Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

"Mari? Where are we going? " the girl in the modest pink dress asked. The summer breeze gently blew the hair of the tiny resident of Faraway Town, applying a pleasant layer of peace and tranquility to her childish skin. Right now, a bright sun shone over the heads of the two ladies, the youngest and the oldest, mercifully warming the air enough for them to breathe comfortably. There was nobody between the cottages but the two of them, which meant that worries about being too loud could be fiercely forgotten. Not that she had any plans for it, she might be a loud child, but certainly not like Kel, but it was a small fact that lifted the already happy princess' spirits. She would be free to hear every word spoken by one of the most important people in her life. 

Mari. 

A wonderful girl for her young age. Between them, only three years apart, only a couple of school years, and this person has already managed to make an impressive list of great achievements. Excellent grades, the most popular student in the school, the most beautiful young lady of their backwoods, a great musician, a talented cook, the kindest person among all the people known to the short child. Give Aubrey a free hand, and she would spend the next hour enumerating by merit the titles attached, and then describe in detail how, when, why, and in what place, the title was finally secured. But this is just a peal from the beautiful fruit, which is a familiar young lady, because inside the seed, there were always those values, about the existence of which, no one knew but the two of them. Their names were best friend, older sister, and mother. The three pillars on which Aubergine had elevated the long-haired beauty, placing her above the heavens themselves. And fully deserved. In moments of sorrow, she was always there, ready to help in word and deed. When there was a woman's question that no one, be it a teacher, a mother or a doctor, could answer, she appeared as if from nowhere, ready to answer without the slightest glimmer of disgust at such topics. Yes, and putting aside all that serious stuff, it was only with her that she felt so comfortable and cozy. Like in the arms of a loving mother, ready to protect, nurture, love like a child. Such a majestic and such a beautiful woman, Aubrey wants to grow up to be one day. Though she may never be able to reach such a high bar. 

"Oh, it's no big deal. Just figured, why don't you and I have a little picnic? It's been so long since we've spent time together, with everything that's come over us. I've really missed our girlie gossip!" - With her melodious voice, like a lulling song from a fresh piano, freshly made and tuned by a master, the maiden blessed the schoolgirl. Her manner of speech always brought a peculiar sense of positivity and protection, in times of utter vulnerability. Perhaps that was one of the factors why she had begun to open up to her so actively at their sit-downs together. It seemed to be a common trait among Suzuki's children. The outfit, a gallant dark purple skirt from the waist down to her ankles. And a simple polo shirt, yellowish, with short sleeves. Nothing particularly extravagant, it would seem. But to her, such modesty in the choice of appearance, very much suited. Almost the direct meaning of the phrase - "Don't judge a book by its cover". Not like her aquamarine dress. Although... Mari would probably look good in it, too. Rather, she'd already looked pretty in it once. It had been given to Aubrey personally by her, as one of the many examples of her amazing kindness. 

"Hee-hee-hee! I missed them too. Gosh, when was the last time we had one of these? I can't even tell anymore." - the soft toy lover exclaimed in a thin voice, straining her nut head as she tried to pull at least one thin note from the library with memories of their past picnic. Unfortunately, there were no vivid pictures or scenes, just something blurry. Sad, of course, but it was silly to be discouraged by such a tiny detail, and so, she immediately decided to change the subject to something less depressing. As Mari had always taught her. "Hmm, actually, I'm curious. Are you sure this is the right time for this? Yeah, summer and beautiful and all that, but you and Sunny usually have practice for the concert these days. Right?"

"Oh, you don't have to worry about that. He's a little sick, so I canceled the rehearsal and asked Hero to take care of it. He'll be fine." - She tried to dispel the girl's worries by placing a hand on her baby's head and petting her along the growth of her hairline. Every touch, whether it was holding hands, hugging, kissing cheeks, or sleeping together at their frequent sleepovers, felt like a breath of fresh air after a lifetime of living next to a burning dump. An almost magical feeling, sending a powerful flow of warm energy through the middle schooler's entire body, instilling nothing less than a desire to feel that kind of love again, the very next second. "Besides, I've somehow gotten too caught up in the music room, and you, I've noticed, often wander around tiredly. A nice picnic will help with that. Now, come on! The quicker we get to the place, the quicker the fun begins!"

Her words turned out to be true. It didn't take a couple minutes, and the group of two had already entered the park, passing by all the famous objects of the city, almost landmarks. An old green bench, an old homeless man sleeping nearby, a playground with a yellow cat, and a sports court. People here and there, be it children be it adults, greeted the gifted teenager with all possible kind words. There wasn't a single person in this backwater who didn't know who she was. And it's no wonder, because in addition to helping her, her family and all her friends, Mari was also famous for her boundless altruism. A characteristic that gave the maiden a fine name among the fair folk. Isn't that wonderful? Though, walking hand in hand with her and occasionally smiling her classic 'V', Aubrey felt a kind of pride that among them all, only she had the honor of having a strong bond. Yes, she's a bit too arrogant, but come on! Give the little one a break. Anyway, it didn't matter so much anymore, for heading towards the upper right corner of the grassy area of the sleeping area, the pair set off through the thicket straight north, bursting between trees, bushes and bits of broken wood, towards their destination. A secret spot where a group of friends, for a while, liked to hang out. An isolated oasis in the middle of the wilderness, with a quiet atmosphere of nirvana, a tiny lake in the middle, and a moss-covered monument in the form of a stone arch. The road to a better life. "Mari, are you sure this is the right place? Sunny almost drowned here a couple months ago, and you've forbidden us to visit it...' - The girl in the dress mumbled awkwardly, shuddering at this unpleasant memory. A second wince followed from her older sister, which was completely fair. After all, through the fault of two idiots and an extremely high bill of goods in the older young lady's younger brother, they had almost lost the baby of the company. It would have been a horrible event if not for a prodigy who came up by miraculous coincidence and jumped into the cold water without a second thought. Her bravery is immeasurable.

"Brr... "Let's not talk about it, okay? No one's going in the water, it's a nice place, and that's what matters first. Plus, we're having a nice vacation, which means we can relax." The mother figure proclaimed, spreading out a checkered plaid right under the tree so that no one would see them. Settling down together on the fabric, placing the basket next to it and clapping her hands together, Mari smiled from ear to ear. "Well, here we are all set. I declare the meeting of the Faraway Gossip Girl's Club, officially open!"

