Chapter Text
"I Have to tell you something"
The events following those words were a blur, even though it had happened scarcely a few days ago.
Sunny hadn't seen or heard anything from his friends - assuming he can still consider them such, a treacherous corner of his mind made sure to say to him - since he told them. Told them what had happened four years ago. Told them how he had killed his own sister, Mari, by accident. How he and Basil had disguised her death as suicide. It was a messy outpouring of words - more than he had spoken in those four years combined, probably. He kept it together initially, but it didn't take long before he was weeping as he spoke. He kept talking. How he had shut himself in out of guilt. How he had vandalized the photo album - something Basil took the blame for. The delusions he spent four years wrapped up in. How for so much of the time he wasn't even consciously aware his sister was dead, much less at his hands.
He left out the details about Omori - he didn't even know how to explain that one. The teen was very curious what the hell exactly that monochrome doppelganger was. At least partly an alter ego, Sunny thought, but some of the events of the last four years left him with more questions than answers. It wasn't immediately relevant anyway. The actions Sunny had taken were his own. He killed his sister. He vandalized the photo album. Omori...whatever the hell he was, came later.
He couldn't look at their faces. He didn't want to, lest their gazes - Anger? Disguist? Sorrow? Something else entirely? He didn't know. - Cost his nerve and will to do what had to be done. When it was done, it felt like decades before anyone reacted.
All but begging for it to be some sort of sick joke, from both Aubrey and Kel.
Silence from Hero.
It settled on the younger two that Sunny was telling the truth.
Aubrey stormed up to him, looking for all the world like she was going to take a swing at him. Before she even reached him she had deflated. He couldn't look her in the face. She left silently. He heard her start off down the hall, quickly. Almost running.
Hero, Sunny didn't want to know how he was looking at him. Hero started towards him. Past him, to the door. He turned to Sunny before he left, presumably to go check on Aubrey. "I...I need time to think, Sunny. I...I don't even know what the hell I feel...what to think, about any of this right now, but just...take care of yourself, Sunny, please, alright?" And he was gone.
Kel, Sunny was fairly sure didn't even look at him as he left to follow his brother.
A scarce few moments later, Basil woke, and the partners in crime shared a reconciliation. A renewed promise to be there for each other, and make new memories, regardless of what happens. Rapid-fire apologies from Basil about Sunny's injuries, especially his eye. Sunny honestly didn't know what, if anything, was left under the eye covering he had awoken with. He was pretty sure there was still an eye there. Whether it was any use was another question he had no answers to at that moment. Sunny was only feeling a little bitter about the whole thing. He did find some strange satisfaction in the beating he put on Basil in exchange, however. Honestly a little proud, given his physical condition and fighting skills (or lack thereof).
It didn't take long after for a nurse to come in, the hospital having realized Sunny had woken up and immediately wandered off. Apparently one of his (probably former, he thought) friends told the staff his location. He was herded back to his room, after a parting smile to his dear (and likely last, a voice in his head was sure to remind him) friend.
The days since had been...incredibly boring for the most part. Not great, given his current anxieties. Waiting for something to happen, lying in a hospital bed. Far too similar to the state Sunny had spent the last four years in, he thought. He had visitors, though none of the three he hoped to see most. People he had helped over the last week - he had been out for about 48 hours. So about five days since he left the house for the first time in years. His Mom visited often. She doted over him. Agonizing over his injury, and trying to pry an answer from him as to how exactly it happened. Equally she seemed near overjoyed that somehow, despite his current predicament, despite everything, he was livelier in behavior than he had been in four years.
Things weren't okay yet, he didn't think they would be for a long time, but he was ready to start building himself back up. He hoped. Still, a corner of his mind could not help but wish, even minute of visiting hours, to see one or more of his friends come through the door
Maybe to forgive him
He suppressed that hope. He wasn't sure he could bear the disappointment.
When he told the truth, he did it not expecting to be forgiven, but because he had to. For himself. For Basil, who'd carried the burden of truth far too long. For the rest of his friends. So Hero could stop blaming himself for something that never was his fault - forever looking for hints of a suicidal depression that was never there. For Aubrey, who thought the closest she had to decent family, though not by blood, had abandoned her in the worst way possible, and had spent the next four years lashing out. For Kel, who had been left to hold himself together while everyone around him crumbled, his attempts at positivity and bringing the group back together being met with scorn far too often.
