Christ, what a mess..." he muttered.

Mari didn't know what to say. She felt like she needed to say something – it was obvious even to her that dad was unhappy. He might have been kind of unhappy the whole time he'd been here, really, but it was especially apparent now with the way the conversation (though calling it that felt a bit generous) had shifted. She didn't want to upset him... But Mari couldn't stop herself from tensing up either, something nervous stirring in her gut and giving pause to anything she might have said to try to correct course. Having the topic of mom brought up like that so directly... One would think she'd be used to it after the last few days, especially after spilling her guts about all that had happened to Ms. Rachel before, talking about it shouldn't be a problem anymore, right? Logically, this was nothing compared to that interview, and she'd made it through that, even while suffering from the unknown medication allergy at the same time. So this time should be easy. But something about hearing dad bring it up still gave her pause, a hint of anxiety prickling at her skin...

Before she could even begin to figure out why that was, though, dad was already moving again. This time he turned away from Mari, facing off to the side for a second, and brought one hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose, huffing out another sigh – shorter this time, but no less tired-sounding for it.

"Damnit, get your act together, Nobuo." The words were spoken under dad's breath, barely a whisper, and Mari immediately realized she wasn't supposed to hear them. If it weren't for how sensitive her ears were, she probably wouldn't have, even with him in front of her like this. It was that quiet. "Scared to talk to your own daughter now? Come on. This is on you."

If Mari's eyes weren't wide before, they definitely were now. Did she hear that right? Dad was... scared to talk to her...? Was that why he was acting so awkward and uncomfortable? He'd been dreading this conversation for some reason? That didn't... that didn't make any sense, did it? What would dad have to be afraid of? It'd be one thing if he meant he was worried about her, she could understand that, since he hadn't been able to come see her – she'd be worried too, in his shoes, it was the obvious conclusion... But no. He was chastising himself for being afraid to talk to her. Why? About what? And what did he mean about this being "on him"? What could that even mean, in this context? It sounded like he was holding himself responsible for... something, but... what? How would that even possibly apply here?

Mari's head felt like it was spinning. She was missing something here, something that would probably be obvious to anyone else, but knowing that didn't help her figure out what it was...

("You'd think you would be used to that by now.")

Once again, though, dad wouldn't give her a chance to go in circles about it for long, turning back to her with a serious expression on his face. Not that it hadn't been serious before, of course, there were probably plenty of words that could describe his attitude so far, but "levity" was definitely not one of them... But he appeared to be even more intense now, there was something behind his eyes when Mari briefly looked up to meet them before she tore her gaze away again on instinct. Something... focused, maybe? Determined? Along those lines, anyway, assuming Mari wasn't wildly misinterpreting – and given the way dad was frowning, she didn't think she was. He didn't seem to be upset, per se, so that was a small relief, but Mari couldn't quite stop herself from fidgeting uncomfortably under the serious look anyway, her fingernails chittering softly against the arm of the wheelchair.

"We clearly need to talk." Dad pronounced at last, matter-of-factly. Then, before Mari could respond, he held up one hand to forestall the obvious retort. "I mean, really talk, not... whatever this is." he clarified, pausing briefly in the middle of the sentence to wave his hand agitatedly in a small circle, exhaling a small breath through his nose.

They needed to talk? ...Yeah, that was true. It was pretty much the same reason Mari had agreed to see him today to begin with: she was aware that the conversation would inevitably have to happen anyway. So today was as good a time as any...

"I know, dad..." Mari replied quietly, looking down at her lap as she said it. "It's just that there's... a lot, I don't really know where to start, and-"

"Hold on." Dad cut her off, shaking his head as he did so. Mari couldn't quite tell if he'd meant for the interruption to sound that blunt or not. "I'm not blaming you, Mari. Just saying it needs to happen." he corrected her, in a tone that brooked no argument. Though Mari wasn't planning on arguing anyway, since she knew he was obviously right... Silence fell for a moment, not long enough to be uncomfortable (or, more uncomfortable, that is), but long enough for dad to watch Mari to see if she was going to disagree. When she didn't, he stuffed his hands in his pockets again. "...Hey, are you hungry?" he asked suddenly.

Mari found herself blinking at the apparent non-sequitur. "Hungry?" she repeated, almost automatically, before she actually processed the word and frowned slightly. "Kind of, I suppose?" she said, unable to keep the questioning lilt from her voice.

"Good enough." Dad agreed with a small nod. Mari only felt her confusion growing, but fortunately dad wouldn't leave her waiting long. "I was thinking, it's getting close to lunch, and this place has a cafeteria somewhere. We could head over there and grab something... before we get down to it?" he suggested thoughtfully, shoulders rising in a small shrug.

Mari paused, feeling her brow furrow as she considered. Truthfully, she wasn't exactly eager to go back inside already – for all she'd been critical of the garden before, being out here was sort of nice, and she wasn't in a rush to get back into the building (and thus, back to the smell of hospital air). But on the other hand... she did recognize what dad was doing here. He must've been making a genuine effort to reach out, to try to make the coming conversation more palatable for them – because why else would he even think to suggest it? She didn't believe it was actually just because he was hungry. And if dad was trying to be considerate, she wouldn't want to be rude by throwing it back in his face. Mari wouldn't want to be insensitive – not on purpose, at least, she knew all too well how easily she could do it by accident.

Besides, hopefully having a tray of food in front of her would give her something to pay attention to besides staring awkwardly at dad (or down at her hands)...

"...That sounds fine to me." Mari decided, looking up at dad to nod her assent.

"Hm. Right, then." Dad hummed. He turned to glance over his shoulder, roughly in the direction of where Ms. Rachel was sitting over on the other side of the garden. "Give me a second to go tell your social worker what we're up to, and then we'll head off." he declared.

.

.

The hospital cafeteria was... a cafeteria. Very standard for what it was, a nice big open room full of plastic tables and a wide counter adjacent to a decently-sized kitchen area where the cooks worked. Perfectly mundane for what it was, really, the place didn't have much in the way of decoration and it kept up the "beige floortiles and white walls" trend that the rest of the hospital had, so there wasn't a ton to remark on. If anything, the cafeteria at Mari's school was probably a more visually-interesting space than this on, and she'd always thought that place was boring to begin with. Still, though, it served its purpose. Given that it was a hospital, the room had clearly been laid out in a way that was conscientious towards patients in wheelchairs, with plenty of space to maneuver between the tables. Which was good, it had made it fairly easy for Mari to wheel herself over to an out-of-the-way table near the far wall while dad went to order for both of them.

Truthfully though, Mari didn't really have much of an opinion on the place – she wasn't exactly paying a lot of attention to the décor while she ate, not when her thoughts were firmly taken up by dad's presence. Normally, you'd think a teenager eating lunch with her father wouldn't be at all strange. And if you'd asked Mari just a week ago, she wouldn't have minded the prospect of having a meal with dad at all. Why would she? The very idea of objecting to it would have seemed ridiculous; with dad being so busy all the time, him taking a day off work just to be there with her would've been almost too good to be true... Yes, that's what she would've thought. Now, though, it was like that story about the magic monkey's paw. She got to spend more time with her family, sure, but the circumstances...

It wasn't dad's fault, of course. Mari didn't intend to act like she was accusing him, it wasn't anything he was doing that was making her uncomfortable... Really, he wasn't doing much of anything at the moment. Dad had never liked to talk while he was eating, and today was no different: as soon as he'd returned with their trays of food, he'd fallen silent, his attention mostly focused on the chicken sandwich he'd gotten, only occasionally glancing at Mari sitting across the table from him. Mari had decided to follow his example and kept quiet. But unlike dad, who seemed to be able to put the uncomfortable situation aside for a moment to focus on his food, Mari found herself having a hard time paying much attention to her own sandwich (a rather dry roast beef). She forced herself to take bites from it anyway, but it was... mechanical, almost, her mouth working on autopilot and barely noticing the flavor.

No, it wasn't dad himself that was putting her off. (Mari hadn't forgotten Ms. Rachel's request to speak up if dad actually had done anything she wasn't comfortable with for whatever reason, and with the woman having seated herself a few tables away, it wouldn't have been hard to alert her.) Rather, Mari would more say it was her own fault. Her own mind working against her. So much for her hope that she'd be able to distract herself for a little bit. It was like having a pebble in her shoe, the constant awareness of the feeling being present, jabbing at the back of her mind. No matter what else she looked at or where else she tried to put her focus, she was always fully, jarringly aware of dad sitting there across from her, even though he wasn't doing anything. It was just Mari's imagination, she knew that, the sense of anxiousness for the coming conversation going in spirals in her head. But knowing that didn't make it any more pleasant.

Idly, Mari couldn't help but wonder if dad was secretly feeling the pressure and just doing a better job of not showing it. He'd unquestionably been discomfited earlier, so that might not have gone away. And then there was his muttered recriminations about being "scared", whatever he meant by that... So it was possible. But maybe that was just what Mari wanted to tell herself, so she wouldn't feel as alone in her awkwardness... once she thought of it, that did sound like something she'd do.

.

.

Eventually, however, the two of them would finish their meals. Or, well, Mari hadn't actually finished her sandwich per se, but she found that she'd eaten about as much of it as she could stomach right now, setting the remaining third of it down and not reaching for it again. Not long after, dad was popping the last bite of his own food into his mouth, and Mari could feel her shoulders tightening slightly as he did. She could tell the time for distraction was almost up. Silence continued to hang between them for a few moments after dad had finished and turned his gaze back onto Mari, seeing that she'd stopped eating as well. But then, sure enough, he too seemed to realize that the moment had arrived. Quietly, dad slid his plastic tray off to one side of the table, and Mari, taking the hint, promptly reached out to do the same with her own. Clearing the space between them.

Dad crossed his arms, resting them on the now-free table in front of himself, and looked at her. If Mari hadn't already been tensing up before, she definitely would be now. She couldn't seem to stop herself. Honestly, she was just glad she hadn't started shaking.

Visibly steeling himself, dad breathed out through his nose. "...So." he began simply. The word seemed to slash through the silence hanging between them like a knife. Mari's mouth felt dry, in a way that couldn't be attributed to the food she'd eaten. She ran her tongue along her teeth in a vain effort to quell the sensation, and then forced herself to reply.

"So..." she repeated dad's prompting. Then, realizing that could sound like she was mocking him and not wanting it to come off that way, she quickly continued. "...To start with, I guess, um. How much do you know about... what happened, anyway?" she asked carefully. It was something Mari had thought of while they'd been heading over to the cafeteria: dad hadn't actually clarified precisely what he had or hadn't heard so far. Since he was getting all his information secondhand, Mari needed to know if there were any holes he was expecting her to be able to fill in. That seemed like as good a way as any to begin, right?

Dad almost seemed like he'd been expecting that question.

"I think I've gotten the gist of it." he replied, and if Mari wasn't imagining it, there was a very dry edge to his voice – almost verging on bitter, but not quite. Rueful, maybe? Whatever it was, though, there was nothing in his expression to help make it more clear what he was thinking (or nothing she could see, anyway, for however little that was worth).

"Oh, I see..." Mari said, lamely, even though that didn't really help her at all. Internally she cursed herself for once again being unable to stop the awkwardness from leaking out. Part of her had still held onto a sliver of hope that the discomfort would be easier to manage once they started talking again. With how off things had been between them for dad's whole time here so far, she really should've known better. But there was no way out but through.

Fortunately, dad appeared to notice her confusion, as he promptly attempted to elaborate. "I got a basic overview from your caseworker-" he said, and Mari had to stop herself from automatically glancing in Ms. Rachel's direction. "-since she came by the house to question me. But she mentioned she'd already spoken to you Sunday, so I figured you probably knew that part?"