"'Yeaaay!" - shrieked Aubrey, immediately jumping into her big sister's arms. She, in turn, responded in kind, squeezing the girl tighter. Her right hand on her back, the other closer to waist level. A little more and her bones would have cracked. But the little fidgety girl even liked it, to some extent, because in such a slightly uncomfortable way, the tall girl expressed her great love for her. Such a tiny trait, in a brief moment, was inherited by her pupil. Admittedly, with mixed success, for when she tried to show Sunny the joy of spending time with him in the same way, he almost choked. What can you do, that's why she's the strongest of the younger part of the group. Anyway, sighing heavily at the fitful desire, Aubergine stepped out of the pleasant grip, creeping closer and sitting down comfortably beside her, smiling exactly as she did. "So, what are we having for lunch today?"

"Heehee. You're a little glutton, aren't you? Then let's see it now!" - Mari said in a playful manner, reaching her hands straight for the lid, opening it. From the darkened space of the carrier, the young sorceress pulled out a variety of sweets. Almost in the sequence of 'First, second, third, dessert and fruit juice'. Not as much, of course, but still very nutritious and tasty. Some delicious triangle sandwiches, a thermos of warm black tea, slices of fried eggplant in a container, and specialty chocolate chip cookies. A feast for the world, so to speak. All the viands, smelled divine. The dishes prepared by the hands of the group's wonderful chef, Hero only assistant chef, made my mouth water, and that was without taking a single bite. Despite the fact that it was not the first time they had eaten the treats here together, they always managed to impress the girl's receptors with their inexpressible flavor. And all, only because of the skills of her named mom. "Tada! Alright, let's raid before it gets cold, and once we're done, we'll gossip right away."

At Mari's behest, the food was devoured in a matter of minutes. Predominantly by a naughty girl, much to her embarrassment. Her desire to be a proper lady often conflicted with the urges of her insatiable, pre-adolescent stomach, and so she and Kel often began tiny championships of eating speed, even if it ended with both children pulling each other's hair, forgetting the original purpose of the competition. And though Aubrey had tried to restrain herself by putting small portions between her teeth, now she didn't have to. Why worry about her image in front of people who mistook her for what she was? Of course not. So it was safe to leave a few crumbs on the knitted bedding. When the container was empty, the sandwiches eaten, the cookies devoured in one bite, and the thermos drunk to the bottom, the two young ladies sat down relaxedly with full bellies, almost melting from the combined efforts of the warm sun and satiety. " Booooo.... I'm full..." - Aubrey mumbled, falling into slumber, immediately awakened by a Mari's flick on her nose. 

"I'm glad you enjoyed our food, but you can't sleep. Aren't you wondering what secrets I learned a few days ago?" - The older sister playfully stretched out, squinting her devilish cat face. Just from the utterance of that sentence, all sleep was magically stripped away, magically giving her the strength to jerk upward, into a sitting position, where she folded her hands in her lap, with stars in her eyes, enduring as best she could, waiting for fresh gossip. Her behavior amused the girl, for a melodious laugh fell from her lips, which she covered with her hand, casting a reproachful glance in the direction of her little sister. "Pfh. Look how much energy came out at once. Alright then. One secret from me, and one from you. Just like we always do. Ready?" 

"Yes!" - squeaked the girl, somewhat vibrating with the hunger burning inside her for fresh, hidden knowledge. To tell the truth, most of it wasn't that special. Just small, minor points of interest, like Hero's immunity to all horror movies except those with spiders in them, or the incident with Sunny where he slept in the cat bed all day. Completely harmless. But since the conversation is between the only female members of the group, and one of them likes to nitpick people and the other has rapidly adopted that trait from her, such information has often been used in a bad way. But hey! When you've been behaving diligently all week, you can be a little mean at times. "Tell me, tell me, tell me."

"Heehee. All right. Here's your first one. Did you know Sunny has..." - stretched out the young woman, deliberately stretching out the moment of truth-telling, glancing at the ever-increasing smiles on the eager face of the eager joke material. "... A very sensitive back?" 

"Really?" - Aubrey asked in response, wondering how she could not have known that. After years of communication, such an insignificant detail should have been revealed to her. 

"Uh-huh. If you pet him, he'll purr like a kitten. If you run your fingers over him, he'll shiver. And if you accidentally scratch him, he makes the most adorable sound in the world!" - Mari explained the contents of this important secret, giving the girl a whole field for experimentation. If his back was so tender, it was hard to imagine the amazing expanse of possibilities available to her from now on. Only a small question remained, though.

"And how do you know that? - Asked the girl in the old dress.

"I'm his sister, remember? It's my sacred duty to know everything and anything about him." - said the essentially obvious thing the young lady said. Sometimes, Aubergine could get too lost in the clouds or fall out of reality, forgetting the simplest information.

"Oh, right. Ehehe... Now it's my turn." - Confirming her words with a smiling nod from her motherly figure, the maiden took a deep breath, trying not to laugh at the mention of such an embarrassing fact. "Kel has a mole, right on his.... You know."

"Oooooo~ However, sorry Aubs. I already know about that." - Suzuki's daughter emphasized, forcing the younger of the two of them to be shocked. "One day, while you and the others were chatting, a boy jumped into the water at the beach and lost his swimming shorts. Thought he'd managed to put them on before anyone noticed, but I got a glimpse of that little dot."

"Ahhh. That's it. Hmm..." - mooed the mini copy of the pianist, frowning worriedly, flipping through the mountains of secrets to find something new. She didn't have time to find anything useful, though, as Mari's words interrupted her musings.

"Oh, don't bother sweetie. Just count it as a successful turn. Okay, I'm telling you. Did you know that..." - the young lady began her move, looking around thoughtfully, seemingly checking to see if anyone was watching them. "... Basil is actually quite the athletic boy." 

"No way. Liar!" - she said in her thin little voice, refusing to believe such an implausibility. "He looks like a wand, doesn't he? Even Sunny could probably beat him. Not that they'd ever fight."