For his sister whose memory had been marred in her dear friend's memories by Basil and his deception.
Others visited. People he'd helped over the course of three days. The reason he woke up surrounded by flowers and well-wishes. They were nice. Short visits, but touching in their own way. Even if every time that door opened with a visitor he longed for it to be someone else.
The visits helped.
They reminded him that there are people who care about him. That even if his old friends never wanted to so much as see him again, he didn't have to be completely alone. It helped keep the darkest of his thoughts at bay, lying in bed with naught to do but think.
The doctors told him his eye was damaged, but not gone. They'd done what they could while he was out, thankfully no more surgeries should be necessary.
He'd probably never fully heal, but in a few months to a year, depending on how quickly he recovered, he would likely regain some of his vision in that eye.
A lot was up in the air on that front. Time would tell. They were planning on keeping him for a week or two, possibly longer in order to keep a close eye on his post-surgery recovery. Given his more fragile health from his years of malnutrition, and lack of activity, they wanted to be sure nothing went wrong.
His Mom visited often, doting on him as well as she could, busy though she was.
His sleeping hours were another matter. The first three nights after his confession were dreamless. A combination of sheer (especially mental and emotional) exhaustion from the last days, the drugs the hospital had him on, and a desire to start living in reality again, Sunny figured. On the fourth night, before drifting to sleep, he had lay awake, staring at the ceiling, tormented by his thoughts. Guilt for actions old and new. Regrets. Bittersweet memories of better times. Before he ruined them. Before he killed his sister and framed it as suicide. Before he blacked out parts of Basil's album, which resulted in years of bullying and harassment of the blonde boy by Aubrey and her gang. Before he hid away from the world-
That night, with a tear-stricken face as sleep claimed him, he dreamed. And something happened.
WELCOME TO WHITESPACE
YOU HAVE BEEN LIVING EXISTING HERE FOR TOO LONG
'What am I doing here again? Why am I here again?' Sunny was exceedingly confused, waking up in WHITESPACE once again as he had for most of the last four years. This time, though, he noticed he was there again as himself, (rather than his 12 year old monochrome alter-ego) with two good eyes, dressed in his usual shorts, white collared shirt, and dark vest.
He looked around. Same endless white. Cold floor. Laptop. Tissues. No black bulb overhead. The same white door to HEADSPACE nearby. Mewo lay nearby, looking as always like a little ball of dark fluff, waiting for something to happen.
Truth be told, being here again hurt the teen greatly. The temptation to slide into old, bad habits immediately present. To go to HEADSPACE, go adventure with the dream versions of his friends. Pretend everything was okay.
But he did not succumb.
He refused once more the promise of escapism and forgetting offered by HEADSPACE. So, lacking in other options, he simply lay there on his back, staring into the endless white. Wishing he could dream of something other than this white room, the false promises of HEADSPACE; and the personal horrors of BLACKSPACE, now explored. Increasingly frustrated with the apparent unwillingness of his psyche to dream up anything else.
Sunny didn't know how long it was he lay there, waiting, un-moving aside from the rise and fall of his chest. Merely existing. As he too often had done here for too long already, but he felt it better than running back to a bunch of dream versions of his friends which could only make the, in his mind, likely permanent loss of the real ones (Basil aside) unbearable.
Something happened. He didn't hear it happen. He didn't see it. But he suddenly knew there was something behind him. He craned his head back to look at what had appeared. Maybe a dozen feet away - a window, curtains drawn open. A very familiar window, which he had seen several times before at this point. The window from Mari and Sunny's old music room. And, in front of it, his dear sister, smiling, all in white, in the dress for a recital she didn't live to see. Because of me, Sunny thought.
"Hello again, little brother. It hasn't been very long, but I wanted to visit." Sunny rolled over onto his front, and got to his feet, staring in mute shock at the appearance of his sister, feeling tears burning the corners of his eyes at the sight of her, even though he knew this was just a dream. She crossed the few feet of white space between them, before quickly wrapping her brother in a hug.
Sunny's control broke. Head resting on his big sister's shoulder. Tears silently beginning to roll down his face. "I- I'm so, so sorry M-Mari...I..." Mari cut him off. "Sunny, I know it wasn't easy to do, confronting the truth, telling our friends" He heard a near inaudible muttering from her, he could make out the word 'monochrome'.
