Chapter Text
-…-
There’s a boy who talks to himself when he walks.
He only does this alone, and he likes to keep it that way.
You can probably tell from the way he talks that he doesn’t talk much.
You can also probably guess from the way he walks that he doesn’t walk much.
It’s like seeing yourself through the eyes of no one else.
Playing this role that no one can actually see.
If this story were to revolve around him,
it would surely be submerged in a floating sea.
To drown in an endless current of an impossible imagination…
That would be fun.
But there would be someone else.
Playing a role no one did see.
You can tell from the way she talks that she doesn’t want to talk anymore than this.
You can tell from the way she swings that she doesn’t like to swing.
If this story were to revolve around her,
maybe it wouldn’t be a story any longer.
Was there a phrase for it? Even just a word?
There’s nothing on God’s green earth that told her tale.
So maybe, just maybe…
The imagination of a little boy could paint it all for us ever so vividly.
-…-
A day in Faraway. How poetic.
And now wasn’t the time for balladry.
He sees it. Something on the swings.
Maybe it was his eyes playing tricks on him, or the early morning which has yet to greet the rising sun, but there was definitely Something on the swings.
A stranger? Perhaps? That wouldn’t make sense.
Strangers look like humans.
This thing didn’t look like a stranger.
Its figure is fogged up in shade, as though the night could be visualised in a humanlike form.
Two specks of light denote marks on its face where eyes would usually be for a human. They were shaped like eggs lying on their sides, disappearing simultaneously now and then.
The cloak it wore was silky and streamlined for the most part. It’s probably the messiest part out of the whole get-up. The sharp and scattered shades of pink served as a waking contrast to the entity’s existence, as though yearning for something in the wind.
The wind. Yes. It was blowing.
And all this thing was doing was… swinging.
Swinging to a mumbling tune that Sunny found too beautiful to overlook.
So, as any other boy his age would, or perhaps would not do, Sunny went up to the second seat, dangling with impatience. This courage earned him a closer inspection of the clouded being.
It certainly resembled something humanoid, but under Sunny’s immature standards, it would remain as ‘Something’ for now.
What he initially perceived to be a gloomy cloak looks more like hair now, as though trailing in the same wind he felt brushing his puny arms.
…
Sunny could only ask, “Umm… what are y-“
“GAH! WHAT IN GOD’S NAME ARE YOU?” It retorts like a viper.
Of course, it would be taken aback. That’s only natural.
Sunny was usually mute as a child.
He always knew he had this majestic impact whenever he actually thought about opening his mouth.
It felt selfishly powerful, like the weight of his words could always swiftly drown out a room and its inhabitants.
A fiery breath that only exists in literature.
The boy liked that.
“Name? I’m Sunny. Saaah-neee.” He needed to make sure whatever this thing was could say his name.
“Sunny… Sunny you say?” So it could.
The two top lights blink on and off in repetition,
like those traffic lights he was supposed to look out for.
“Yeah, I’m 7. I have a sister. She’s 10.”
Her name was Mari, right? Sunny loved her.
She would always shower him with hugs and kisses, even if he didn’t open his mouth.
If Sunny needed attention, he would have gotten it with no questions asked.
If he needed to cry, Mari would let him as much as he needed to in her arms.
Sunny didn’t like crying, but with his sister around, he didn’t mind.
Mari gave oh so much to a boy who didn’t need it, but he understood how to appreciate it.
“Do you have a name?”
Curiosity only ever gets someone as far as they’re willing to question it.
“Your sister… Is her name Mari?”
But, the Something in the shade seems to be capable of curiosity too.
Again and again the lights would flicker . Blink, blink. Blink, blink.
“Yeah! She’s my big sister!”
With pride and joy, Sunny’s voice raised itself to an uneven beat.
A hint of the unknown is all it takes for a child to start chasing it.
That’s what it means to be born into this world.
“Do you… normally talk this much?”
That was its next question? How odd.
“I don’t like talking.”
“Then why?”
Sunny saw the pair of lights tilt slightly, as though mimicking a feline’s traits.
Because the Something in the shade was anything but a person — to Sunny at least.
As a child, he found it hard to articulate his needs to the people around him. That’s just who Sunny is.
With Mari around, he didn’t need to voice anything he desired.
She would always be there, by his side, loving him without reason or deadlines.
It is only in his dreams and boundless imagination that Sunny could be the boy he always had been.
A boy who was just curious as he was creative, longing for something he could finally be ‘Sunny’ with.
“I don’t know. You look like you come from a dream.”
“Funny, I’d say the same for you.” How odd.
The Something in the shade shared the sentiment.
“Then, are you the one dreaming, or am I dreaming?”
When you have doubts, you have doubts.
There was no certainty in Sunny’s feelings or thoughts.
“You think I ain’t asking that myself? God this is so freaky.”
The creature’s torso begins to vaporise as it separates itself from the swings.
“Where are you going?”
“Away. I don’t need this now.”
A parting as sudden as their meeting.
Though Sunny still knew nothing,
felt nothing,
and understood nothing,
he was suddenly so terrified that this Something in the shade was going to leave him.
“Hello?”
He called out, but there was no reply.
He does so once more, but of course there was still nothing.
…
To be left to his quixotic thoughts, the boy swings alone for a bit.
“I met a stranger today.”
Do people often say that?
It seems pretty unrealistic.
He still wasn’t sure if that thing could be called a ‘Stranger’.
It could speak.
It could raise its voice.