"Oh, I certainly hope so. But you know those boys, they're always full of surprises." - There were giggles from the two teenagers in the air, fully confirming the previous statement. "But it's the real truth! I give you my word as a pianist! He may seem soft and innocent from the outside, but underneath his exterior, lurks a possible athlete."

"That's it. And why is that?" - Aubrey inquired, raising an eyebrow. Even straining every twist and turn of her brain, there was no way she could picture that florist and photographer as a kid of outstanding physique. On reflection, though, the sight of Basil with a decent physique sounded tempting.

"Well, because he's very hardy and strong of course! You and the others may not have seen it, but the flower boy can easily lift whole bags of soil and often carries heavy weights. I assure you, his arms may look like sticks, but those sticks are actually hard branches. And it's easy for him to hold himself up for long periods of time under strain. Although, he stinks a lot afterward. But that's not important. He's a growing boy, so it's a normal process." - Mari gave a detailed explanation, blossoming a little at the description of all the colorful details. The girl found it a little odd, but not that she minded. After all, after all, she now had solid proof. Mari never deceives anyone or tells lies.

"I see, I'll definitely keep that in mind. But I got curious. Don't you have any secrets about Kel, or Hero for that matter? You're close to them too, but you only talk about Sunny and Basil for some reason," Aubergine mentioned, curious about this particular aspect of their current conversation.

"Honey, we've only just begun our exchange of change for change, haven't we? Don't worry, I have a lot of goodies in store." - The band mom said caustically, flashing that glorified face again. Aubrey became a little scared at what in theory she could mention now, for she was looking at her older sister, right at her. "Oh, and besides, aren't you curious to know more about your future husbands~"

"Mari! Mmm...." - Aubrey embarrassed let out some semblance of speech, transformed through the efforts of her compressed lips into a moo, blushing visibly. The situation didn't get any better when a self-satisfied chuckle from the young lady reached the girl's ears, stretching the color from her cheeks, to her ears and neck. Honestly, the girl had no idea how that had even happened. Of course, she couldn't expect her unconventional feelings for two boys at once to remain a secret until the grave. Someone, someday, would find out. Maybe one of them, or maybe Kel the fool. But certainly sometimes, and in somewhat rare moments, Aubergine cursed, for months, the younger version of herself for so terrible a mistake as a remark about their beauty that had come out of her mouth. From the moment of the accidental confession, there hadn't been a single week when the older sister had decided to restrain herself from starting cruel jokes in her direction. What can I say, the queen of bullying has no favorites. It doesn't matter if the victim is related by blood, long friendship or romance. Everyone will fall all over themselves for the ruler of banter. Of course, the young athlete did not perceive the jokes of a relative as something evil. After all, she understood about the hidden sympathy in each such case. Rather, the crumb was somewhat annoyed by it. However, she would be quite ashamed to deny that she was grateful to Mari for this approach to her crushes. At the very least, it shows a clear acceptance of the girl's feelings and a willingness to help with good advice related to the two fools.

"Oh, don't be so embarrassed. I'm being loving~" the growing woman admonished her intentions, sitting down closer to her and throwing an arm across her neck and over her shoulder. A rather unexpected gesture, but the young ruffian took it calmly. They were often in close bodily contact, and had slept together a couple times, so there was no reason to react in any way other than acceptance. No reason at all. "But seriously, Obi, you should hurry up. You're going to lose two bars of gold if you keep waiting for the right moment, aren't you! You won't find such a hopeless romantic and fantastic photographer in a century. Just think of the opportunities they could give you. One will compose violin parts for you, and the other will hand-pick meaningful bouquets every week. Self composed music and handmade bouquets! Hello, is anyone home? It's literally every girl's dream!"

"But I'm scared. I like them both very much, and I'm afraid that if I choose one, the other will get mad at me and him. I value our friendship..." - Aubrey squeaked slightly pessimistically, pulling her knees up to her chest and puffing up her cheeks, her head down on her cups. The dilemma was certainly not an easy one. On the one hand, the younger brother of the role model. Smart, quiet, altruistic, cute brunette, creative kid who puts everyone else's desires above his own. An amazing gentleman, a superb musician and a spokesman for excellent hugs. He's calm, relaxed and even somewhat fun to be with, if you consider those brief moments when the quiet guy acts like an outspoken goblin. Isn't that the perfect boyfriend? Essentially yes, but then along comes her first, I mean very first, friend in her life.  Wonderful, caring, well-read, soft to the bone blond beauty, smiling even in the most difficult situations. A wonderful gentleman, expert in botany, detective work and a very savvy young man. He can tell so many facts about plants, nature, literature and much more, and it will still be interesting to spend time with him. Also, a wonderful candidate for the role of partner! But who to choose? Choose one, and the second will be left with a broken heart, because between the three have already noticed a kind of sympathy, beyond the usual friends. And not just broken, but forever trampled, because in the group, these two kids were famous for their emotional sensitivity. And Aubrey didn't want to be the cause of anyone's grief. In her mind, by choosing one option or the other, she would end up betraying both of them, because by reasonable coincidence, when two quiet people have long conversations over the course of several years, a bond stronger than a sailor's rope is formed between them. Consequently, things would go wrong. "Mari, what should I do?"

"Hmm... Why not just ask them both to date you?" - gave out this information to the girl in such a lackadaisical manner that it was as if she hadn't retrieved a lost folio of the ancient mysteries of the universe from her basket.

"What? But aren't a girl and a boy supposed to, sort of. Just the two of them? And boy and boy are kind of..." - Aubergine squeezed out barely audible sentences, voicing the relationship knowledge that was available to the average twelve-year-old girl of the early two-thousandths. To her surprise, however, her older sister told her a couple of interesting facts that were not one hundred percent likely to help her. 

"Oh, honey, what are you talking about? Of course boys can love other boys. And girls at the same time, too. And couples don't always have to consist of two participants. It's called bisexuality and polygamy. You'll be studying that in high school. But in a nutshell, groups of people more than the average two people can safely start a relationship as long as they are all in love with each other, and are willing to interact with each other all the time! Cases are rare, yes not always end well, but if you consider your strong friendship, it can end up very even perfect. The main thing is to seize the opportunity while you have it." - The girl spoke calmly, not noticing the growing tears in the tiny brigand's eyes. Only when she finished her speech, she got a little excited, but soon relaxed when the little girl rushed into her arms, squeezing hard, showing her endless gratitude for the destruction of her insecurities.