"...beginning to move on. I am so, so proud of you. Little brother, I promise you, it's hard now, I know, it will be hard for a while yet, but Sunny, I promise, it gets better." Mari's voice, normally so composed, began to waver, "P-please stay strong little bro...You have so-" her voice choked up for a moment "so much ahead of you. And I will be cheering you on, every step of the way."
Sunny, tears running down his face, fighting to avoid breaking down in open sobbing, broke their embrace momentarily to look his sister, dream or not, in the eyes. He asked her, "Sis...Mari...why?" He seemed lost for words for a second,
"Why what, little brother?"
"Why aren't you angry with me? I...I killed you. I took everything from you."
His voice was growing in passion now, and in volume. "I...We...Basil and I, we disguised your death as a suicide! All over a stupid recital because I wasn't good enough and threw a stupid temper tantrum! So why...why are you so forgiving!? Why don't you hate me?!"
'Like I deserve' the thought went unvoiced.
With those last words Sunny went nearly limp, shoulders heaving with sobs as his face contorted in grief.
He felt again the embrace of his sibling, his head on her shoulder as she began rubbing soothing circles on his back with one hand as his breathing began to steady, his sobbing coming to an end as quickly as it began.
Silence.
He tried to count the seconds. 10 seconds. 20 seconds, 30. A minute.
He could feel her breathing, slowly and deeply. Calming herself down before she spoke?
She broke their embrace, stepping back to look at him with a gentle smile. She began, with newfound composure, "Several reasons. Firstly, you are my little brother, I love you, and I know it was an accident. One you've spent four years torturing yourself for. One I want you to stop punishing yourself for."
Her face looked slightly pained admitting to the next part. "I also made a lot of mistakes back then. Mistakes that pushed you far enough to snap. I pushed you way too hard, pushing you towards an unrealistic goal, with a bad method." He winced at the repeated use of the word 'push' in this context.
"Especially when it's not like you had any good instruction" Mari's brow furrowed "that tutor they hired was not worth her salt, old bitter hag, and she was already cheap as violin tutors go - and it's not like I could string two notes together on a violin."
She cut the beginning of her rant about Sunny's lack of competent violin educators off before she went any further. "Makes a lot of the, honestly, just plain mean things I said to you back then pretty hypocritical, huh? I was stressed with my workload back then, and ended up taking it out on you. You did not deserve that, at all. Getting so frustrated with your performance when you were honestly doing exceptionally under the circumstances. Instead I worked you so hard - you know, it honestly is a big screw-up on my part, that I didn't notice how badly hurt your hands were. Open blisters, and I didn't even notice."
Sunny cut in, surprisingly spirited in his sibling's defense, "I made a point of hiding that...I should have just shown you." Mari softly sighed, before smiling slightly, "Yes, you did, and yes, you should have, but you trying to hide your hands from me should have been pretty obvious. But I was obsessive enough I barely paid attention to the state of my own brother. I can only imagine how many kinds of overuse injuries you were on your way to back then."
Mari placed a hand on her little brother's shoulder. "There's a lot of reasons I forgive you, and why you should forgive yourself, little brother. And if I have to, I will keep coming back just to list them all if it will help you forgive yourself. Ultimately it's because, I repeat myself, you are my little brother, and it was an accident. An unlikely one, at that. Oh so perfectly" The word was laden with an uncharacteristically of her sister - in life at least, Sunny supposed, hoping this black and white Mari wasn't just another figment of his psyche - bitter sarcasm. "Managing to break my neck because I never learned to stick a landing. Dead so quick I honestly didn't realize I was dead until... you... walked..." Towards the end of the sentence she started to trail off slightly, with each word growing quieter, as if realizing she was perhaps saying a little too much.
She suddenly perked up, dragging the conversation back towards her original goal of encouraging her brother. "Anyway! Sunny, you have a whole life ahead of you, and I will be there for you, by your side. Every step of the way, I may not be able to be there for you in body, but brother of mine, I will be there for you." A hint of her smug smile showed through. "And all it will cost, dear brother, is your love!"
At this, Sunny, teary-eyed once again, lunged forward wrapping his arms tightly around his sibling, "Thank you, sis...th-thank you...I...I love you, Mari. I...I think I really needed to hear that. I...I really hope you're real, sis."