Dad had said it more like a question, so Mari nodded her head in response – as he seemed to have expected – but he evidently had more to say, as he didn't wait for a verbal confirmation or any further questioning on her part before continuing.

"But truth be told, I already knew most of what I heard from her." Dad added matter-of-factly. Mari must not have quite managed to keep the wondering expression from her face, because dad made a strange sound, almost like a small laugh. Only it didn't sound humorous at all, more just dry, much like his voice had been a moment ago. "Elena Rodriguez already gave me the third degree about the whole thing." he explained.

That made sense. Mari saw no reason to question that explanation, it pretty much matched up with what she already knew – Mrs. Rodriguez had said she was the first one to inform dad of what was going on, when she'd contacted him to get him to agree to let Sunny stay at her house. Of course, the way dad described it as "the third degree" made it sound like Mrs. Rodriguez might have been a bit more forceful than she'd let on to Mari... But then, given how angry she'd been in her argument with mom, maybe Mari shouldn't be surprised by that in hindsight. Either way, while dad still hadn't gone into the specifics Mari had initially been asking for... Mrs. Rodriguez had a pretty good idea of what all had happened, and any parts she didn't know, Ms. Rachel would have been able to fill in. So with those facts together it seemed like a safe enough assumption that dad was more-or-less up to speed?

"Alright, I understand." Mari told dad, the words coming out perhaps a hair too quickly to be fully natural. She'd just realized she'd been sitting there staring at him in silence for a second rather than actually verbally acknowledging what he'd said. Fortunately, while there was no way he hadn't noticed the misstep, he didn't call her on it.

.

Dad went silent for a few seconds, a set in his brow and a slight downward turn to his mouth, like he was thinking of something. Stopping to consider what to say next once more, maybe? That seemed to be it, since before Mari could wonder whether she ought to say something to prompt him, he leaned back in his chair a little and spoke again.

"Right, well. Just to make sure we're on the same page here... is there anything you need me to tell you? Anything you're not clear about?" Dad prompted, giving Mari a look that was probably meant to be curious, eyebrows raised slightly.

Mari frowned slightly, as it was once again her turn to fall silent in thought, considering the question carefully. Dad had asked it simply, straightforwardly, and it was a reasonable way to keep the conversation going, but... it felt more important than that, somehow? It was a chance for Mari to ask something directly, to quit beating around the bush and strike at something important. Wasn't that what she'd wanted? So she needed to make sure her question was a good one, not just nitpicking or minor things she ought to be able to figure out herself, she had dad's attention, so she shouldn't waste time pointlessly...

("More than you already have, you mean?")

.

.

...Something important, huh? Something she needed to hear from dad...

Well, there was one thing like that. A question that needled at the back of Mari's mind, one she'd been trying not to acknowledge since dad had gotten here (or, really, perhaps well before that)... But now that she'd thought of it, it was like a poisonous vine that had crept up the wall without her noticing, roots barbed with small thorns grasping outwards like webs, spreading to fill the cracks. Until it was massive, sprawling, reaching out from end to end, threatening to choke out any other plants that grew there.

Impossible to ignore, now that she'd noticed.

Yet she hesitated. The sound of tapping reached her ears, and dimly Mari became aware that her fingers had started drumming against the table, an aimless staccato rhythm. Dad seemed to be frowning in front of her – perhaps bothered by her not responding? How long had she just been tapping her nails against the table rather than saying anything, actually? She wasn't sure. But she couldn't quite bring herself to fully focus on dad's expression right now. It was rude to ignore him, of course, but... should she really ask the question she was thinking of? Would that be at all appropriate right now? Was it really the sort of thing dad had in mind with giving her the floor like that?

Did she even really want to know the answer...?

.

There was nothing for it. It didn't really matter what Mari felt or what she wanted. What mattered was that she needed to ask anyway. The truth was the truth regardless of what she thought, after all, so it'd have to come out sooner or later.

("And better to just get it over with, rather than finding out later... like with mom.")

.

.

Mari exhaled softly and pulled her hands back, ceasing her tapping and tucking them under the table to prevent dad from seeing her continue to fidget with her fingers. Dad seemed to tense up slightly at the motion, anticipating whatever she was about to say... though maybe Mari was just imagining seeing that, assuming dad must feel the same way simply because her own shoulders had gone tense as well. Part of her was honestly surprised dad hadn't said something already, hadn't called her out on her silence or tried to get her to refocus. It wasn't like he would be unjustified in doing so – from the outside, it must have looked a lot like Mari was zoning out (and she couldn't even say that was far off), so it'd be reasonable to not want to wait for her to get her head together. Who knew how long that could take? Yet, oddly, dad did wait... Maybe it just hadn't been that long, in reality, and the agonizing stretch of hesitation was all in her head again, that was probably it...

Power through. Just power through it. She could do that. Mari swallowed heavily.

.

"...Dad." she began, her voice soft as she looked across the table at him. "Do you... hate me?"

Mari cringed the moment the words left her mouth, realizing how small and childish it sounded only after she was already saying it. That was such a stupid question! Even if it was a legitimate concern for her in this moment, that wasn't something you just asked somebody! How the heck was she even expecting dad to respond to that, anyway? Would mom have actually just straight up said yes if she'd been asked that directly? Somehow Mari had a hard time imagining it happening that way, even with what she knew now... This was a terrible idea, what was she thinking? Why had it been so easy to convince herself to do this? Maybe she should just try to take it back, and-

"...What!?"

Dad yelped, voice pitching upwards sharply. Not to the point of actually shouting or anything, but definitely louder, more noticeably agitated, than his normal speaking voice. Loud enough that Mari startled from the unexpected volume, unable to quite stop herself from flinching. "That's-!" dad started to exclaim... but then he appeared to remember where he was, his mouth clamping shut just as abruptly, and he slouched down in his seat a little. Mari hadn't even noticed him starting to stand, seemingly on instinct, until he'd caught himself and slumped back down into the chair.

Silence fell between them once again, a silence Mari didn't dare to try to break right now. Not when she was still watching dad intently, her eyes wide. Her heartbeat thudding in her ears. She'd really thought for a second there that she'd made him mad, that he was about to react like mom... and part of her still wasn't convinced that wouldn't be the case, but... No, no that didn't seem to be it, actually. The more Mari looked at dad, the more it seemed like he wasn't mad so much as just... shocked, almost? His shoulders were tensed up, and his eyes were wide in a way that almost mimicked how Mari imagined her own expression to look right then. Perhaps she was the wrong person to be trying to judge how sincere somebody was, but dad appeared to be genuinely surprised and upset by the question... Even still, though, Mari couldn't bring herself to say anything. (Just in case she was wrong.)

And then dad shut his eyes and scrubbed one hand over his face. Mari heard him exhaling a slow, soft breath, almost like a sigh as he did so. When he looked at her again, she was once more struck by how tired he looked. She'd noticed his worn-down look earlier, of course, but if anything it seemed to have grown even more severe since then. Dad looked downright exhausted – even with how he could sometimes work late and come home just to near-immediately shuffle off to bed, Mari couldn't remember the last time she'd seen him looking this beat. For a second, between the way he was hunched in his chair and the deep bags under his eyes, he looked so weary that someone could probably knock him out with a light push. It wasn't a very nice description, and Mari felt kind of guilty for thinking it, but she couldn't deny the impression either.

"...That's something your mother said, isn't it?" Dad said at last, having quieted down again. In fact, did his his voice sound just as resigned as his expression, or was Mari mishearing? She couldn't be sure. But there was definitely something off to it.

.

Mari blinked after a second of dad staring at her, realizing that it hadn't been a rhetorical question, and he was actually waiting for her to answer. She swallowed again, trying to force down the feeling of her nerves crackling beneath her skin, even knowing dad didn't seem to be angry after all, she just couldn't quite seem to get herself to settle... But she'd just have to tough it out. He was still waiting on her.

"Well, she didn't... say those words, exactly?" Mari admitted slowly, hoping that her shaky feeling didn't come across in her voice as she forced herself to speak. "But she said-" Mari stopped for a moment, a lump rising in her throat. She clenched her hands together beneath the table to try to get them to stop quivering. (It didn't really help.)

("Just get on with it! Seriously, quit dragging this on!")

...Just take a deep breath. In and out. She could do that.

In and out.

Focus. Dad was waiting. She'd repeated these words just fine when recounting it all to Ms. Rachel a few days ago, done it even while delirious from painkiller allergies, no less. Why was it suddenly taking her so long to say it again to dad? This didn't even make sense. Just focus and quite being overdramatic, and she'd be fine.

Opening her eyes – only just realizing she'd closed them – Mari exhaled one more time.

"But she told me she wanted a normal daughter, not an... autistic freak." she said – or perhaps more like mumbled, with how quiet her voice had gotten – dropping her eyes to stare down at the smooth plastic surface of the table, unable to meet dad's gaze. She didn't think she wanted to see what sort of expression he would make right then...

There was yet another of those long, heavy pauses, and Mari heard dad pull in a sharp breath through his nose. Unthinkingly, almost on instinct, Mari braced herself, shoulders hunching a little as if preparing for a blow. And then-

"Oh jesus christ, Rin. What in the hell is wrong with you?"

There it was again. That exhausted whispering that Mari probably wasn't supposed to hear, but she did anyway. Before she could stop herself, she was glancing up in surprise, once again not quite believing she'd heard that correctly... She'd been half expecting to see dad glaring at her or something of the sort, an expression laced with judgment or anger, eyes narrow revealing disdain in the same way she'd last seen mom... but he wasn't. He wasn't doing any of that. In fact, he wasn't even looking at her right now, leaning forward with his elbows on the table to support himself while both his hands were cupped over his face, largely blocking his expression from view. Mari wasn't even sure what to call it, what sort of emotion his posture was expressing. Exasperation? Disbelief? Mortification? It could've been any of those, and probably more she wasn't thinking of the words for. Maybe even some combination thereof. But the one thing it didn't seem to be was upset at her? At least, not in any way that she could recognize – and wouldn't dad show it if he was angry or disappointed with her?

.

Eventually – or, in reality, only a couple seconds later – dad lowered his hands from his face with a noise that sounded almost like a groan and looked up at her.

"I'm sorry you had to hear that, Mari." he spoke, his voice rumbling tiredly. "She shouldn't have said that to you, you didn't deserve it." he said firmly, a heavy set to his brow forming something almost – but not quite – like a scowl.

Mari could only stare at him, almost goggling in disbelief. Part of her was still convinced she couldn't be hearing him properly, even though now his words were said in a perfectly concise, clear tone. There was no mistaking what he'd just said, yet at the same time she felt like she must have mistaken it, because it didn't seem to make sense, did it? If he meant what she thought she'd just heard, then...

"Do you... not think of me like that...?" Mari asked carefully, shoulders still tensed. Her hands were in her lap, fingers gripping softly at the fabric of her hospital gown to occupy them, running the thin fabric between her fingertips, mapping out the feeling of individual threads in her mind... Anything to avoid thinking too hard about what she was saying. Otherwise she might have lost her nerve.

"No!" Dad answered immediately, forcefully. Almost sounding like he was gasping out the word, even. He gave a single, emphatic shake of his head. "No, Mari, I never thought that!" he insisted, frowning even more heavily now. "And I had no idea things had gotten that bad with your mother either. I never wanted her to treat you like that."

