Chapter Text
“I have to tell you something.”
The words that had come after that made Basil’s head spin. Nono no, he wouldn’t tell them, right? He wouldn’t…
While Kel’s eyes widened and Aubrey stumbled to lean against the bed for support, Hero took in a shaky breath. “Sunny, I think we should get you back to your room, you’re clearly not thinking straight.”
After a second, Kel managed a shaky smile, “Yeah, you probably hit your head a bit too hard. Why don’t you sit down?” He reached out, grabbing his friend by the arm and pulling him over to a chair beside Basil’s hospital bed, perhaps a bit too roughly.
The two locked eyes; Basil’s teal eyes pleading and panicked, tears threatening to fall, and Sunny’s dark eyes resolute and sorrowful, expression unreadable.
Basil shook his head subtly. Sunny opened his mouth anyway.
“I killed Mari.” He repeated.
“ Stop saying that! ” Aubrey snapped harshly, her fingers clenching the sheets of the bed as she shook. “It’s not funny.”
“It was me. I pushed her.”
“Sunny, please,” Hero reached out with a sad smile, laying a hand on his shoulder comfortingly, “you’re just a kid, you couldn’t have been the one to drive her to… do what she did.”
As the dark haired boy opened his mouth again, Basil cut him off, “Mhm, you probably just need to go back to bed, it might help you feel better.” Desperation laced his tone as he shook with anxiety, silently begging his best friend to end the confession here.
It was ironic, he thought, how Basil all along had been the one leading him to the truth, and now that he was ready to confess, Basil was desperate to keep it hidden. Nevertheless, he was determined to admit it all.
“On the day of the recital,” he faced them all, gathering his courage, “Mari and I had an argument. I pushed h–” Then Basil’s hand was over his mouth, a wild look in his eyes.
“ Sunny. ” It was almost a warning, before his voice broke, “ Please .” Nono no, Sunny was getting the story wrong. They’d hate him!
“What the hell is going on?” Aubrey looked between the two of them accusingly.
Neither responded for a bit, a silent conversation playing out between their locked eyes. Pleading, then stubbornness, then desperation, guilt, and finally, resignation.
Basil’s hand slowly fell from his best friend’s mouth, his eyes tearful and face downcast.
Sunny took another deep breath. “I pushed Mari down the stairs. She’s dead because of me.”
There was no response. Only silence. Disbelief, confusion, denial.
“Sunny,” Hero tried again eventually, a hollow and shaky smile on his face, “we found her that day, remember? At the tree? If you really killed her, wouldn’t she have been at the bottom of the stairs instead?”
“ We framed it as a suicide! ” Basil blurted, shaking violently. “It was my idea, don’t blame him, please .”
And there it was. The truth as it slowly began to sink in.
The betrayal, the lies, the unjustifiable loss of a life, whether it was an accident or not. A cover-up.
It was a stomach-churning heartbreak all over again. And yet there would be a tinge of relief. But first, there was anger, hurt, disgust.
Aubrey’s hands went to her hair automatically, tugging at the roots harshly. She and Mari planned to dye their hair pink and purple together. Only one ended up doing it. She screamed.
Hero stared off out the window vacantly.
Kel attempted to wrap his head around it all, taking a step back as his eyebrows furrowed with disgust. “You… You’re horrible. An accident is one thing, but framing it as a suicide? That’s… way too far.”
“I know.” The lighter-haired boy whispered hollowly, not looking any of them in the eye.
The taller boy opened his mouth to say more, but his brother seemed to have something more on his mind. “That must’ve been really hard for you two.”
All four pairs of eyes in the room snapped to him, various emotions mixed between their faces.
“I know you loved her more than anything, Sunny, you wouldn’t have meant to push her.” Hero turned from the window, his smile shaky and eyes sad. “It was an accident. A horrible, horrible accident.”
Basil’s eyes widened with relief. He didn’t hate Sunny?
The pink haired girl’s face contorted with rage and hurt, “You’re going to forgive them so easily? They took Mari away from us! From you! ”
“I’m not forgiving the act,” he states simply, eyes hardening for only a moment, “I’m forgiving the twelve year olds who watched the unthinkable happen right before their eyes, because of one horrible mistake.”
Her hands balled into fists, a scowl embedded in her expression as she turned away to hide the tears slipping down her cheeks.
Kel ran after her, arm outstretched, “Aubrey!”
Hero turned his gaze to the shivering Basil, hunched on the bed trying to make himself as small as possible, “Basil, can you explain… how you ended up coming to the conclusion that that was the right thing to do?”