Sunny heard a sharp exhale from his sibling, nearly a snort, as her shoulder's jumped in evident amusement. "And I'll say it to you as many times as you need. Don't really have anything I could do to prove the last bit to you, but I will keep coming back to visit until you no longer doubt that I am the real deal," A bare hint of annoyance enters her tone, "unlike that dream doppleganger." Lighthearted again, "I do look nice with purple hair, though." Sunny let out a wordless "Mmhmm" in response to the last sentence.
After their emotionally charged conversation, the siblings settled into a companionable silence for several minutes, eventually settling to lay side by side in WHITESPACE. Mari, after who knows how long, spoke. "Looks like you are going to wake up soon, Sunny. I've got to get going, but little brother, I promise, I'll visit as often as I can. Finding my way here isn't the easiest thing, admittedly." Sunny found himself wondering what it takes to get from the afterlife to a dream. She, getting to her feet, pulling her brother up with her, dragged him into one more hug, one returned eagerly. "I...I really don't want you to go Sis. I wish we could just spend time together like we always used to..." A noise of assent from his sibling, "I wish we could too. But don't worry Sunny, this isn't goodbye...just look at it as 'goodnight' instead, alright?"
"Promise?"
"Of course, I promise."
With this, she broke their embrace, finally stepping back from her sibling. Behind her, the window from their own music room opened of it's own accord, an unearthly light glowing from beyond it. Mari, not looking away from Sunny, stepped backwards toward the window, as she reached it, she spoke. "I'll visit again soon, little brother." A stern, but not harsh tone, "And don't go joining me any time soon, young man, do you understand me?" A nod and a simple 'yes' in response. She all but jumped backwards through the window, disappearing in a flash of light.
Sunny woke up.
The day following that strange but comforting dream, Sunny was again very bored, waiting in a hospital bed most of the day. Some tests and examinations from the hospital. Hospital food. He managed to visit Basil briefly, but the hospital seems determined to restrict their contact, likely due to the source of their respective injuries. It occurred to Sunny that he seriously put a number on Basil. Malnourished goblin child who hadn't even been going outside again for a week manages to send an armed, suicidal gardener to the hospital. Either Basil is honestly just bad at fighting, or he must just be oddly good at it, Sunny thought. He found he didn't feel very bad at all about it, all things considered. Didn't find himself holding a major grudge either.
He managed to get the hospital to let him take some walks outside to stretch his legs and get some of his namesake sun. According to the doctor's he was recovering well so far, especially considering his state of malnutrition which was, Sunny was told, as much of why he was out for two days straight after arriving at the hospital as his actual injuries. Malnutrition and overexertion. He did sort of go from barely active shut-in, to running around town like a lunatic for three days, that was probably pushing too hard too fast.
That fifth night since the confession, he dreamed again of WHITESPACE. But something was different.
WELCOME TO WHITESPACE
Sunny appeared once more in WHITESPACE as himself, just as the previous night. This time, however, he noticed the window from the night prior was still very much present. No monochrome, spirit (although he found himself uncertain as to whether the monochrome Mari was a figment of his mind, or actually his sister reaching out to him. He really, really hoped it was the latter.) of his sibling to be seen.
He tried to just laze about WHITESPACE as he had done before. He found himself not just agonizingly bored, but increasingly frustrated. Lay around in the hospital all day, just to have to lay around even in his dreams. HEADSPACE wasn't an option at this point, as far as he was concerned. Sunny again desperately wished he would just dream of something else. It felt like the white door was taunting him. Now that he wanted to start living again, he was being denied it in the waking world. And now not even his dreams would provide stimulation. Unless he wanted to risk backsliding into old habits immediately. A quiet, but petulant whine escaped his lips in his aggravation.
A thought occurred to him. His gaze turned to the window still present in WHITESPACE. A reprieve from his boredom? He'd do about anything for one at this point as long as it didn't involve HEADSPACE.
He moved to the window, noticing again the unearthly white glow coming from beyond it. He found the window unlocked, opening easily. Sunny found a strange excitement, eagerness even, building in his chest, as well as a touch of fear. He tried to put a finger past the threshold of the window. His world went even whiter, brighter, than before.
Nothing.
And then, Sunny found himself somewhere new.