Mari looked at dad as he spoke. It didn't sound like he was lying, to whatever small degree she was even capable of judging such things. Dad still felt like kind of an enigma to her, it hadn't gotten any easier to read the finer points of his behavior in the last few minutes, so she could only make due with guesses. Still, though, she should've been happy to hear those words, shouldn't she? Telling her that he didn't think she was a freak – that he had never considered that... wasn't that what she had been hoping for? The tiny part of her that almost wished she'd ever get to hear something like that, wasn't that exactly what drove her to ask in the first place? Yet now that dad said it... it almost sounded too good to be true. It felt uncharitable to think, but she just couldn't quite stop the twinge of skepticism forming in the back of her mind...

Was he really telling the truth, or just what she wanted to hear? She didn't know.

Dad must have seen the doubt somewhere in her expression – even though she wasn't really trying to make any sort of face – because he let out another small sigh and spoke again, his tone a little softer. "Listen, I'm not going to say things haven't been challenging sometimes, and I knew Rin could get exasperated, but... I swear to you I never realized this was happening." he said, in a way that sounded... imploring, maybe? Like he was trying to sound sincere, or at least to will her to believe him. Something along those lines. Before Mari could muster up a response, dad shook his head again. "Despite everything, you're still my daughter, Mari. I only ever wanted the best for you." he murmured.

.

.

The best...?

Mari should've been happy, been grateful, to hear him say that. She knew she should be. It was obviously meant to reassure her, so shouldn't she be reassured?

But... she wasn't.

Instead, something else stirred in her chest. It was something unpleasant, ugly... her first instinct was to refuse to acknowledge it, to shove it down and never let it come back up. It wasn't fair. No good would come of that thought. Only... it wouldn't be shoved down. Telling herself that she shouldn't be thinking it wasn't actually doing anything to make it go away – quite the opposite, really. It felt like poison pooling in her gut, spreading out to her veins, leaving her skin prickling where it passed. Like the sensation she'd get from wearing clothes that agitated her skin, scratching and itching and jabbing a thousand hair-thin needles.

Wrong. It was all wrong. Mari thought she tasted something bitter on her tongue, and before she could even try to stop herself, before she even fully realized she was speaking, she was already blurting it out.

"...Is this what's best for me?"

.

.

.

The words were quiet, not a snap or a demand, just a simple soft question barely above a whisper. But it might as well have been a bomb for how thoroughly it seemed to deafen everything for a moment. It was just in Mari's head, of course (and perhaps in dad's as well), it wasn't like anything had actually happened. Dimly, Mari was still aware of the usual bustle of the hospital going on in the background, patients at other tables going about their own meals and conversations, completely unaware of the tension here in this little corner. The real world went on uninterrupted. But she couldn't bring herself to focus on any of that, because between her and dad... It was like her question had sucked out all the air in a bubble around them, leaving them in the vacuum of space. It might as well have been, for how still and silent they'd both gone. Dad was practically a statue in that moment, the slight widening of his eyes the only sign he'd heard her at all...

There could be no mistaking what Mari meant, after all. She was fully aware of how she must have looked right now, in this situation. If it were Sunny or any of her friends in her shoes, and she was looking at them right now, the worry would be eating away at the back of her mind no matter what they might try to say to lessen it. It was a vivid scene. Here she was in the hospital, hair tangled, skin more sickly-looking than usual. Half her face no doubt still discolored from mottled bruises, even if they were thankfully no longer swollen. Five pale gouges dotted across one arm, just barely covered by the sleeve of her hospital gown, almost certain to leave lasting marks.

Sitting in a wheelchair, leg bound up in a cast from foot to thigh. A cast that, even once it was removed – which itself would be a couple months from now – would have lasting ramifications from the injury that required its presence. Scars from surgical incisions, perhaps... A small, morbid part of Mari's mind almost wondered what patterns they'd form, as it wasn't like she'd gotten to really examine it before it was bound up. A kneecap that would never be shaped quite right again, pieces of the bone that formed it now simply absent. And the leg with that knee that would... that would probably never be able to support her unaided again. That would never walk without at least a cane.

Permanent damage. The thought was... It wasn't any easier to even think now than when she'd first heard it. She'd hoped that... a few days time, just trying not to acknowledge it, to give herself space from that initial revelation would help. But no. The second she thought it, a wave of nausea crashed over her, and Mari had to blink furiously to try to get the room not to start spinning-

Too much. That was too much. She was thinking about this too much.

She needed to take a deep breath, to calm down...

But then, that was the point, wasn't it?

None of that was actually directly dad's fault, of course, Mari knew that. She wasn't trying to blame him for it. He hadn't caused any of her injuries, hadn't made her decide to run on her bad knee, none of that was on his head.

("If anything, it's far more on yours. But you already knew that.")

But even so...

In these circumstances, with the consequences she was facing... they both knew full well that there was no way this could ever be called "what was best for her". That was why she'd asked, why she couldn't seem to help the unsettling feeling of bile in her stomach at the words. In the face of this, "the best" was a ludicrous suggestion. It felt like a thought so absurd it would almost be worth laughing about, except that Mari wasn't sure she could imagine a less funny place to be right now. There could be only one possible answer to her question, and surely dad must've known that too, right?

And sure enough. "...No. It's not." Dad's words were just as soft as Mari's had been when she asked the question. Leaning back from the table and slumping down in his seat, dad crossed his arms over his chest and looked down at the table's surface, his eyes pinched in that pained expression again. "Of course it's not." he near-whispered, eyes flicking up to look at Mari for a moment as he said it.

A thread of guilt wormed its way into Mari's chest as she stared at dad, mixing in with the churning cocktail of feelings in her stomach, blending together into a sort of vague, slightly nauseous sludge. Really, if she weren't feeling so strange and offput by all of this already, she probably would've been really taken aback to see dad making such an expression. Objectively, it should've been an almost startling sight. Mari was pretty sure – no, she was certain, even with her horrid memory she felt absolutely confident – that she'd never seen dad look anywhere near so... defeated. The way he looked, if anything, almost reminded her of Sunny, when he was severely upset from something... like how he'd been when he was at her side in the ambulance. Only, Sunny was just a kid, and he'd always been a bit sensitive. Mari of all people would never judge him for that (she owed him no less if she wanted to call herself a half-decent sister).

Seeing such an expression on a full-grown adult, on dad, was a whole other story. It was just... weird, in a way she didn't even quite know how to describe. Just like mom, dad had always had this image in her mind of being formidable. He had a pretty lucrative management position at a decently large company, the sort of job that – from what Mari gathered – pretty much necessitated having a spine of steel. She never knew him to be cruel, never thought he was mean or anything, but he could be... stern. He didn't mince words when he had something serious to say. Like one of those gruff no-nonsense detective characters in a noir mystery novel. That was why Hero in particular tended to think he was kind of intimidating, she was pretty sure. So the idea of dad acting like this... If he'd ever shown such a worn-down, miserable look to anyone else, Mari definitely didn't know of it.

.

"...I won't be surprised if anyone wants to tell me how I screwed this up." Dad finally sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. "I already know that." he admitted grimly, his frown deepening ever further. Mari could only watch him in uncomfortable silence, unsure what he was going to say. Opening his eyes again, dad looked across the table at Mari with something she couldn't identify in his stare. Though, surprisingly, for once she wasn't the one to break eye contact, as he did it first, eyes flitting up over Mari's head towards the wall behind her. As if staring off at something in some unknown distance.

"When I first got that call from Elena about what happened, I-" Dad's hands tightened around his crossed arms, fingers clutching his elbows, stress writ across his knuckles. "-I was scared. Terrified. That something like this could happen without me knowing..." he said quietly, but there was such an intensity to his words, Mari had to believe it was honest. Even she thought, for a second, that she could feel the phantom of the weight bearing on his shoulders right then. "I would've rushed to see you first thing, if the hospital would've allowed me. It was all I could think of. But when I got back to the house, Rin..." Here, dad stopped for a moment, uncrossing his arms to rest his hands on the table, fingers still clenching into fists. His brow etched into a hard scowl as he said mom's name. "...She didn't even act like she cared you were hurt! She was just seething over something about Elena, and refused to tell me what the hell was going on when I confronted her about it. Just sneered at me about 'taking your side', whatever that means, like I shouldn't be worried about my daughter!" Dad ranted for a moment, and Mari was sure there was venom slipping into his tone.

But then the momentary angry energy seemed to leave him as quick as it came, his shoulders falling again. "It was like I barely recognized her... We didn't talk, after that. I spent the next couple nights sleeping in the living room, until the social worker came around to question us." he explained tiredly, bringing one hand up to massaged his temples as if to stave off a headache. (Mari couldn't blame him, her own head felt like it was spinning a little, hearing all this.) "But I realized... you were seriously hurt. Crippled in an accident. You could've died, Mari... And I didn't know about it. I didn't know what was happening in my own house, didn't know what my wife or my kids were doing. I wasn't there. So-"

Dad paused for a moment. And then he did something Mari truly couldn't have expected. Dad bowed his head – not just looking down, actually pushing his chair back a little to give himself some space and arching his back to lean his head a solid forty-five degrees forward, nose halfway to touching the table. A proper bow, or at least as close to what he could manage without standing up (or hitting his head).

Yet again, Mari could only stare. Her mouth fell open slightly before she caught herself and shut it, teeth clicking together unpleasantly. She could barely believe what she was seeing... Dad had been born in Japan, hadn't immigrated to the U.S. until he was about ten, if she remembered right. Long enough to have spent several years in school there. And while Mari was admittedly far from an expert on the matter, she understood that bowing was supposed to be a serious thing in Japanese formal settings, wasn't it? A deep bow was typically reserved for very severe situations, or times where high respect was called for, like showing deference to a boss or leader... Surely dad was aware of that. Even if this was something of a rough, haphazard approximation, the idea of him bowing his head like that to her of all people was... absurd. Surreal. Mari would almost wonder if this wasn't all some strange dream, if she weren't certain it was real.

"-I'm sorry, Mari. I'm sorry that I... never noticed this. That I never stopped this from happening." Dad apologized, his words thick, keeping his head down as he spoke. "I failed you. I failed as your father. I'm so sorry..." he mumbled. Mari thought she saw his shoulders shaking a little as he slowly lifted himself back up, all but slumping back into his chair.

.

.

.

...Sorry...?

The apology was sincere. Mari didn't doubt that for a second. She wasn't the best person to judge things like that, obviously, but the way dad acted... there was no way that was a lie. Dad was proud and serious, for him to humble himself enough to do that? Much less to outright apologize so miserably? Mari couldn't even imagine him lying about that, he would never even consider going to that extreme if he didn't mean it. She knew that almost instinctively, it was just a simple fact. Unbidden, the thought occurred to her that mom would absolutely never have done something like that, not even on the best of days. Certainly not for Mari. So no, there wasn't even a sliver of doubt towards dad's sincerity...

Yet she still hesitated. The "right" thing to do would be to accept the apology, right...? In the face of such honest openness, how could anyone not? It seemed obvious, it was the thing she should do. To know that he truly cared that much, that he was that worried about her, it'd be downright ungrateful not to appreciate that. And she did appreciate it! Something in Mari's heart ached at seeing dad so upset. She'd never wanted to worry him like this, never wanted him to wring himself out from stress... So she should be happy with the apology. It should've been enough, for now at least.

.

But that feeling was still there.

The bitter taste of bile in the back of her mouth. The churning poison in her gut, a quagmire sprouting thorny vines to encircle her innards. Something rotten she didn't have a name for that swirled and writhed with even the slightest acknowledgment, like it was just waiting... Waiting for Mari to notice it was there, that it had been there for some time – though how long, she couldn't even say for sure. Maybe a few minutes, maybe a few hours, maybe a few days... She really had no clue. But it was there now, and as soon as she was aware of it, it couldn't be ignored. It wasn't even... real, it wasn't like she was actually physically ill or anything, but... something in her chest still felt wrong. Nauseous, unsteady... Fraying at her nerves, splitting them apart beneath her skin and twisting them back together into ugly, imperfect shapes. It left her feeling cold, the air of the room stinging against her arms, even though the temperature hadn't changed. Mari shivered, wrapping her arms around herself. It was all wrong...

