Chapter Text
SUNNY stared blankly at her computer screen. With the stony glare she was giving, you might even think the monitor would lose the staring contest. Even MEWO was looking on at SUNNY in concern.
It'd been a week since her father had broken the news to her. She refused to leave her room for anything but the barest necessities. And by "barest necessities", she meant "eating" and "using the bathroom".
It still didn't feel real to her. In just one week, she'd be returning to school. Even just the thought of it terrified her. It'd been so long since she'd been in a classroom, she could hardly even remember what they looked like.
She could, however, remember how suffocating they felt. She could remember how stressful it was, sitting in a small room with some-twenty other complete strangers.
She could remember how much she hated it.
Uuuugh... SUNNY dramatically slammed her face on her desk. My life is over... She thought, teary-eyed.
There was no way she'd be able to blend in with all the other students. She was a loon, a complete nutjob! She wouldn't even last a day.
SUNNY turned her gaze back towards her computer screen. On it was an internet thread titled "Is high school really as great as everyone makes it out to be?"
Come on, she was desperate! Could you really blame her? Now, desperate for what? She wasn't entirely sure. Honestly, she wasn't sure what kind of answers she was hoping to find. What she was sure of, however, was that none of them had made her feel any better. The responses on the post varied from "it's great! the best time of your life" to "it sucks balls and i wanna kill myself," neither of which sounded particularly comforting. The former, because it was obviously thought up by some ostentatious, "peaked-in-highschool"—prick. The latter, because it was most likely the answer that actually reflected her soon-to-be reality.
High school... As far as she was concerned, it should've been deemed a violation of a person's basic human rights! The only sources she had for that claim were all those cheesy Rom-Coms her sister used to make her watch, her sister's actual time there, as well as accounts from the other disappointments she'd gotten acquainted with on the internet. Oh, she could picture it now. Ferocious mean girls always scouting out their next target, daft sports-jocks who reek of sweat, docile followers always obeying the majority... They were gonna eat her alive.
Just visualizing it was too much. Actually living it would be a fate worse than death.
SUNNY's breath hitched with sobs as she took a bite out of the dry, cold, burnt piece of toast she had tried and failed to prepare for breakfast, which she'd only felt safe enough to do cause her Dad was off somewhere running errands. Though, with how little effort SUNNY could muster into chewing it, it kind of looked like the toast was trying to escape, more disgusted by her than she was by it.
Oh, god, and it's not like she was in the big city or something, either. This was Faraway. There was no such thing as "privacy" here. Everyone knew everyone and their mom. What was she gonna do when she became the resident laughing stock of the entire town?
SUNNY sighed and sat up, putting on her headphones. Turning on some music from her playlist, she sniffled dispiritedly, leaning against her chair and trying to wipe the tears streaming down her face.
...OMORI was right about me...
SEICHI hadn't had the easiest week. Scratch that, he hadn't had the easiest... Damn near half a decade, at this point.
It all started four years ago, when his two children had gotten into a fight over a recital they were both going to be performing in later that same day. Apparently, his younger child, SUNNY, had gotten upset and thrown the violin she would have played at the recital down the stairs. His older daughter, MARI, became angry, and things escalated from there.
MARI ended up at the hospital as a result of what happened. It was... It was bad. He could still remember the panic he'd felt when he walked in on them like it was yesterday.
When MARI woke up, she was... Angry. He couldn't truly tell what she was angry at, though; herself, or SUNNY?
Gradually, though, that anger faded, replaced with only tired resignation. He could still remember how much she hated being stuck to that hospital bed.
It didn't help that his wife, Miriam, was there adding fuel to the fire. She would ignore and sometimes even lash out at SUNNY, acting like MARI was her only kid. Whenever he'd try to talk about it, she would just brush it off as "stress," despite the fact that she could quite clearly treat their other child like an actual person.
Maybe he would've been doing the same, had he not actually been there to see their fight.
Eventually, him and his wife got into an argument about it, which lead to an eventual divorce. MARI ended up going with her mother to live in the city, skipping an entire year of high school to get started on college.
He was still so disappointed in MARI. How could she leave SUNNY behind like that? She was her older sister, for crying out loud! And instead of trying to reconcile, to talk it out, she just... She just runs away? Without so much as a goodbye?
As far as he was concerned, MARI was dead to him.
...Despite all of that, he could tell SUNNY still didn't see him as a father, either.
When SUNNY was young, SEICHI had left the task of taking care of her to MARI. Try as he might, he had always struggled at reading SUNNY. It's not like they didn't get along, but whenever SUNNY came to him for anything, he'd leave SUNNY to figure it out herself. He thought it would help her, that it would make her more independent. At the time, he felt MARI was spoiling her. So eventually, SUNNY just stopped trying.
Oh, how wished he hadn't done that.
Nowadays, even though he could clearly tell SUNNY... Appreciated? Him, she clearly didn't love him like a father. The way she looked at him, the way they interacted, they're more like... Acquaintances, or roommates. Any affection from SUNNY clearly came from the fact that she felt she owed it to him.
And that's why here he was, sitting in his car at 9:36 AM in the morning. He was fully aware that the only way SUNNY would actually leave her room was if he wasn't present. He'd already resigned himself to the fact that SUNNY absolutely refused to see him whenever she felt even slightly uncomfortable about anything. She clearly didn't trust him enough to come to him for things anymore.
But he would remain steadfast on this. SUNNY was going to school, whether she liked it or not. Even if SUNNY could no longer see him as her father, he would still try his damndest to do right by her.
Like he should've done years ago.
Still, that didn't change the fact that listening to SUNNY cry day in and day out was miserable. What kind of a father was he, letting his child fall so low? Letting her stay in so long had been a huge mistake. After the run-in with that girl, what was her name, AUDREY? AUBREY? He'd decided that enough was enough and that SUNNY wasn't safe there anymore.
Even so, she had to go back eventually. After so many years of online classes, she'd soon be returning to school. To say that the change would be difficult would be the understatement of the century. SUNNY would have to relearn even the barest of basics. She'd have to learn how to talk to people, how to walk to places, hell, she'd have to learn to function, both in school and out.
MARI used to help her with those things. She was the one who'd remind SUNNY to do her homework, to brush her teeth, to go to bed early. It was something that he remembered being very proud of at the time, MARI being so responsible at such a young age. While other parents were talking about how their kids wouldn't stop arguing, his kids were cuddling up to each other whenever they had a nightmare.
That pride had long since been replaced by emptiness. Now, SUNNY would have to go it alone.
SEICHI sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
I need a drink...