"God, thank you Mari. Thank you thank you thank you." - Whimpered into the older lady's shoulder, that young one, wiping water on a soft cloth. Just a couple of sentences and facts had torn down the maiden's wall of fears, showing her the bright light of a future together with two gorgeous lovers. Now, she was definitely motivated and confident in their possible relationship. In the love she could show them for the great value they showed daily for her sake. All thanks to her big sister Mari. Her best friend and mother. Aubrey simply didn't have the words to fully describe the significance of this past conversation, and she deeply doubted she ever would. 

"Aaaawwww. It's nothing. The least I can do for my little sister! Hey, don't you cry like that. I'm sure they'll both agree. They're very good boys, so you'll look really cute together. Actually, uh. Do you want me to mop up your tears with my special method?"~" the Suzuki daughter jokingly mouthed, letting out that very face for mockery, shooting slightly covered eyes at the girl who had stopped her sadness. Aubrey knew very well what lay behind those insidious stares, and from what, froze in place with drying streaks on her cheeks.

"Oh oh," were the last words Aubergine said, before her mouth, could only let a rolling laugh pass from her throat, in a thin and cute little voice. The pianist's nervously long fingers skillfully ran over the teen's ribs and sides through the fabric, tickling at her most vulnerable spots, forcing her to not just laugh now, but to roar from the overflowing streams of energy through her nerves into her brain. The girl's body shuddered and pushed in different directions, but each time, almost reaching the point of escape from the cruel bully, her grip brought the baseball player back to the plaid, continuing the incredible torture."

"Tickle, tickle, tickle!" The moments stretched like melted cheese, which meant long and too agonizing, Aubrey practically suffocating. Every bit of air was quickly inhaled and returned outward, and her stomach churned with endless laughter. Thankfully, her older sister soon got tired of tormenting the poor and innocent sheep and took a break, giving her a chance to catch her breath. The tickling was so intense that sweat ran down the little runner's entire body, along with her hair, which was scattered on the surface of the bedding. Appreciating every gulp of oxygen that came into her lungs, the black-haired fidgeted focused her vision, trying to figure out what it was looming over her. As it turned out, it was her. A gifted young person looking at her in a peculiar way. Her hair cascaded down around the athlete, somewhat like curtains covering their heads with black blinds. The young lady's arms were positioned just to the sides of the maiden's head, and one of her knees, a healthy one if she remembered correctly, rested between the younger girl's legs. Very close. Aubrey felt a little uneasy, and the silence between the two of them formed a discomforting lump deep in her stomach. And some strange feeling. Was it fear? But it couldn't be, could it? She could never even think of the concept of fearing the lady who had protected her since the moment they'd met. But if this was true, then why was it difficult for her to utter a single word?

"M-Mari, are you alright? You're very... Stare-"

Her lips did not have time to utter a word, for they found themselves smothered by the stranger's lips of an older, stronger and more significant girl than she. The first gesture of love, which she had kept for the most remarkable of young men, was stolen by a she-wolf in a sheep carcass.

This act, came completely out of nowhere. Just a few minutes ago they had been exchanging funny facts and passing the time like two ordinary girlfriends, and now, their mouths were intertwined in a one-sided kiss that shocked Aubergine to the bare bones. None of what was happening made sense. The girl's head was spinning and aching from the overwhelming flood of information that flooded the expanse of her mind. Thousands of questions, worries, terrors, and feelings flowing through her nervous system as a result of the overly assertive mucosa-to-mucosa contact. She couldn't adequately think, ponder, or attempt to form words, in the few seconds that the woman's tongue left the young lady's mouth. The only thing that was definitely clear to her was a horrible feeling of disgust. That feeling, immediately provoked an instinctive urge to resist, soon cut short when the kneecap was abruptly pressed down, and began to move right there. To the revulsion, came the now confirmed fear, of unwanted sparks striking a juvenile nerve. It was all wrong, vile, and outrageous. From the downpour of events, Aubrey lost even the chance to try to escape, for the schoolgirl's body was trivializing the overflowing, previously unexpressed feelings. Moans came out of the middle schooler's mouth, frightening her by the mere fact of their appearance and her body's reaction. She barely breathed, trying to say the slightest syllable, but unfortunately every effort was met with a counterattack from Mari, whose hand joined the outrageous crime, greedily prowling the victim's stomach and other forbidden parts.

"Mari... What are you doing? N-n-no, stop!..... Please!" - mooed the little brunette with education in her mouth as her weakened voice returned to the poor girl. She genuinely hated that her body was reacting this way to every touch that happened now. In the arms of the one she had rightfully called great, praised all her life, and genuinely enjoyed the protection of a motherly persona, she now trembled at the horribly cold contact, making an effort to restrain her raging brain into at least a copy of clear reasoning. 

"Oh, my dear... How I've waited so long for this... You have no idea..." - the teen whispered nauseatingly in her ear, attacking the new toy's collarbone without a drop of mercy, forcing the girl to let out pain-stained sobs. The red marks, whether from the vacuum of her mouth or her teeth, forever shattered the image of the innocent child, revealing her new, repulsive experience. As for the perpetrator herself, she was quite enjoying what was happening, judging by the increasing pace of heavy breathing. Those were not the sounds of an adequate person making love to a man bound by thick ties of sympathy. Completely different. The growls of a bloodthirsty predator catching fresh prey. "Relax, sweetheart... We can both get some enjoyment out of this...  I assure you, you're sure to enjoy it...Your efforts are only hurting me more..."

"Oh-stop!.... You're hurting me... Hurt!.... Stop!.... W-why are you doing this?.. I loved you..." - Aubrey begged pitifully for an end to her suffering, only to receive another squeeze of flesh, a bite, a scratch, and the melody of tearing clothes, accompanied by the wind blowing fast streams over her bare skin. Suddenly, the air waves turned cold. The foliage rustled harder, plucking the green patterned leaves spinning non-stop, only inflicting more pain with the sharp blows on the naked parts of her sheath. Blood oozed from the slightest wound, scratch, mark. She felt like a mutilated doll, in the obedience of a sadistic puppeteer. "I-it's so... Wrong... Please get away from me... Please... W-what about Hero...? Why are you doing this to him...?"