"...Mari?"

Dad's voice was hesitant, careful. Almost apprehensive as he prompted her.

Hearing him speak was the last push, it seemed, because before Mari could stop herself, before she could even try to stem the tide of the feeling welling up-

"When was the last time we talked, dad?"

-the words were already out, something clicking hard into place in her mind in that instant, and without even a moment to try to process what it was, Mari was already on the way to continuing, her brain piecing together more words as if on autopilot, like it already knew exactly what to say. Faintly, she heard dad pull in a sharp breath through his nose – surprised, maybe – but it barely reached her notice in that moment.

Unthinkingly, almost mechanically, she folded her hands on the table in front of her, staring down at them rather than meeting dad's gaze. Were her fingers shaking? ...It didn't really matter. She couldn't seem to bring herself to focus on that right now...

"I mean, when's the last time we really talked? When's the last time we had a conversation that wasn't about... school, or piano? That wasn't just smalltalk, or telling me you wanted me to study hard, or practice for the recital, or... do well in the next softball game?" she clarified. Even as it felt to her like the words were just spilling out, the sound of them coming from her mouth seemed... flat to her ears. Blunt, almost matter-of-fact, no real emotion that she could detect, not that she even knew what emotion she should be putting into it... She had no clue what her expression looked like. Maybe it was completely flat too.

Dad had fallen silent, she noticed, not trying to interrupt her. Was he letting her finish, or just too taken aback to respond? (...Did it even matter which, to her?)

"Because I can't remember. I can't remember the last time we just talked like... like a normal family." Mari said, bleakly. That was the truth, too. No matter how many times she'd wracked her memory over it the last few days, every time she thought of dad, that was always the answer she'd come to... She didn't remember.

"But we aren't a normal family, are we...?" Mari was just speaking her thoughts as they formed now, not taking a moment to try to filter them or even make sense of them, she couldn't stop herself. Just trying to get out this- whatever this was she was feeling. "You said you weren't there, but... where were you? Where have you been?" The factual answer was "at work", of course, but that wasn't really what she was asking, and it felt like dad must've known that much too...

Mari had to stop to take in a deep breath.

"Where have you been? Where were you when I was little, and I was different, and everything hurt and I didn't know why? Where were you when my knee was burning from going up the stairs?" she cut him off when he opened his mouth. "Where were you when Sunny would wake up crying from nightmares? Where were you when he'd fall and scrape his knees and need somebody to help him put on band-aids? Where were you in the mornings to cook breakfast, to make sure we got out the door in time to get to school before the bell? Where were you when I was practicing piano so much my wrists were getting bruised?" The questions just kept coming, pouring out, like a dam cracked open to let the river behind spill forth. She couldn't stop now if she tried, the feeling in her stomach was boiling like a cauldron of something vile. "Where were you when Sunny was cutting his hands on the strings of his violin, and I didn't even notice? Where were you when I was so scared of messing up the recital, a couple little mistakes made me freak out and ruin it? Where were you every time I had a test for school, but Sunny needed help with his homework too?"

"Mari-" Dad started to say, but Mari hardly even heard him.

"Where were you? Where were you?" Her hands clenched until her knuckles were white, the flat tone finally breaking as her voice pitched up with that last repetition, a spike of something almost hysterical, energy crackling beneath her skin-

And then just as fast, it was gone, and Mari's shoulders slumped, a wave of exhaustion crashing into her like a trainwreck. She hunched over the table, not so different from how dad had been doing earlier, supporting herself with her arms just to keep herself from slumping like a puppet with its strings cut. The odd mechanical energy that had been fueling her vanished in the blink of an eye, like it had never been there at all... leaving her body struggling to catch up in the void it left behind.

.

.

"Where were you, dad...?" she whispered. She couldn't even be sure if dad heard her, not daring to look up to see his reaction. "Did you know... Ms. Rachel said it sounded like I was raising me and Sunny?" she wondered when dad didn't say anything. "And that's crazy, it should be crazy, except... Except I realized I couldn't argue with anything she was saying. It was all just... stuff I told her, stuff that happened in a normal day for me. Mom hates me, and you aren't there, so... it's just... been me and Sunny." she mumbled haltingly, her mind stalling on the words like an engine struggling to get going, the automatic stream that had been there a moment ago completely gone.

She felt... She felt just... tired, all of a sudden. Worn, like a machine with its plating stripped away, exposing raw wiring that wasn't supposed to be seen. But... She wasn't quite done.

"...You left us alone."

The words were quiet. Soft. Simple. No judgment, no hard edge.

Yet the condemnation choked the air like a thirty-ton weight hanging over their heads.

It felt cruel, Mari wanted to shrink into her seat, to just take it all back and curl up in her wheelchair from the shame that was starting to flow through her body like a river, starting at the base of her neck and flooding downwards like ice water through her spine...

But she couldn't. She couldn't take it back because... it was true. Dad had left them alone. He'd as good as left them alone to take care of themselves for years and years, even if he still lived there, he wasn't... there, he even said that himself...

And Mari just- she just hated, so much, more than anything, being left alone.

So she couldn't... accept the apology. Not now, not like this. She knew it was selfish, that she was being unfair, but... No matter how she thought of it, the answer didn't change. She didn't know what else she was supposed to do.

.

.

.

Dad let out a long, slow sigh. It sounded... strange.

Tentatively, Mari chanced looking up at him, not sure what she was going to see. He had his eyes closed again, his hands crossed on his lap, head tilted slightly forwards. She almost wanted to describe his posture as calm. But that didn't make sense, shouldn't he be upset with her? Shouldn't he be hurt, or even angry, about her throwing his apology back in his face like that? ...Mom would've been furious if Mari had dared to talk to her like that...

It was such a bizarre, unfitting picture that it broke through the haze swimming around Mari's head for a moment, the jolt of confusion clearing out every other feeling for a second, and all she could do was stare. Too taken aback to react, to even begin to know how to react.

.

.

"You're right, Mari." Dad said quietly, opening his eyes as he looked at her. Something in his expression made her chest clench, like her ribcage had become a vise, and Mari gaped. It felt like she could barely breathe. Dad looked just... sad. That was the only word she could think of, even though it didn't feel nearly good enough. Just sad.

"I guess I should've expected that- And don't apologize." he preempted her by holding up one hand suddenly, as if somehow knowing that some part of Mari would urge her to tell him she was sorry. "You're right." he repeated. "I really... fucked this all up." Mari was so stunned she didn't even manage to muster a reaction to the swearing. "I probably wouldn't... forgive me, either." Dad admitted tiredly, bringing his hand up to rub his forehead again. "God, I really became my own father..." he mumbled to himself.

Mari stared.

"...All I can do is just promise that I'll never let something like this happen again, okay? That's the only thing I can say." Dad spoke up again simply, something firm entering his voice again. "I've failed as your father, but... I want to try to change that. I want to do better for you, and Sunny... No, this whole thing's been a wakeup call that I need to do better. I'll try to be there for you more, going forwards."

.

.

.

Mari felt...

Tired.

Exhausted.

There was something else, too, but she didn't know what to call it...

Dad sounded sincere again. She didn't... have any reason to think he was lying...

.

.

She was too tired to think about this now. About what it meant, about what she felt, about-

Anything.

All her energy had been burnt out in that rant a minute ago. She felt like she was running on fumes... Less than that, maybe...

So she said the only thing she could think of.

"Okay, dad..."

He seemed like he meant it, and... wasn't that what she wanted to hear?

All she'd ever wanted, if she really dug down to the heart of it, was for her family to be together. Her family and her friends. Her loved ones. She wanted them to love her too... Even if she wasn't normal, would never be normal, it would've been fine if people loved her, right? So she just wanted her family to be together...

("But maybe you don't deserve that. Maybe it's not for you.")

...But she already knew that.

If dad said he wanted to try, then she wouldn't stop him, shouldn't stop him. That was the only thing that seemed to make sense right now. This wasn't a resolution, they weren't really solving anything like this, she knew that too. It wasn't... satisfying. But if dad said he wanted to do better, then... she wanted that to work too, she wanted him to be right... That was all that mattered, wasn't it?

"...Okay, Mari." Dad agreed with a simple, solemn nod.

.

.

.

"So what happens next...?" Mari wondered vaguely. Her voice came out scratchy, and she was sure it must've sounded as sanded-down as she felt right now. But she had to ask anyway, there was one important thing still dangling above their heads.

Dad paused. "Next?" he repeated curiously. "Well... First, I suppose I'll have to do something about my work schedule. See if I can't do something to cut down on the overtime. Arrange a more consistent work week." he mused, sounding almost thoughtful. "I don't exactly have a plan yet, but I'll find a way to be home more often. That seems like the place to start. I should be able to swing some favors from my bosses... I've been at this company for over a decade, half of them wouldn't even have their jobs without me, and they know that." he said matter-of-factly. If Mari wasn't imagining it, he even sounded a bit proud of himself. Which would make sense, dad always took pride in his work, didn't he?

But that wasn't exactly the answer she was looking for.

"That's good, but... That's not what I meant...?" Mari replied, lamely – she didn't have the energy to muster up something more tactful. Dad looked up at her curiously. "I mean, what's going to happen with... mom?" Her voice hitched slightly on the question, a shiver running down her spine, her hands quivering a little.

She really should've thought to ask that sooner, shouldn't she? She was supposed to be discharged tomorrow, if mom was waiting at home, then... what? What would happen? What would that mean for her? Mari felt stupid for not thinking of this earlier, when she didn't even have the excuse of feeling dead on her feet (or, not on her feet, as it was).

Dad was silent for a second, looking at her. His eyebrows had risen slightly, almost quizzically, as if confused. But why would he-

"...Oh shit. You don't know." he said simply, realization creeping into his tone.

Mari felt herself frown. "Know what?" she wondered.

"I'm sorry, I swear I wasn't trying to keep this from you on purpose, I really thought you knew already." Dad was saying, shaking his head to himself. "Thought for sure Elena or the woman from CPS would've told you." he rumbled.

"Told me what?" Mari asked again, a bit more insistently, feeling her frown deepen and her brow furrowing a little.

Dad looked across the table at her, matching her frown.

"Mari, the police came to the house Tuesday afternoon." he said, slowly. "Your mother's been arrested."

Chapter Text

Leaving the hospital felt almost surreal. Not to say that Mari was unhappy to be discharged or anything like that – quite the opposite, really, she couldn't quite stop part of herself from feeling almost relieved to have the building behind her. She didn't mean it to be rude to the hospital staff, phrasing it that way felt a little uncharitable even just as a thought in her head. Dr. Astora had always given her the impression of being focused and taking his duties seriously, Mari had no reason to doubt his commitment to his profession. His bedside manner wasn't exactly warm, but he wasn't mean either, and... on some level, Mari even appreciated the straightforwardness, it was better to at least know what the problem was rather than have it sugarcoated. She could hardly blame him for acting serious when her injuries were indeed serious. And the nurses who'd been attending to her had never been callous or unkind either. It wasn't the staff that was the problem.