His gaze snapped up to Hero again, his heart beating out of his chest. Hero was giving him a chance to talk, a chance to clear up Sunny’s side of the story. “I–” he sucked in a sharp breath, trying to keep his voice steady, “I saw the argument happen, saw her fall. But– But Sunny couldn’t have done it, really! It was SOMETHING behind him!”
The dark haired boy saw the tentacles of black lash out from behind his friend again. For a second, he was back in Basil’s darkened room, SOMETHING consuming his best friend and keeping himself from escaping. Then he was back in the hospital room, a patch over what was once an eye.
“I– I couldn’t tell anyone. I didn’t want anyone to think it was Sunny!” His panic spiked when Hero’s eyebrows furrowed, “Like the photo album - SOMETHING blacked out my photos but, I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want Aubrey to think it was him!”
“Okay,” the older boy decided to tread lightly, considering just how much of an impact such an incident could have had on his psyche, “could you tell me how you came to the idea of a suicide?”
“No one would’ve believed it was an accident,” he whispered hollowly, “Sunny would’ve gotten in trouble, so it had to be something else - something on purpose, and I– I’ve had… those kinds of thoughts since I was really small… So, believably, she could’ve, too, right? Everyone would believe that, but…
“But we shouldn’t have done it… It ruined everything. I ruined everything. Sunny tried to leave me because I ruined everything. Aubrey picked on me because I ruined everything. Kel tried to protect me because he didn’t know I ruined everything. You should hate me because I ruined everything.”
He couldn’t hate the kid. He just couldn’t. The more he talked, the worse he felt for the kid. Basil and Sunny had been pushed into cleaning up that horrible horrible mistake all alone, even as they’d made the wrong choices to do so.
He shook his head simply, “You were twelve. You thought it was a good idea at the time. I can’t fault you too much for that.” Yes you can.
“In all honesty, I’m… I’m a bit relieved, really,” he breathed out with a soft smile, “I’m glad it wasn’t a suicide. I thought I had failed her somehow. Knowing it was an outside accident makes me feel a bit better.”
They were all silent for a bit, Sunny noting the inky tentacles of his best friend’s SOMETHING had gotten a little thinner, weaker.
“She’s still dead. The others still hate us.” the dark haired boy whispered, his arms wrapped around himself loosely as he kept his expression carefully blank.
“We can talk to the others,” Hero assured, “I’m sure they’ll understand eventually. They just need time.” They might not ever forgive, though.
The boys nodded sullenly, not really convinced at all.
Eventually, Basil spoke up, “Um, Hero? I need to talk to Sunny alone for a bit.”
“Of course,” he gave his usual charming smile, though they both saw it falter as he turned away, “I’ll go see if I can track down the others.”
He stepped out, leaving the two alone in the silence of a hospital.
“So…” Basil started, carefully, “yesterday in my room…”
He’d done more talking just in that hour or so than he had in the last four years. He elected not to respond to Basil, letting him carry the interaction as his face remained blank.
“I wasn’t really thinking very straight, was I?” The light haired boy avoided looking his friend in the eye, “I wasn’t… I wasn’t trying to hurt you. You know that, right?” He received a small nod, which comforted him, “I thought… I was trying to get rid of SOMETHING. You– I thought you were protecting it. But… I was really just attacking you, wasn’t I?”
He was silent for a bit, eventually realising Sunny wouldn’t say anything back. He bit his lip harshly, “I’m… I’m really sorry, Sunny. For everything. I wish I had handled everything better - I was supposed to protect you ! I promised I would! I promised I’d make everything okay! But nothing’s okay, is it? All I did was hurt everyone! I hurt you …”
Basil covered his face with his hands, hunched over with hiccuping sobs.
Neither moved again for a moment. The only sound in the hospital was the boy’s echoing sobs.
Then Sunny stood up, moving to kneel on the bed beside the lighter haired boy. He wrapped his arms tightly around his best friend.
The boy let his eyes widen, feeling arms wrap around him tightly; safely. His lip quivered, and he let out a choked cry before burying his face in his best friend’s shoulder. It’d been so long…
It’d been so long since they’d been like this. So so long. But now, maybe they were okay. Maybe Hero truly didn’t hate them. Maybe they’d be able to talk to Aubrey and Kel. Just maybe, things could finally get better. Maybe they didn’t have to run anymore; hide anymore.
The mop of SOMETHING’s black hair faded. The black tentacles of SOMETHING retreated.
His shoulders untensed, even as they shook. His fingers entwined in the dark haired boy’s shirt, clenched tightly as if he’d disappear again at any moment. They were both scared it was just another dream; were both scared the other would fade away in seconds.
But neither did.
And they were okay.