"Oh, Hero doesn't mind at all!.... He's a very obedient young man, and realizes that my stress, can't be relieved by him alone... You're such a good girl, Aubergine...  You're so wonderful. The others will be very happy when you start helping me too... " - Mari poured hot oil into the victim's ear lobes, emitting wrenching chuckles after each sentence. It seemed as if the pianist was completely immersed in sin, enjoying the new, different from her usual behavior, image. Both figuratively and literally, for out of nowhere, on the dried-up features of the rapist appeared a dirt-stained white dress, hanging like a silk cloth on a mummy, and a tight rope around her neck, so tight that it seemed a little tighter and her older sister's vertebrae would crunch. Gone was any warmth, kinship, or empathy. What remained was coldness, alienation, and selfishness. "You know... Sunny loves you very much ... My little brother is a very kind boy... While he was helping me practice... I taught him a lot of nice things that he can make you happy. Just like I taught the others. Don't worry, I don't mind sharing my boys with you... It's more fun that way. Aren't I the perfect sister...? You are the most important thing to me.... So why won't you accept my love....?"

"Wh-wh-what?.... You... You and Sunny... And the others...N-no! .... Please, just don't... Please!" - the little girl pleaded with all her might, falling apart and losing control of her mind and body. The stimulation became too much for the schoolgirl's unprepared body, enveloping her wave after wave of bitter-sweet sensation, plunging needles of obscene pleasure into her gray matter. A feeling she frankly despised. The monster's sharp claws tore into the tiny, defenseless puppet's body, leaving the little girl imperfect and ruined. She would never smile again, never be able to enjoy life in her body or show love to her future husbands, for any effort in this direction would be a reminder of those traumatic minutes. Minutes that stretched like hours, days, weeks and years. The trees around him rose to the heavens, turning grotesquely red, outlining the features of a smiling monster whose eyes read only primal lust. "P-please... I don't want to... I trusted you... For what... Stop... "

"For what...? Oh, Aubrey... Sweet, beautiful, naive, silly Aubrey... You were always my favorite. Such a fragile, defenseless, pure princess... Maybe I should have kissed you first instead of your little brother.... For I love you..." - came the rot contaminated phrase from the lips of the high school girl demon, hitting the beautiful woman destroyed inside and out. The woman's voice twisted with a grotesque timbre. It no longer brought back beautiful memories of evenings at sleepovers reading them fairy tales and lulling them to sleep with sweet song. Now, it was poisoning the young girl's mind with a crackling whisper that threatened to drive her to madness. Aubergine realized that something was building up inside her. Something strong, destructive, and repulsive. That something, with one hundred percent probability would throw the girl over the edge, unleashing the kind of avalanche that should feel pleasant, in the company of someone she trusted. But here, there was no one. Just her, Something, and the pain. "Oh... poor thing. You're crying and frowning. Let me put a smile on you.... All it's worth is your love~"

Mari's terrified face did move away from the young lady's head, but to her horror, headed downward. Aubrey was too exhausted by the older woman's touch to even try to resist the final step before her psychological and possibly physical demise. She wanted to scream, to throw a fit, to beg for help, to do anything to keep what was coming from happening. But all she could manage were the thin sobs and moans of a used toy, with the painful clenching of her hands on the fabric of the liquid-shamed plaid. The next second, something entered and touched her deeply inside, hurling the victim off the cliff, toward an immoral finale. The teenager's back arched to the limit, and from her frozen breathing in an explosion of unwanted ecstasy, it seemed to her that soon, death would come. Looking with widened eyes into the void, the suffering maiden discovered a blood-chilling picture turned upside down. In a frightening red space, with goat horns hovering in infinity, on the cold tiles, lay beneath the hospital bed Henry, Kelsey, and Basil, looking unlike themselves. Those were their younger selves, once untouchable versions, now destroyed by the exertions of a cruel egomaniac. Clothes crumpled, covered in stains, nail holes, and for the most part with their pants pulled down. On their faces, faint but derived from the imposed pleasure, smiles. On the old bed, sitting with a straight back, the older sister rapist, held her younger brother on her lap, groping his wounded thighs, desiccated to an empty shell. With her slender fingers, the one who had lost her role model status held the chin of the sacrificial lamb. On Sunny's face, the widest smile in existence. The two relatives, one out of a sense of duty and the other out of abnormal hunger, reached for each other's lips. Their practice continued, and even if someone interrupted them, this monster would regain what she so fiercely desired....

No...

No.

No.

No!

No!!

NO!!!

"Sunny!!!!" - shrieked the sixteen-year-old high school student, rising in a cold sweat from her soaked mattress. There wasn't a soul around. No one was trying to take advantage of her, and she wasn't lying on any plaid. She's safe, warm, cozy, and in a home where her personal boundaries are respected. Where she is truly loved. After a minute of intermittent shortness of breath, Aubrey calmed down, getting her lungs working properly. Distinct traces of tears traced dry streaks down the cheeks of the girl who had awakened from an unpleasant dream. Brushing away the wet residue with her palms, the teenager loudly emitted something bordering between a growl and a grunt. Simply put, the sound of serious sleep deprivation. "Oh ... More nightmares... Holy shit..."

The girl's eyes started the environmental inspection process, confirming her first result. The fears proved to be irrational, for she is, after all, in her own room. Not the largest, but certainly cozy. Almost stiflingly comfortable and filled with signs of cherishing so much that add a few more little things and she would be found to have diabetes. It couldn't have been any other way, after all, the room had been updated by her father's hands. Of course, not at the first attempt, through many trials, and this old man somehow wrapped himself in a pile of wallpaper, but still he did it. It's all pink, with different shades. Aubrey's favorite color. Scattered around the room are numerous things bought with money from part-time jobs, or mostly pocket money from my dad. The lava lamps, which at the moment bring a touch of light to the air of the dark room, were bought from vendors from his initiative, for example. Or another example, those countless stuffed toys she no longer knew where to put! She is no longer a child, a growing woman, soon to be eighteen, but apparently in the heart of the hippie man will forever remain the image of that little and cute princess begging him for a plastic bat. Almost daily, the father expressed at least four times how very lucky he was to have such a daughter. And since his words couldn't show the full extent of that amazing, parental love, he showed them with his purchases. Aubergine had no words to describe how much care she was surrounded by at the moment. The day when the weirdo was granted parental rights after all, and the mad woman disappeared from sight, leaving the two of them, wounded and defenseless, in each other's care, remained the happiest day of her life. Since that joyous date, life had only gotten better, never ceasing to seem perfect.  Before him, before this strange hippie who appeared like a never ending feeling of warmth on a nice fall day, there was only one person who showed such an incomparable level of support. That person was...