It was just being stuck there. Each passing day felt longer than the last... Or, well, no. That wasn't quite true, none of them had felt quite as long as that first day she'd been there, when all that with mom had happened... But it was still maybe the longest week of Mari's life, all told. She almost wasn't sure what was worse, having so many things thrown at her one after another, or the agonizing stretches of waiting in the hospital room in between... Actually, it was probably both those elements working in conjunction, blending together at the seams to create one giant slog. And the less said about the room itself, the better. The visits from her friends over the week, along with finally being able to get out of her bed to get some fresh air yesterday, had helped to make it tolerable, but... not enough to want to ever be in that situation again. Mari would be lying if she said she was sad to go. If she never saw the inside of the hospital again, she'd be fine with that. (Though she knew she would be seeing it again, with physical therapy coming a couple months down the line.)

But the very fact that it had felt like it was dragging on so extremely was exactly what made it feel weird to be leaving now. For as much as part of Mari wanted to be relieved, the other part of her almost couldn't quite believe it was really happening... Maybe that was a little melodramatic, but the feeling was still jarring. With all that had happened over that week, yet at the same time with how restless she'd felt through it all... Even if it was ridiculous, even if Mari knew logically that it obviously wasn't the case... on some level, she couldn't help but feel like it might never end. And now it was ending. Just like that, nice and easy.

...Well, maybe easy wasn't the right word, per se. There were still a lot of formalities to deal with, hoops to jump through, as was typical of anything involving the hospital. Last-minute examinations to make extra sure there weren't any complications from the cast or the surgery, prescribing her a course of painkillers to take at home, issuing her a pair of crutches she'd be able to move around with, that sort of thing... And then there was the paperwork, a bunch of insurance and liability forms and release papers and all sorts of convoluted jargon that went over Mari's head. Truthfully, she didn't really have to deal with most of that herself – signing off on those things was dad's responsibility. But even if she wasn't directly filling out the papers herself, it was still another delay added to the pile. "Hurry up and wait" really did feel like it could be the hospital motto sometimes. It all made for a rather hectic morning that left Mari's head spinning.

But then it was all done. For as long as it felt like it had taken, it also felt like no time had passed at all, and then a nurse was helping Mari up into the borrowed wheelchair for (what would hopefully be) the final time. She'd been officially discharged from Faraway General Hospital, and it was time to go.

Dad was outside bringing the car around while the nurse wheeled her out. Part of Mari sort of wished they would have let her roll the wheelchair along herself – or perhaps even walk herself out on her crutches. It sort of felt like wasting the nurse's valuable time just to ferry her to the parking lot, the hospital was a busy place. Plus it just would've felt kind of nice to be able to move herself around, to feel like she was leaving under her own power... Mari kept that desire to herself, though. For one thing, it'd be rude to complain about it, and it would also be completely unhelpful. She remembered from her previous time in the hospital that escorting discharged patients out in wheelchairs was the standard hospital policy for everyone – regardless of whether they could move by themselves or not. Some sort of safety or legal liability thing, if she was recalling right. It still all felt a bit unnecessary to her, but she didn't want to make the staff's jobs harder by complaining about it. So she held her tongue as she was escorted through the halls.

.

Pushing open the glass doors to exit the building, the nurse rolled Mari out to the parking lot, stopping for a moment to let Mari point out which among the waiting cars was dad's before wheeling her over to it. Mari was hardly the only patient getting out of the hospital today, after all, so dad wasn't the only one waiting. But nor was the parking lot so completely packed that she wouldn't be able to pick out their car in a crowd either. Faraway General Hospital was busy, but not that busy – it was still a pretty rural area, even if they did take in patients from other surrounding towns as well. So finding dad and subsequently navigating through the other parked cars to reach him wasn't especially difficult. Only maybe a minute later, the nurse was bringing her up to the side of the vehicle. Clearly having spotted them coming, the driver's door swung open as they approached, dad stepping out and walking around the front to meet them as they came to a stop near the passenger side.

"Sir, would you mind taking her crutches while I help her into the vehicle?" the nurse addressed dad crisply, without any preamble. One might almost call it a little brusque, even, though Mari knew it was probably more like the woman was just professionally focused on her job. As she spoke, she gestured towards the crutches currently laid across Mari's lap for convenience as she was transported. Dad, for his part, didn't object to the request, simply giving a sharp nod of his head in return and stepping forward to grab the pair of crutches as instructed. Turning away, he strode off towards the car to put them in the back seat so Mari could sit up front.

"Uh-" Mari interjected, speaking up for the first time in what felt like awhile, having felt too dazed by everything going on around her to really give much input on anything unless someone directly asked her. Craning her neck slightly, she looked back at the nurse behind her. "-I can probably get in by myself?" she offered, feeling a little awkward as she said it. "I've had a cast before, I know how to do things like-"

"-Miss, please." the nurse cut her off, and Mari had to resist the urge to shrink in the wheelchair. She wasn't sure if she was just imagining the hint of exasperation in the woman's voice or not, but either way, Mari couldn't help but feel bad for bothering her. "We don't want patients falling in the parking lot and hurting themselves – it's happened more times than you'd think. Please, let me help you up. For our peace of mind if nothing else." the nurse chided, putting her hands on her hips as she walked around to Mari's side. Dad, pausing in his task, turned his head to give Mari an imploring look as if silently telling her to agree as well.

Suitably chastened, Mari refrained from hanging her head in embarrassment only through sheer force of will. "...Alright." she conceded, holding up her arm for the woman to take. The nurse turned away for just a moment to open the car door and then leaned down to hook her arm under Mari's to help lift her to her feet. Dad watched the two of them in silence for a moment as they moved – perhaps waiting to see if he'd need to step in to assist if Mari fell or something? That would make sense. But nothing of the sort happened, and a few seconds later the nurse was helping Mari to get settled into the car's passenger seat, sliding it back as far as it would go to make plenty of room for her cast.

A minute later, Mari was securely in place, having just fastened her seatbelt, and the nurse had closed the door with a satisfied nod and turned to take the wheelchair back into the building. Joining Mari, dad climbed back into the driver's seat and shut his own door with a soft "thunk!". He looked over at Mari for a moment as he settled himself in, maybe to make sure she was suitably settled herself. Seeing his gaze, she nodded her head slightly, feeling like she should say something to reassure him, but nothing came to mind... Still, dad appeared to be satisfied – or at least, didn't see anything that he was actively dissatisfied with – so he soon turned away and did up his own seatbelt, gazing out across the parking lot as he reached to turn the keys.

While the car started up, Mari turned her head to look out her window, gazing up at the main hospital building she'd spent the last week in. Staring at the looming wall of concrete and glass, there was that surreal feeling again... She wasn't sure precisely which one, but one of those many windows led into what had been her room. Even now, the midday sun was probably lighting up the stark white walls, making it look the part of the blank void of dullness that had driven her halfway out of her mind... But now she was leaving. And true enough, the car rumbled into motion a moment later, pulling out from where dad had parked, the building leaving Mari's view as the vehicle turned off towards the exit of the parking lot. She didn't try to turn around to watch it disappearing behind them.

.

.

The drive home was an awkward affair.

Though truthfully, Mari wasn't sure she was really surprised by that... Considering that she was spending the whole time seated right next to dad, maybe that should've been a given. Things hadn't exactly been comfortable between them yesterday – if anything, this discomfited silence felt more than a little familiar by now – and that was before things had gone the way they did. Mari wasn't going to take back what she said (didn't think she could take it back even if she wanted to, even if she tried to pretend she didn't mean it, dad would certainly have known she was lying, and that wasn't fair to him). It had been the truth, even if just thinking back to those words still just made her feel more ill to her stomach than anything. But true or not, it should hardly have been a shock that it would make things between her and dad even more awkward.

("It's just the logical consequence. If you weren't prepared to deal with it, you never should've opened your mouth.")

But even if Mari knew exactly why it felt like there was a brick wall standing between them – even if she was the one who essentially put the wall there by refusing to accept dad's apology – that didn't change the fact that it was there. Understanding it logically didn't do anything to make the situation less uncomfortable. The ride back from the hospital was fairly long, which was only to be expected; when she'd been brought there in the ambulance, that had taken awhile too, and the ambulance driver had presumably been going as quickly as was reasonably possible. So it only held that going back, with midday traffic no less, would be a bit of a drive. And for pretty much that whole time, Mari was left feeling completely clueless about what she should say to him. With the silence clouding the air thicker than the densest fog bank, it really felt like she ought to say something, but... she was never able to bring herself to open her mouth.

Surely, even if they didn't discuss anything serious or in-depth, even if it was just the most basic smalltalk imaginable, it would still be better than just sitting here with all this hanging over their heads, right? But having that thought didn't do anything to help Mari actually muster up anything to break the ice. Really, you could say that she didn't even try... She just sat there, alternating between either staring down at her hands, or gazing listlessly out her window, not even really seeing the countryside around Faraway passing by, too caught up in her thoughts. She was sure she must've gone around and around in circles in her head, the same feelings about how uncomfortable this was spiraling by a hundred times, but no amount of repetition actually got her anywhere. It was... an eerily similar feeling to some of her more unproductive piano practices, even though it was a totally different situation. For a second, she would swear she could almost feel her hands itching. Wanting to reach for keys that weren't there.

Dad seemed to be in much the same boat – or so Mari assumed, anyway, since he didn't say anything the whole way either. Which, on a normal day, wouldn't have necessarily been that unusual. Dad wasn't quiet like Sunny, exactly, but they were alike in the sense that they both weren't necessarily the ones to start conversations most of the time. Or at least, that was the impression Mari had. But with how little she'd talked to dad lately, her information might very well be out-of-date (or even simply misremembered)... Regardless, though, this didn't feel like a "normal" quiet. With how uneasy Mari was with the silence, there was no way dad hadn't noticed it too – this was pretty much the opposite of a comfortable, content lull. In fact, she knew he had noticed, because every so often he'd glance towards her. Not for long, as he was driving and obviously had to keep his eyes on the road, but occasionally – in moments when the traffic was slow – Mari would spot from the corner of her eye dad's gaze flicking to her. His hands twitching slightly on the steering wheel. He didn't look mad at her, but... the tension was there.

In a way, there was something almost funny about how the two of them had finally, finally gotten to talk yesterday, after so long where dad had barely seemed like he was there... and now it didn't feel like it had made anything better.

...That was an uncharitable thought. Mari knew that wasn't entirely fair. She believed- she wanted to believe that he meant what he'd said yesterday, that he really cared about doing better for her and Sunny, that he wanted to be there for them more often. And she did appreciate him being there to take her home like this. Really, she did! It was just hard to focus on that, to try to look at it as a positive outcome, when things were still so... off.

("Which, again, it's not like you should expect anything different, you're the reason it's like that.")

.

.

Eventually, however, the car was pulling into their street. Or maybe "eventually" wasn't even the right word – while it was something of a drive, it wasn't that long. Mari wasn't really paying much attention to the dashboard clock to know the exact time, but she was sure it was less than an hour. It just felt so much more dragged out than that inside her head... But then, she should've been used to that by now. It was a very familiar feeling after all that time sitting in her hospital bed with nothing to do but count the passing seconds, after all. Really, compared to those mind-numbing stretches, this ride home wasn't even all that bad, objectively speaking. Mari knew she was just being overly dramatic again. Even so, though, yet again it felt almost unreal to finally be arriving home, that same sensation that had been hanging over her all day redoubling itself again as their house came into view.