It could answer questions. Is all that enough to call it human?
The swings weren't a place for thinking. It’s for swinging, hence its name.
Maybe it was time for him to go home.
Because home is a place that always waits for Sunny.
“You’ve been out for so long, Sunny! Where did your adventures take you today?” He heard before suffocating in his sister’s embrace.
Mari had been waiting for quite some time, hours even? Who’s to say?
Pink. He thought it, and faltered when voicing it.
“Did something catch your eye perhaps? Let’s talk about it after dinner!” Always eager to pry in her brother’s life , this is the love Sunny grew up with.
It’s in this world that Sunny doesn’t get to speak.
He never has to, even if today was as special as it had been.
“What’cha drawing?”
Because there will always be things that words can’t depict.
Things that also can’t be brought to life through crayons alone.
Sunny’s one big dreamer, and that dream has always been far out of reach.
That world where he could be what whatever he always wanted to be.
The president? Nope.
The king? Nope.
The god? That would be nice.
But Sunny just wanted to be a boy.
“Oooh, it looks pretty… Hey, that pink hair! It looks like-”
-…-
It would only be a day later when he ran into Something in the shade again.
“Hi, I think I know what you are.”
“Go on then.” It seems impatient.
Here was the only place where Sunny was permitted to dream out loud.
“Well, you must be Sweetheart!”
“HUUH?! WHERE DOES THAT COME FROM?”
There was most certainly a crimson hue that flashed across the figure’s…
Well, what should be cheeks for a human.
Huh. The hair hypothesis just didn’t work, better explain it then.
“You can… see my hair?”
Thin and elongated branches run through its hair.
Each stroke paints a ephemeral shade of pink, fading away with every twirl and flick.
The Something in the shade called it ‘hair’. Could Sunny believe that? Real hair shouldn’t be pink.
“Yeah.” The boy reinforces. He could, after all.
“I can’t see yours.”
Truly odd.
There was something in this world that couldn’t see Sunny’s hair.
“What can you see?”
What did this thing see? Sunny just had to know.
“Your dark eyes, and that’s about it.”
“That’s weird.” It was weird.
Sunny could see his own eyes too.
He would need a mirror, sure, but the boy was pretty confident he could see all of himself perfectly clearly.
“How is your hair pink?”
“I dyed it.”
“I like it.”
It was something he didn’t see everyday, an outstanding rose to an otherwise barren field.
If his dreams could be that colourful…
Ah, if only.
Sunny could only dream for that to happen.
“HAA?! WUUH?! OF- of course you would.” The pair of lights on its face flattened out as they bent forward.
The figure began playing with its hair much more fervently now.
“Is it a bad thing? I’m sorry.” He didn’t like it when people would raise their voices, only to hush down right away.
“No no no. It’s fine.”
Conversations.
Sunny would have to learn how to handle them better. It’s probably his only way to get to know this thing better.
“Why did you colour it?”
“Because I made a promise with your sister.”
“You know Mari?”
To Sunny, at least, the two did have their fair share of similarities.
Both of them talked to Sunny a lot.
And if he thought even harder, that would be where the similarities ended.
“Yeah. We used to be friends.”
“She’s super nice! She lets me sleep in her bed when I have scary nightmares, and…and hugs me all the time! I really love her!”
Like the stars in the skies, Sunny’s eyes would sparkle with excitement.This was one of the rare occasions Sunny could pour out these voices from his heart, with no one to listen to them except this Something in the shade.
“Yeah. Yeah she is.”
Those words were the most powerful Sunny had ever heard out of its mouth.
But that didn’t matter.
If this thing knew Mari, it couldn’t be that bad.
“Are you her boyfriend?” Ah, youth .
“Hah? I’m a girl, you know?”
“A girlfriend? How does that work?” Ah, youth once more.
If Sunny could infer anything from that gnarly glare, it would probably be that this girl was starting to get a little ticked off.
Like his mother and father would whenever he kept distracting Mari from her schoolwork.
It’s not his fault at all, Mari’s the one who tore herself away from her own toil to have fun with Sunny.
“We aren’t like that, Sunny. End of discussion.”
“Then what are you guys like?”
“End. Of. Discussion.” Okay, now it was getting irritated.
What do people do now?
There are only so few options for Sunny to pick from, and he managed the only one he recognized.
Maybe I can talk about something else?
“Do you like swinging?”
“No. Not really.” That was a swift reply, as though rehearsed.
“Then why do you do it?”
Her motions come to a halt, with her hair trailing behind shortly after.
For the first time, Sunny got to explore more of those mystifying lights that captivated his own.
The unusual and fantastical pair of radiance with a mesmerising voice of its own.
“Who knows? Maybe it was just to see you again…”
“You wanted to see me?” How was a boy to respond to this?
“Nope.”
With that final denial, their meeting faced an abrupt end.
She drifted away, without a shred of hesitation.
It was still too early to be certain, but at the very least, there was this sliver of a possibility.
A chance that this girl might be living in a different world than Sunny.
A world where hair could be pink.
One where a person could sit on the swings even when they didn’t like doing so.
A dream for people who couldn’t see Sunny’s hair.
A reality unlike the one he’s stuck with, but Mari was there too.
“I think I made a friend today.”
Do people really say that? It sounds pretty funny.
Who’d thought that this stranger in the shade could be so interesting?
Whatever it was, he wanted to share a little bit more of it with Mari this time.
And if words don’t work, he could always beg with an undue silence.