The slight smile that had formed on her features fell away as she thought of another reminder of the cause of her prolonged stress. A loud sigh left the maiden's nostrils as the hands touched her face a second time, now completely covering her expression. Darkness covered the lady's eyes as she once again emitted a strangled sound into the palm of her hand, cursing all the gods in existence in repeating the same process. The days go by, she tries to solve the incoming problems one by one, feels genuinely good for brief moments, and then goes back into the state of a dull vegetable. It certainly pissed her off to the point of steam coming out of her ears. The skin on her arms slapped her cheeks some : time ago positive personality, leaving no choice but to wake up for once from her lingering trance. "Stop. Thinking. About. This. She's. Not. Here. Stop. Fucking. Around." - muttered the teenager with each slap, stopping only at the moment of full-blown pain. Apparently, in the habit she had developed, she had reached the point of inflicting unintentional harm on herself. 'Aargh! I must be losing my mind. What time is it? Eleven o'clock in the afternoon? Well, I'd better get up. I can't just lie here all day. Plus, we said we'd meet.

The phrases spoken aloud around the bedroom gave Aubrey a tiny boost of energy. Just the right amount to get up on her feet and get ready for the day. Light baggy jeans, crop top, bunny slippers. Standard high school girl's summer vacation kit. After stretching, unmoving, and forgetting to make the bed, she soon left her "Beary Den," the mini equivalent of the "Bear Den" at the other end of her and her dad's old house. Speaking of bear. One of them, apparently, was already cooking something in the kitchen of the dwelling, humming some eighties pop song to himself. The fresh aroma of dirty dishes, straight from the infernal cauldron of the chief of the family, seized the sensitive hairs of the girl. It smelled both divine and blasphemous. But hey, it's her father's cooking. It might seem like the resulting munchies would quietly become a new kind of biological weapon, but one spoonful and you're already flying straight to the ninth heaven. "Man, he's working his ass off out there. I gotta hurry up. I'll clean myself up a little and then  go down. " thought the sleepy sleepyhead as she opened the bathroom door. 

Clean, well maintained and painted in relaxing, soft colors. Just like the rest of the rooms. Except for the old man's bedroom, but that's a separate story. Walking to the sink, the morning bird began her boring hygiene routine. Teeth, face, ointments, water and soap. Nothing supernatural. After rinsing her mouth and spitting, Aubrey finally looked in the mirror in front of her, examining for the thirtieth time, the picture she hated. With her small appetite lately, consisting mostly of a few small salads, the young lady had lost some digit in weight. Not enough to become anorexic, but the lack of tiny fat in her structure was still noticeable. Her cheekbones stood out significantly, but not as much compared to the gray bags under her eyes in contact with her skin. The result of those nightmares she had experienced, with the repetition of horrifying scenarios, was becoming more and more apparent. But in the midst of them, it was her most expressive part of her outer image that screamed louder. The hair. More specifically, their half-absence and the discoloration done in a moment of seething hatred. Never before in her life, Aubergine had dared to think of cutting off her long, smooth and beautiful hair, much less total melting. They remained a source of pride for her. Their non-shifting beauty, neatness, and the effort put into the process were praised by her as a major source of pride. However, in the advent of her teenage years, the above factors shone through in the color of her hair. The bright pink was a direct decree of the promise she had fulfilled. To an idol and first female relative not related by blood. For four long, bumpy years, the swaying strands of the standout element reminded the girl of the reason she needed to move forward. To become a better person and help the people she holds dear. Just like she did. But after the events of a month ago, after the weight of knowledge that had been lifted, certainly important but no less painful, that word had lost its former value. Thousands of beautiful hairs, turned into leprous outgrowths that belonged in the garbage, among the garbage and rotting remains of all kinds of food. Pink, still her favorite color. Her love for it had not been forced on her, but had come from growing up. And even in the sleep nook, every single thing carried a hint of that wonderful palette. But Aubrey was somewhat grateful to her young, only a month old, self for daring to use a radical method. After all, if she'd stopped for even a second, she probably wouldn't have been able to look in mirrors ever again. With a final splash of water, she stepped away from the sink, turning off the light on the way out. 

Going downstairs did not require any significant effort. On the contrary, it happened rather quickly, for the aroma of breakfast beckoned to the schoolgirl more strongly than forbidden fruit to any sinner. Passing under the doorjamb and turning to the right, the blonde looked at the source of today's breakfast, in the person of none other than HIM. Landlord, Hippie of the Year, the third Orange Joe consumer in the entire world, the provider of the family and her father. Or otherwise known as Eddie. The man is unpretentious, and for the most part, eerily quiet. So much so that he's actually behaving with her, not like a dumbass hyper-patronizing, but a trusting dad. His feet were doing a short tap dance right now, tapping the heels of shoes, who in their right mind would cook in shoes, on the washed kitchen tiles. A couple of movements, exclusively to the company of 'beautiful' singing. Judging by the big bow at waist level, right now he was wearing nothing but a pink, ornate apron, given by a girl when she was a little girl. Beneath it, a Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts lay crumpled; the classic outfit of a lover of the pacifist movement. Leaning her elbow on the wall, Aubrey decided to spend a couple good minutes in semi silence, reminding herself how lucky she was to have such a father literally a few feet away from her. Sometimes, with the crazy efforts he showed day in and day out, the kind girl forgot about the times when he wasn't in her life. The times that were cold and lonely and hungry. Those times when she lived under the same roof with a woman who spent every cent not on caring for the two of them, but on habits growing on the nastiness scale.  In some moments of introspection, those brief glimpses of free moments not spent cleaning the house, Aubergine thought that if a second parent ever came into her sight one day, it could never make up for the years she'd spent in hopeless misery. As it turned out, the little girl was entirely wrong, for this weed-smoker, who had fallen from the sky, had done more than many personages before and after him. Moreover, he had not only given her fresh food, a warm roof, and new clothes, but he had also surrounded her with gratuitous, heartfelt love. Did his frequent taunts infuriate her? Certainly. Did she perceive him as occasionally nasty, because of his scattered bottles of nasty soda and socks? Absolutely. Was she angry at him for vaporizing from her childhood and only returning years later? Yes. And with that, she still loved him and thanked God for such a wonderful father. Even if he sometimes pissed the girl off.