Dad, too, appeared to be feeling the anticipation... Or maybe Mari was just assuming that – he still hadn't said anything to her, nor did she think to ask him about it. But he did look to be sitting up a bit straighter in the driver's seat as they approached. Fingers drumming on the steering wheel again. Perhaps it was a bit presumptuous of Mari to think, but she guessed that it must've been the act of bringing her home that had him reacting like that. Dad, after all, had still been staying at home all week, unlike Mari at the hospital or Sunny next door, so getting back to the house by itself shouldn't have really been a big deal to him... But it probably felt different to be escorting Mari back. If one thought about it, she was in a very literal way bringing changes with her... She glanced down at the cast holding her leg for a moment... Whether either of them liked it or not. Maybe dad was thinking something like that – surely it must've at least occurred to him, right?

Regardless, though, there wasn't much time to wonder about that any further, as only a few seconds later they were coming up to the house. Her stare out the window growing even more intent, Mari scanned the outside of the building – on some level, she was half-expecting to see some shocking, drastic change that had happened in her absence. Like the house would be dilapidated, windows broken... or parts of it torn down and rebuilt... or even just a new paintjob or something. But of course, that made no sense, and she knew that all along too. Obviously nothing had actually happened to home itself, there was no actual reason to expect such a thing, and somebody surely would've told her if there were anything like that going on. It was just that coming back now after that hospital stay, where so much had happened... Mari had almost gotten used to being blindsided. At some point she had to try to learn to expect the metaphorical sucker punches, right? So even if she knew realistically it was a nonsensical concern, she couldn't help but try to brace herself anyway...

But no, as would quickly become apparent, the irrational thought was in fact irrational. Her house looked exactly as it always had. White walls, beige roof, beige shutters, beige garage... (Actually, why had they decided on so much beige anyway? She'd never understood that.) Everything was exactly how she really ought to have expected, if she weren't so caught up in her head: totally unchanged, no sign on the outside of anything that had happened this past week. In fact, Mari noticed idly as her eyes trailed over, even mom's car was still parked in the driveway in the usual spot, despite how mom-

.

.

.

Oh.

Oh, right. That was what she was forgetting. She knew there must've been something – there was always something – that had slipped her mind that was setting her subconscious so on edge. Mari really, really got sick of her memory being this awful, sometimes.

Ha. Of all the things to forget... It would almost sort of be funny, in a morbid sort of way, but she suddenly felt too stupid to even get that sort of wry amusement from the thought. Sure, she could say that she'd been so distracted and dazed with everything going on that morning, her release from the hospital momentous enough that even such an important thing had slipped her mind – that certainly seemed like the only plausible explanation – but using that as an excuse felt flimsy. No, there was no amount of justifications that would make it feel less dumb to have actually forgotten this, of all things.

Mom had been arrested.

Mom was gone.

Of course her car would still be there – it wasn't like she could take it to go to work or anything. She'd been escorted away by policemen. Or so dad had said, anyway, but Mari had no reason to doubt it. Ms. Rachel had said that mom would be "in a lot of trouble" over what had happened... So on some level, Mari knew this – or something like this – was coming. It was pretty much the only reasonable conclusion, CPS being called in had already been a clear sign of how seriously the adults had been taking all this, and having her social worker directly confirm that mom wasn't looking good was kind of the nail in the coffin. There was, realistically, only one thing that would mean. So looking back on it in hindsight, no, dad revealing that she'd been arrested wasn't a shocking development in the slightest. Objectively, Mari shouldn't have been surprised by it...

Yet somehow she was. It was one thing to have all the pieces to the puzzle, presenting themselves one at a time. The hospital filing a report for suspected abuse, Dr. Astora forcing mom to leave, Ms. Rachel's arrival, the answers Mari herself had given to her interrogation... The information was all there. But actually putting it together was a whole other matter. Mari had mostly just been trying to get through it all one thing at a time – it had felt, more often than not, like that was the only thing she could do... She didn't exactly seem to have much choice about how anything had gone, a feeling that had persisted from the moment she'd awoken in the ambulance and continued onward across the week. So she wasn't really thinking ahead. She hadn't really been considering in much depth exactly what would happen in the future when she had been answering Ms. Rachel's questions, hadn't stopped to work out hypothetical scenarios for what the outcomes of each answer would be. She'd just been hoping to get through each day. In fact, if anything, it was the opposite: she'd been trying multiple times not to get too caught up in endless spirals of thinking about what might happen...

("Because refusing to think things through always works out so well for you, right?")

Now it'd come back to bite her. Now that she was being confronted with the reality – with the obvious outcome that she knew made sense – it just left her feeling... off. Her first instinct, both remembering the truth now, and when dad had first revealed it to her yesterday, was just to freeze. Stunned. The news barely even felt like real life. It was perfectly logical, the line of reasoning was clear and inarguable, yet Mari's first thought was still a protest. A clawing feeling at the back of her mind, an instinctive response, having more in common with urgent reflexes, like jolting when startled, than any rational thought-out action. A surging denial: this didn't make sense! But it did. And she knew it did, both back then and now, immediately clamping down on the thought before it could make its way to her tongue. It didn't make it feel any more real.

According to dad, mom had been arrested on account of aggravated child abuse, child neglect, assault & battery... and would probably be charged with a handful of other things as well. "Whatever the prosecutors thought they could make stick" was how he'd phrased it. It would be awhile before any of it actually went to trial – unlike in movies and TV shows, court cases could take weeks or even months to build. Though, truth be told, Mari wasn't sure she really cared about the exact charges all that much... Even if someone had tried to explain all the legal intricacies to her, she was certain most of it would've gone over her head anyway. Though it didn't exactly take a genius to figure out that the accusations mom was facing were very, very serious. Mari might've been a bit more ignorant than she probably should be, but even she knew how things like assault would be considered extremely severe crimes. That was obvious.

It was just... really weird to think about something like that happening to mom. Like there was a disconnect somewhere, a gap in the logic, even though Mari knew it wasn't. It felt like... like being arrested for those kinds of crimes was something that happened to other people. She felt awful and selfish for even thinking that, but it just seemed like the type of thing she'd see happen on TV. Not something that related to anyone in her own family... If you'd asked her last week, the thought of mom of all people getting hauled off by the police for such serious crimes would've sounded ridiculous to her. Those two things wouldn't logically connect to her in the slightest. Except here she was now, staring at the undeniable fact that they did connect.

How was she supposed to feel about that...?

...How was she supposed to feel about the fact that mom wasn't here anymore?

Mari stared blankly through the windshield, barely even seeing their house in front of her, practically feeling how her mind seemed to grind to a halt with that thought. It wasn't just the fact that mom was absent. It was that she would keep being absent. This wasn't like a regular day, where she was off at work or at some appointment or another, but she'd inevitably be back later. No, this time she was gone in a way most likely to be permanent. Even if, by some off chance, mom's trial didn't wind up with her going to prison... dad had suggested that she wouldn't be welcome back home anymore. He hadn't actually said he was thinking of a divorce at that moment, but Mari knew that must've been what he was referring to. Even she wasn't ignorant enough to not know about that.

So either mom would be jailed, likely for years – again, Mari didn't know the exact legalities, but she was aware that violent crimes would warrant lengthy sentences – or else mom and dad would split up. But ultimately, regardless of which one happened, the outcome would be basically the same for Mari and Sunny: mom would be gone. She wouldn't be living with them anymore. Which meant... it was entirely possible – likely, even – that last Saturday... that encounter in the kitchen... would be the last time she and Mari would ever be home together.

.

.

That wasn't-

What was Mari supposed to think about that? What could she possibly even have thought about that?

.

.

She didn't know.

She didn't know what to call it. A feeling of... something rose up in her chest, but she had no clue what to name it, no clue how to even try to quantify whatever it was. Was it light feeling or a heavy one? Was it a heady dizziness or something that sat in her stomach like a rock? Was it dread, or... relief...? She didn't know. She didn't know. She didn't-

"-ari?"

.

"Mari?"

-Mari jolted slightly in her seat, the headrest sent rattling softly behind her skull at the movement. Instinctively, she pulled in a sharp breath through her nose, feeling her heart thrumming a touch faster than was strictly comfortable in her chest. Blinking rapidly a few times, she turned her head to see-

Oh.

"Dad?" Mari wondered blankly, her mind still scrabbling to catch up to the present now that her train of thought had been derailed. Dad was looking at her with an expression she couldn't quite make out – she could see his brow was noticeably furrowed, etching deep lines across his forehead in a way that made his gaze seem especially intent, but what that actually meant here, Mari wasn't sure. Was he annoyed about something? Impatient? Contemplative? Upset? The look very well could have been any of those (or even several in combination) and she wouldn't have known the difference, especially as unbalanced as she felt right then.

"...Mari, we're home." Dad finally pointed out, after an awkward pause. Mari looked at him again, suddenly noticing that his seatbelt was undone and he'd taken his hands off the steering wheel. Quickly turning her head, it took less than a second to realize that, yep, the car was indeed stopped in their driveway, her eyes falling onto the garage door just a few feet ahead.

That... that made perfect sense, Mari had just been looking at mom's car in the driveway, hadn't she? Realistically speaking, it only would've taken a handful of seconds for them to turn into the drive. How long had she been sitting there just staring blankly without really seeing anything? A few moments, a minute, more? She had no real idea. It couldn't be too long, since dad presumably would've interrupted sooner, but at the same time it was enough for him to notice... As if sensing what she was thinking, dad spoke again.

"You've just been staring." he said, mouth curving down into a frown as he peered at her. "Are you okay?" he wondered.

Mari shook her head softly. "I'm... fine. I was just distracted for a second." she denied. Though she knew the moment she said it that it wouldn't sound convincing, especially with the way her voice caught a little on the word "fine". Fine was definitely not the right word for this thing she was feeling – she wasn't exactly sure what it was, but just calling it fine like it was just a normal day was obviously a lie. She just didn't want to burden dad with her problems, especially when it wouldn't even be helpful. She was just... feeling weird about mom being gone. That wasn't something dad would have any power to change, nor was it his fault in any way, so there was no need to bother him with it. But she could hardly be surprised when he met her response with a clearly skeptical look.

"Are you sure?" dad pressed, eyebrows raised slightly in an odd look – expectant, maybe? "You seemed pretty out of it for a second there." he pointed out. Then he paused for a second, something seeming to occur to him. "...Are you having, uh, difficulties with something?" he asked her, his voice noticeably dropping to a bit of a slower cadence. Almost careful, the type of voice like one might use when treading on sensitive ground.

.

Ah. There was that word again... Difficulties. Enunciated very deliberately like that...

Mari felt herself stiffen in her seat, her eyes widening just a hair as she stared back at dad. She... she knew he didn't mean anything by it. She got that. Obviously it was just a coincidence – or maybe a habit dad had picked up from hearing it around the house – not something being done deliberately, certainly not with any kind of ill intent, but... With the way he said it, and what he clearly meant, it sounded almost exactly like how mom-

"Dad-" Mari found herself blurting before she could stop herself, the words all but spilling out. "-Could you... please not say it like that anymore?" she requested, an almost plaintive note to her voice. It probably wasn't particularly polite, even if she wasn't trying to be rude with it, there wasn't really a good way to reproach someone for something they said without sounding at least a tiny bit confrontational. Definitely not normally something Mari would want to do to an adult, much less her parents, but something about hearing that just... really made her feel like something unpleasant was brushing against her skin.

Dad, however, didn't seem to understand what she was thinking, as his expression shifted to what even Mari could clearly tell was confusion, his frown only deepening from the words.

"...Sorry, don't say what?" he asked bluntly – not in a way that sounded harsh or pointed, exactly (or at least, Mari didn't think so), but nonetheless being quite direct in how unclear he thought it was. Shifting in his seat a little, dad crossed his arms, the furrow in his brow appearing even more noticeable as he looked at Mari for a second longer.