Shaking his head, his blond hair in time with the music, Eddie caught a glimpse of a figure leaning against the drywall, and without thinking long enough, he turned to face the front. Light stubble adorned his slightly retracted chin, extending from his temples and across his face. The inscription "Daddy of the Millennium" made of multicolored rhinestones on his apron blinded the eyes of the morning bird. However, what raised the weirdness meter in this strange guy more than anything else..... Was the vomitously neon glasses, with multiple horizontal stripes. "Good morning princess! Sit up and wake up. Soon the distinguished cook will show you his fantastic skills." - he proudly sang out in the voice of the smarmy handsome man from high school romance dramas, which already sounded foreign considering the man was well into his thirties. His eyebrows rose questioningly to his forehead, and his shoulder blade, smeared in something violet, froze in one position, when the young lady to whom the guy was addressing stabbed her fingers at his eyes, wiping them in the hope of forgetting them. It only took one, ONE, action for this idiot to make her regret her internal dialog. 

"Dad. For God's sake... What did I say about glasses indoors?" - Fed up with her father's chaotic energy, Aubrey restrained herself as best she could from slamming her face into the palm of his hand, stopping herself with a pair of fingernails to her eyes. Stopping the senseless pressure on her eyesight, she soon regretted that decision, for her lips formed a smug grin, and if it weren't for the damned plastic squares, Aubergine would have experienced that hellish stare. What a nerve that old fart had.

" That they look dope." - Confident beyond belief, Edward grinned his yellow teeth, some of which were missing. Of course, that was never a question, but a direct statement. It wasn't the first time the girl had caught her father in such an affront to common sense. Glasses indoors, hats in church, slippers and socks in summer, shirts in winter. The list could stretch all the way to the north pole, but the problem has always been the same. That he's being stupid and she's annoyed by it. In a way, Aubrey was grateful that fate hadn't allowed Kel and him to meet years ago. Otherwise, she'd be in the loony bin right now. 

"No. I said they look like a crime against all the laws of fashion. And stop saying the word 'dope'. It doesn't sound good from any person, no matter their age. " - the girl replied glumly, feeling her eyelids quiver as she once again raised her adult teenage smile. 

"It suits me, though," another statement agreed across the house, almost causing the young lady's jaw to soon set. Muttering, she took a final step forward, folding her arms crosswise.

"Nun uh" Aubrey spat. She took another step.

"Duh uh" Eddie pointed out. He did the same.

"Nun uh" another step.

"Duh uh" another step.

"Nun uh" another step.

"Duh uh" one more step.

"Nun uh" one more step. 

"Duh uh" one more step.

"Nun uh..." - The daughter finally put an end to their argument, squinting her eyes and trying to burn out the empty skull of this hippie. There was a silence, interrupted only by the squeaking of something on the gas stove. The smug asshole's smile didn't waver one bit, and after a second of silence, he poked her lightly on the nose. 

"Boop!" - said the master of the house, leaning back on his knees to get a little on the level of his daughter, grinning from ear to ear, and apparently well aware of the war crimes running through my lady's mind. 

"I don't see who's an adult after that?" - mumbled the pouting high school girl, at one point wishing she could go back to bed, but she didn't have time to think about it fully, and already found herself in Dad's tightening embrace. 

"Aaaaaaawwww. I love you too, honey." - The tall big man howled, almost squeezing the very life out of the tiny young woman's body. For some reason, at the moment of physical contact, a never-before-seen picture flashed before her eyes. Unpleasant elements first dug their holes in the girl's thoughts, laying there for a long time. The color red immediately reminded of itself, revealing a cut that had just begun to heal. For a moment, at the recollection of the disgusting dream, Aubrey thought about breaking free from her precious father's bearish grasp. A thought certainly irrational. After all, there was no way he would even ever consider it! It's senseless and stupid, and the fear that formed in the blonde girl's heart definitely had no basis, in this case. But the fact remained. She froze, torn between the urge to lash out and the urge to snuggle closer, staring into the random thread on the Hawaiian shirt.

"No, I'm fine. Really, dad, I'm fine. You didn't hurt me in any way. " - Aubrey spoke briefly, trying to twist the degree of awkwardness of the upside down dialog. After thinking for half a minute at most, the teenage girl came up with a way to change the subject to another when a certain odor, characterized by soot, wafted under her nose. "Aaaand I think you've got something burning in there."

"А? Wha? HOLY GUACAMOLE!!! Damn damn damn damn damn damn damn!" - immediately panicked the cook, rushing back to the stove, scraping away the burnt bits of today's dish, not noticing one tiny person hiding a laugh with a brush over her mouth. "Uh, Aubs, you'll have to wait another five minutes. Maybe ten. So go ahead and sit at the table for now, while I try to curb the fires of Olympus."

"Heh. Whatever you say, prometheus. " her daughter sang teasingly, waiting for him to let out a broken heavy sigh, denoting her unequivocal victory. 

Once at the designated spot, it didn't take long for the young madam to wait for breakfast. She had no sooner gotten bored watching her father suffer than the day's viands were brought to her seat. Green chamomile tea, not real bacon made of gravy-covered layers of rice paper, scrambled eggs, and toast. Simple, delicious, and no harm to animals. Just the way a newly proclaimed vegetarian likes it. "Here, munch away. Thought you looked a little more disgruntled than usual today, so I thought I'd make you some chamomile." - mentioned Dad, sitting down on the other side and already pouring half a bottle of orange poison into himself. 

"Thanks dad. Don't choke on that nuclear fuel. " - Aubrey teasingly giggled evilly, seeing Eddie preparing to defend the honor of what he thought was a great drink, having already started eating the fine meal. As it always was, it looked awful, tasted wonderful. The magic of the fathers, no other way. "So, what did they say at work? Did they accept your syllabus?"