"I-" Mari started to say, but cut herself off, her teeth clicking together as she shut her mouth. She'd suddenly realized she didn't have any way to answer that, or at least no good way. How was she even supposed to begin trying to explain what she was thinking without sounding crazy? She knew fully well that she was reading far too much into a single innocuous word, that she was nitpicking an intention that wasn't even there. There was no rational answer for that. It was the very definition of a fake problem: something that wouldn't have bothered anyone else – that obviously shouldn't bother anyone else – because there was literally nothing to it. Just because Mari's mind was drawing a connection to... mom... didn't mean that connection was actually there, or that it'd even be relevant if it was...

("Besides, what else was dad supposed to say? He was right, you did zone out because you're... you. He was being tactful about it, so really, you should be more grateful.")

"I can't help if you won't even tell me what you're asking for." Dad pointed out, giving her that expectant look again. Which wasn't unreasonable, of course, Mari knew that objectively he was right, but...

"...It's nothing, nevermind." she finally said instead, her shoulders slumping a little in resignation. Dad didn't seem to believe her, starting to open his mouth presumably to press her on it, but Mari quickly shook her head before he could say anything to that end. "Just... forget I said anything, please? It's not really a big deal." she insisted, glancing off to the side of dad's face to avoid making eye contact. That, at least, was the truth: it wasn't a big deal, or rather, Mari shouldn't have been making a big deal of it in the first place. It was her own issue, all in her head, not something that dad needed to worry about – nor was it fair to bother him with it. Really, she should've known better than to even say anything.

Dad's response was simply to stare at her for an agonizingly long moment – well, in reality, it was only a couple seconds, but it felt far longer than that in Mari's mind. She had to actively stop herself from shifting uncomfortably beneath his gaze, and even with that effort, her fingers still curled unconsciously around the edges of her sleeves, idly feeling the fabric of her sweatshirt beneath her fingertips. She didn't know what dad might have been thinking right then, even if she had wanted to try to meet his eyes and scrutinize his expression – which she didn't – she rather doubted it would've worked anyway. Dad hadn't suddenly become any easier to read in the last few minutes, he was still just as unpredictable to her as always. Given the prolonged staring, it wasn't hard to infer that he probably wasn't impressed, but anything more detailed than that was lost on Mari...

Eventually though, dad exhaled a small sigh and nodded his head. "...Alright." he conceded simply, having evidently decided not to press her on it. Which was probably for the best, since she really didn't want to talk about this anymore. Pausing for a second, dad glanced out the windshield towards their house for a moment before looking back to Mari. "Well, let's go ahead and get inside, then. No use sitting around out here." he said matter-of-factly, changing the subject. It was a statement that didn't really brook much argument... not that Mari had any particular reason to argue anyway.

She nodded briskly, before remembering that it'd be more polite to give a verbal response. "Yeah, that's fine. Let's go." she agreed, speaking perhaps just a bit too quickly to be entirely natural. Though if dad noticed her slip-up, he didn't see fit to comment on it.

"Give me a second to grab your crutches and I'll bring them around to you." he declared instead. Then he fixed Mari with... some kind of serious look. Stern, maybe? "Don't try to get out on your own." he instructed her firmly. Even though Mari hadn't been planning on doing that in the first place – she had pretty much known dad would insist on helping her out of the car, whether it was really necessary or not.

Either way, though, she didn't complain, so dad promptly opened his door and climbed out before shutting it again with another "thunk!". Mari wouldn't be left waiting long, of course, because it only took a few seconds for dad to open the door to the back seat, grab the pair of crutches that had been laid across it, and then shut that door as well. Mari's eyes trailed along, following the sight dad's form walking around the car outside the windows, two of her fingers idly tapping her knee – the one not in a cast, naturally – in time with the muffled sounds of dad's footsteps until he reached the door on her side. Here it was, the moment of truth... time to finally, properly be able to say she'd gotten home at last, huh?

.

.

Actually getting to the house turned out to be, somehow, both pretty much uneventful and far more of an event than Mari thought it would be... Or maybe it was more accurate to say it was more of an event than she thought it should be.

The actual act of walking up the driveway itself wasn't really a big deal. Admittedly, Mari had privately been a bit worried that she was about to make a fool of herself on her crutches. It had been a couple years since the last time she'd had to use something like that, and there was really no telling whether she'd remember how to do it properly. But no, ultimately that turned out to not be much of an issue – her muscle memory didn't fail her, as pretty much the moment she had the crutches in her arms, the familiarity from last time just clicked right back into place. Which... probably wasn't a good thing, really, being able to say she was familiar with crippling knee injuries... but it was beneficial in the moment. That was about all she could ask. Of course, even when she knew how, hobbling along on crutches wasn't at all a very efficient or dignified means of getting around... But then, Mari hadn't really had much expectation of dignity since she'd woken up in the ambulance last Saturday.

("Implying you ever had any to begin with.")

No, walking along with her crutches was... well, not exactly easy, but... about as easy as she could reasonably hope for. What was less simple was doing it under dad's supervision. It wasn't a very polite thought, and Mari immediately felt a bit guilty the moment it occurred to her. Objectively, she couldn't even really blame him that much, she knew he was just concerned, and not unreasonably so – Mari was sure she herself would have been just as overbearing, if not more so, if it were Sunny here in a cast rather than her. It wasn't dad who'd come up with the idea to forbid them from going to the lake at the hangout spot, after all. But while that was true, it didn't change the fact that getting into the house probably would've been a much quicker process if dad weren't there.

He was insistent on Mari taking things very slowly and gingerly, literally one step at a time, repeatedly chiding her not to push herself any time she tried to set any sort of pace. And not only that, but he was hovering, too. He insisted on walking along right at her side every step of the way, ready to reach out to catch her if she showed even the slightest sign of wobbling or unsteadiness... Again, Mari got it. She really did. She understood perfectly why dad would be worried, and really, she couldn't even say she disagreed – falling and injuring herself again, right there on their driveway, would be just about the most humiliating thing she could imagine. Yet even so, there was just no getting around how the caution turned what could've been a short few seconds of limping up to the front door into a protracted several-minute affair. It just felt so... unnecessary. Besides which, there was a tiny, treacherous part in the back of Mari's mind that couldn't help but wonder where this was before.

The first time she'd broken her knee, dad hadn't even been there to take her home. Mom had done that, while dad was at work. Yet now he'd actually called out for the day, specifically for Mari's sake... Was that why he was doing this? Just because mom wasn't there-

No. No, Mari knew that wasn't fair. She immediately clamped down on that thought. Dad was just trying to help.

("...You really are a selfish brat, aren't you? Everything always has to be just perfect for Princess Mari, right?")

...Mari just wanted to hurry up and get inside.

.

.

Actually entering the house was done with relatively little fanfare. Not that Mari had really expected anything else, considering the circumstances, but even still, she couldn't quite stop a bit of anticipation from welling up in her chest. Dad finally broke away from his vigilantly hovering at her side so that he could step forward to unlock the door, and after the requisite few seconds of fiddling with the notoriously sticky lock (they really needed to replace that thing), the door swung open. Stepping aside, dad made a sweeping gesture with one hand that Mari recognized as ushering her forward – presumably letting her go in first to give her room to maneuver through the doorway with her crutches. Which made sense. So she promptly did exactly that, giving dad a small nod in thanks and making her way past him. She had to pause for only a brief instant at the front step. Getting herself over the small rise wasn't actually difficult or anything, but it did serve as a reminder that navigating around with her leg like this took a bit more care and thought than she was used to walking normally. No just ignoring her knee's protests anymore, she had to actually take things like steps up slowly...

Still, it wasn't what Mari would call an actual problem – again, she remembered how to get around on her crutches – so a second later she was stepping through the doorway. The tips of the crutches thumped lightly against the floor mat just past the door, which soon transitioned to soft taps on the floorboards as she took a few steps in. Dad, unsurprisingly, was right behind her (probably still trying to stick close enough to catch her if she stumbled, if she had to guess), shutting the door behind them with a "thud."

Looking around, Mari's immediate thought was that... well, the living room looked exactly the same as always. Which, again, shouldn't really have been surprising: just like when she'd been staring at the outside of the house, she knew nothing major had happened in here. There was no reason to think it would look any different than the last time she was home... But then, the last time she'd seen this room in particular, she'd barely even looked at it. She'd been a bit too busy running from the kitchen, her eyes glazed with panic and blurred with tears, so the living room hadn't even registered in her mind. Only the front door. So it was just... weird to be back here now, after all that, seeing it like this. Slowly, she took a few steps further into the room, vaguely aware of dad standing back near the front door, watching her. With another glance, she confirmed it: everything looked exactly the same as normal. If it weren't for Mari herself standing there with her injuries, one would have no way of knowing anything unusual had happened this past week at all.

The room was empty, of course – Mari hadn't expected otherwise, but she was still taken for a moment by just how quiet the house felt right then. The lights both here and in the adjoining kitchen & dining room were all turned out. It was still plenty bright enough to see, with the late morning sun streaming in through the windows, but the ceiling lights being dark did lend the house a somewhat dimmer-than-usual air. Combined with the near-total lack of any sounds besides Mari clunking along the floorboards with her crutches, and dad moving about behind her as he stepped in, and it lent the building an almost... somber feeling. Just for a moment. Mari knew it was just her imagination making a big deal of nothing, but for those first few seconds, she almost felt more like she was stepping into a funeral parlor than her own home... At least, until the illusion was broken by dad flipping on the light switch to illuminate the living room.

Shaking herself slightly, Mari glanced up towards the ceiling. That mental tangent had reminded her of something, something very important at that. She'd felt like she was entering somewhere solemn and empty, but that wasn't really true, now was it?

"...Sunny!" she called out, not exactly loud enough to be yelling per se, but raising her voice to try to project it. Given the way sound tended to echo upstairs, Mari was at least reasonably confident that should've been sufficient to reach their room. Things like that usually were. "We're home!" she added, perhaps unnecessarily. But still, she figured Sunny might not have heard the front door, so it wouldn't hurt to let him know-

"-Mari, your brother's not here." Dad suddenly spoke up, having paused while moving off to Mari's side at the sound of her calling. "He's still next door, remember?" he noted, crossing his arms in the corner of Mari's eye.

Mari felt herself stiffen, feeling a sting of embarrassment rushing to her cheeks, shutting her eyes for a moment as if it would block it out (it didn't). Oh... Sunny wasn't even home. She really should have at least thought to check that before trying to get his attention, though... Huh. She suddenly realized that her initial impression had actually been right after all. Not that part about the house feeling like a funeral or whatever nonsense her mind felt like making up, obviously, but all the lights were out and it was so quiet because it really was empty – with Sunny next door and mom... absent... Mari and her dad really were the only ones there. It was a bit of an odd feeling, realizing that one of her random impressions actually had some validity to it. How often did that happen?

.

...Wait.

"Hold on..." Mari said, opening her eyes once more to turn to look at dad, feeling a small frown on her face as the thought finally registered. "Sunny's next door?" she repeated questioningly.

Dad looked back with a frown of his own that probably matched hers in its confusion, raising his eyebrows slightly. "That's what I said." he confirmed, a tone to his voice that Mari wanted to call leading, perhaps hoping she'd elaborate on why she was asking. Which, of course, she fully intended to.

"He hasn't come home yet?" she wondered. "I knew he was staying over with them, but I thought after... everything with mom-" Mari had to pause subtly to swallow a slight lump in her throat there. If dad noticed, he didn't press it. "-uh, settled down... it'd be okay for him to be back." she explained.

That was why she'd assumed Sunny would be home in the first place – admittedly, she hadn't really put much in-depth thought into it, too caught up in everything else happening with leaving the hospital, but it seemed like a reasonable conclusion on the face of it. If Sunny was sleeping over at Hero and Kel's house due to the whole mess with mom, then shouldn't things have been alright by now? According to dad himself, the police's visit had been a few days ago, so... Dad, however, was shaking his head.

"It's been a busy week." he replied, in what felt like an incredibly understatement. Mari had already grasped that much more than well enough. "So myself and Elena both agreed it would be best for her to keep watching him until you were home." he said. Then he raised his eyebrows even higher, as if he was about to point out something obvious.

("Which, to be fair, isn't an unreasonable assumption where you're involved. You missing the obvious is the rule, not the exception.")

"...Besides, I knew that whole song and dance with getting you from the hospital would take awhile. A few hours at least." Dad continued. "You didn't think I was just going to leave Sunny home alone that whole time?"

.

.

Mari paused as she considered that. Slowly, she turned her head away, staring off towards a corner of the room, not because there was actually anything there to draw her interest... just to avoid meeting dad's gaze for a few seconds. As if that would help to hide the uncomfortable skepticism that she was sure had to be etching itself across her face right then. It was only the fact that her arms were currently dedicated to supporting herself on her crutches that stopped her from falling into the sudden urge to reach over and start picking anxiously at the fabric of her sweater's sleeve.

She didn't want to answer that question. She didn't want to be the one to say it. Something itched against her skin – not just the feel of her clothes, but something subtler, something she knew was all in her head. Because she wasn't trying to throw this in dad's face, being rude like that wasn't at all what she wanted, but...

The answer was yes. It simply was, as harsh as it felt even to think it, that was the fact Mari's mind kept coming back to. Yes, of course she would've expected dad to be willing to leave Sunny home by himself... and if someone had asked her that even a week ago – heck, had asked her that three days ago – she almost certainly would've been correct to expect that, wouldn't she? It sure felt like it. Leaving Mari and Sunny to fend for themselves was pretty much what their parents had always done while they were busy. Or at least ever since Mari was old enough to learn how to handle things without constant supervision – and Sunny was twelve, almost a teenager, not a little kid anymore, so he probably fell into that category too (or at least would very soon). So what else was Mari supposed to think...?

.

Even though she was actively trying to clamp down on that thought to prevent herself from blurting it out, knowing that would be beyond uncalled for, Mari couldn't stop herself from thinking it. And it seemed that despite her efforts, it was obvious enough that dad could tell more or less what was going through her head anyway, as she heard him let out a low breath. Catching a movement at the edge of her gaze, Mari chanced looking back at dad to try to gauge how he was reacting (though still determinedly avoiding meeting his eyes). She wound up being just in time to see him shutting his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand. Once more her ears picked up the sound of him breathing deliberately, air rasping as it was pulled in through his teeth.

"...Fine, I deserve that." Dad's voice reached Mari in the otherwise-silent room. It wasn't quite a mutter, exactly, but it was said very quietly, enough so that she wasn't really sure if it was meant for her or just talking to himself. Either way, though, dad lowered his hand to open his eyes once again, staring at Mari with an unreadable look that only made her want to avert her gaze all the more.

.

Awkward silence reigned between them yet again, for what felt like the hundredth time that day... but if anything, Mari would say this was even worse. The heavy quiet blanketing the drive home had been discomfiting, sure, but it was more... passive, in a way. Things were uncomfortable just due to how their conversation had gone the day before, leaving them on strange footing with each other as a natural consequence. Like neither of them really knew what to say. This was different, though – more active, somehow, even though neither of them were doing anything at the moment. The air in the room felt like it had shifted, despite how in reality the house was just as still and silent as it had been a minute ago, there was a palpable energy. And not a pleasant one. It was just... tense, like an invisible spring coiled around them, part of some massive machine just waiting to grind into motion...

A silent standoff. Mari had no real clue precisely what dad was thinking – she didn't even dare to try to read the look in his eyes to figure it out, not that she would've actually succeeded anyway – but it wasn't hard to infer that he was aware of the tension just as much as she was. The way he was watching her closely made that pretty apparent, even if she wasn't sure what he was watching for. Mari shuffled a bit where she stood, the tips of her crutches tapping lightly against the floor. Should she try to say something, or would that just make it worse?

...Should she apologize? Normally she would, she wasn't trying to upset dad, but... the thing was, she hadn't actually done anything to apologize for? She hadn't said what she was thinking, specifically because she knew it would be rude. Sure, dad obviously figured it out anyway, and Mari knew she should still feel bad for that. But at the same time, she couldn't just take back the thought either, especially because it was true. Dad hadn't been there for them, hadn't seemed to have any issue leaving her or Sunny alone before now, so... of course she would assume that. She didn't really know how to apologize for that assumption when it was just a fact that both of them were aware of. And dad already knew that Mari... hadn't accepted his apology for that yesterday either... So she didn't really know what to do.

Before she could continue trying to untangle that knot of thoughts in her head, however, dad let out another sigh. Maybe he'd seen something in Mari's expression and decided to take pity on her... or maybe he just wanted to break the awkward stalemate as much as she did. But either way, he pulled his gaze out of the staredown he'd been doing with a quick shake of his head, his throat rasping with a small "ahem" as if to clear it.

"...Anyway. What I was going to say is, I was planning to walk over there and bring Sunny back home once you got settled in." Dad said at last, giving Mari another – less intense – look as he spoke.

...

Mari blinked.

Was... was that it? Was that really how dad was going to handle this? Was he really going to just ignore that whole... whatever that was? (Mari was sure there was some clever word that would neatly describe that whole awkward pseudo-standoff a second ago, but nothing of the sort was coming to mind at the moment.) She knew full well that her response – or rather, lack thereof – had bothered him, but he just wasn't going to call her on it? Wasn't going to address it at all, and instead just shift gears and try to get the conversation back onto the topic of Sunny without even expecting Mari to say anything about what had just happened? Let alone saying anything himself?

("He's giving you an out. For god's sake, stop complaining about it.")

...Mari supposed she didn't really have any reason to object, did she? After all, she hadn't exactly wanted to be in that situation either. On some level, she couldn't quite quell the suspicion that dad wouldn't have been nearly so understanding if something like that had happened before... all this... but then, wasn't that a good thing? He'd said he was trying to be a better parent, was this part of that? Letting things slide that he might have been angry or upset at her about before? Giving her an opportunity to just move on rather than scolding her for that? Mari wasn't ungrateful enough to take dad's efforts for granted, if that really was the reason. And even if she was wrong to assume that, well, it wasn't like she wanted to make him mad either, so if he intended to just pretend that never happened, she had no reason to argue.

.

While she considered that, she didn't realize she was still standing there silently for several seconds until dad, perhaps mistaking the reason for Mari's confusion, spoke up again.

"So... Is that alright?" he prompted her, arms crossed over his chest expectantly when she looked up at him. "Will you be okay here for a few minutes while I run next door to get Sunny?" he asked her.

Mari paused for just a second longer to process that, but she'd already basically decided to agree, so...

"I should be fine, dad." she confirmed with a small nod, glancing down towards her cast for just a moment. "It's... not like I'm going anywhere fast." she added. She was trying to go for a bit of wry humor, something to ease the tension a bit. Like she'd occasionally do to lighten the mood among her friends. But this time the effort came out more than a little lamely, and Mari had to stop herself from cringing at how blatantly halfhearted it sounded even to her own ears. Unsurprisingly, dad didn't seem to be too impressed with that either. In fact, if anything, he looked to be slightly... concerned? Mari wasn't sure what else to call his expression, it was odd. (But then, a lot of dad's looks these last couple days were odd to her, so maybe that wasn't even notable anymore.)

"Mari-" he started, a deep frown forming on his face, but then he stopped himself. Almost like he didn't know what to say... but Mari was probably misreading that.

"No, really, it's alright." she insisted after a second, when it seemed like dad wasn't going to continue. She shook her head deliberately, not quite so forcefully as to be stubborn, but just enough to set her long hair rustling faintly in her ears as she did. "I was probably just going to sit down and rest for a bit anyway." she said, gesturing vaguely towards the couch with a small shrug. "You don't... need to watch me constantly, I promise I won't do anything to get into trouble." Mari added with a small frown when dad just looked at her.

.

It took a few more seconds of scrutiny – not that Mari really had much idea of exactly what dad was looking for – before he appeared to relent, his shoulders appearing to slump slightly.

"Okay, Mari." Dad conceded. "I'll... be back shortly, then." he said, awkwardly enough that even she picked up on it. Mari nodded her head, and after another momentary pause, dad turned away from her back towards the front door.

Since they'd stopped right in the living room, distracted by that... uncomfortable conversation so soon after getting inside, dad hadn't had time to remove his shoes or anything (he usually took them off when he was home, a habit he'd apparently picked up when he lived in Japan and never broke), so there wasn't much he needed to do before heading back out to walk next door. Thus, in the time it took Mari to plod her way over towards the living room couch, dad had already opened the door. Sparing her one more brief look, he stepped out and shut it behind him with a "click".

.

.

True to her word, Mari didn't have much else to do besides settle herself onto the couch to wait. She took care to lower herself down onto the cushions without putting her weight onto her cast at any point – which required a bit more of an involved thought process than one might think a simple act like sitting down would warrant, but one she was at least familiar with, so it wasn't bad. She set her crutches aside, but not carelessly, taking a moment to deliberately lean them up against the arm of the couch where they'd be in easy reach once she had to stand up again. Last time she'd broken her knee, Mari had once thoughtlessly made the mistake of setting them down somewhere that turned out to be harder to get back to than expected... Nothing bad had come of it back then, but she knew she very easily could have fallen trying to reach for them, so she made a point to not repeat that mistake again.

("And then of course you went and did something even more stupid to make yourself fall again anyway. Just put it off by a couple years. Well done.")

.

.

Huh, it really was quiet in here, wasn't it? Mari had been hoping that getting to relax on the couch would be a bit more... well, relaxing. The thought had certainly sounded nice – being able to lounge around at home seemed like a downright luxurious concept after so long cooped up in that hospital room. Sure, she was basically sitting around doing nothing either way, there wasn't much avoiding doing a lot of that with her leg in a cast for the next couple months. Dr. Astora had been very clear that any sort of extensive physical activity was a no-go, and Mari wouldn't have tried it even without such a warning. Even she knew better than that. But if resting was the order of the day, better home than at the hospital. It was more comfortable here... and it didn't reek of disinfectant everywhere. Plus the familiarity ought to have been comforting, right?

Yet now that Mari was actually here, she just felt kind of... anxious.

Here she was, just sitting there. With her knee in a cast, again... only this time, when it came off, things still wouldn't go back to normal...

Actually, what even counted as normal? A week ago, that would've seemed like a pretty easy question. A normal day was a normal day: school, piano practice, spending time with Sunny, hanging out with their friends... maybe sharing a meal or two with dad and/or mom, depending on how busy they were...

But now... Sunny was upset at her, so upset that he wouldn't even come to visit. Their friends were all worried about her due to all this. Things with dad were... Well. They were.

And mom... Mom wasn't here. Mom might never be here again. Mom was gone, arrested.

.

.

.

Everything was changing. But Mari... hadn't asked for it to change, had she? She didn't... feel like she'd wanted it to change... Yet everything was changing anyway. Like grains of sand slipping through her fingers, the very act of trying to hold onto them seeming pointless, as every shift of her hands only sent more tumbling through the cracks in her grasp. This was...

.

.

.

Ha. It was almost funny... That must've been why her shoulders were shaking all of a sudden.

This was fine. She was finally home. She could start getting better. It was fine. Everything was fine.