"Uh, not even close. These little buggers are seriously trying to convince me that it's interesting for kids to look at ancient Greek or Athenian artwork. " - the man muttered under his breath, obviously dissatisfied with the decisions of the director and his colleagues, shoving five pancakes with lingonberry jam into his mouth at the same time. 
"Athens is part of Greece," the girl corrected.

"Doesn't matter. They're idiots anyway and will never understand the beauty of the current sense of beauty." - Edward smiled with bits of breakfast between his teeth, licking the hair on his head, trying to look like a movie star but ending up looking like a megalomaniac. Close, sure, but not that close.

"You never told me how you managed to keep the art teachers' jobs in the first place? Shouldn't they have fired you and sued you for finding personal items in the classroom?" - The older girl asked, carefully cutting off a piece of scrambled egg and chewing it leisurely in contrast to the loud slurping of the person in front of her. 

"I suppose so, but it's still dumb. I mean, hey, they were pretty expensive, and we wouldn't have enough room in the house. It's kind of stupid. But I got the situation sorted out anyway, and now I have to stick around for hours for paperwork. I'm not entirely sure my extra work was worth it." - Mumbled Dad, gulping down the carbonated slurry.

"So what was it?" - The damsel asked.

"Let's just say I had to do one small favor that only I could do." - he said simply, preparing to shove down another stack of pancakes before he noticed the shocked look in his daughter's eyes. 

"Paps, I'm begging you, tell me it's not what I think it is.'" - the girl asked in a trembling voice as the fork and knife hesitated in her hands.

"What, what are you talking about - OH! No! No, of course not, how can you think that about me?" - The dad asked offended by the suspicion, surprisingly stopping the movement of the kitchen appliance.

"And how can I not think of you, after all those stories!" - resented the teenage girl, remembering the horrors he had told her.

"Hey, that was over two decades ago. I was a goofy, young hippie teenager, and it happened before I met your mom. " Eddie decided to elaborate, shaking his four prongs in her direction before eating the hanging pancakes again. "Relax. The principal just asked me to mold some vases for each of her family members. A veeeery boring process. But at least I'm still working there, and my presents are still in their proper places. "

"Is that legal?" - Aubrey asked.

"As long as the cops aren't snooping around under your nose, it's legal. " - decreed the truth of all truths Eddie, definitely not giving terrible words to his growing chad.

"An adequate pa wouldn't teach his kid that." - the blonde declared with a poker face.

"No one said I was adequate. Just the opposite, I'm...' - The man drummed his index fingers on the table like chopsticks, preparing a magnificent revelation of his title. "... Awesome pa! And this is ten times cooler than any adequate dad."

"Yeah. Well, it's better than my guess. " she said, almost finishing today's treats.

"Eh, my own blood, not believing the words of her parent. What a horror!" - Expressively waved his father's hands, quickly taking another sip. "By the way. Don't you have to hurry to your three-way date? They're probably already waiting for that one."

"Mh! Thanks for reminding me. What time is it?" - my daughter asked rhetorically, looking over her shoulder. "'Half past twelve. Meh, that's fine. I'll still have time to finish eating, pack, clean up, and dress appropriately. "

"That's right. Why, where are you going? Just wandering around town?" - The stack of pancakes that had already disappeared into Dad's bottomless mouth, falling down with a loud gulp. It seemed like he wasn't chewing them, just shoving them straight into his stomach. "You know, if you need to, I can take you to some places. 

"Oh, no.  We're just going to walk to the mall. You know, the one further away from the sleeping area. They say an arcade opened up there, so we thought we'd give it a try. And you shouldn't. Honestly, we can walk there ourselves." - Aubrey managed to reply before the man tried to ask anything else. However, he still decided to ask the next one.

"Okay, but at least let me give you some extra pocket money! You kids are going to be traveling for a long time, so you need to have some green on hand. " - tried to convince the girl to accept his sign of caring for her, but she continued to stand her ground. 

"Dad. You don't have to. I understand that you want to help, and in fact, since my little... Episode, you've been a lot more careful, but trust me. I can do this on my own. I've made enough from my part-time job to put a cut into our little outing. Plus, I'm a hundred percent sure Sunny still has a few hundred dollars left over from last month. It's all good, and I really appreciate your excitement." - spoke in an extremely sincere, honest and genuine tone of voice to her daughter, noticing how, on balance, her emotions hit right at the beer-bellied man's heart, making his eyes actively wet. "Don't cry. I just said a couple words."

"Shmug. But they're worth more than any gold..." - Edward whispered, wiping away a stingy tear, looking off into the distance with the look of a maiden watching a merchant ship depart on its final journey, with her lover aboard. Drama King. "Ahem. Well, I'll take your word for it. However, how's the newcomer doing? Is he okay?"

"Mm-hmm. Sort of? I mean, yes, but at the same time, no. Geez, how can I explain it to you. " - Aubrey wondered aloud, putting down the table tool for a moment and biting down on a fingernail on her thumb. It was a blessing that she had washed the nail polish off her nails a couple days ago. Though, that was a matter of which way to look at it. Whenever the topics came to one particular person, she became uncomfortable in a way. Not that the very mention of a gallant, funny, and strong man made her feel uncomfortable. Quite the contrary. When he'd told her and Basil a week ago that he still loved them and wanted to try to be part of a relationship together, the girl had barely restrained herself from hugging him until her bones turned to dust. Only her inner core, as well as her understanding of the difficulties he was going through, kept the girl in place. The main reason for her feelings about the young man who used to call himself 'perfect' was because of the conflicting emotions that appeared at the mention of Suzuki's second child. In the end, it was that the events directly related to him as well as the other two that brought all the friends in the group to the state they were currently in. " He's trying too hard. Too much too hard. He's only recently opened up about a thing that's been driving him crazy for years, and yet, he's already stepping outside his comfort zone, hurting himself, changing his behavior at the drop of a hat, and rushing to overcome his fears as if his very life depended on it! That's what I mean by that. It's like Sunny completely forgets that he needs some rest, too. It bothers me a lot."

"Uh huh... I'm seeing too much sense here. Do you think he might..." - the helping father's suggestion quickly turned to life, but not from the man's lips, but from the lips of the talking maiden. 

"Still feel guilty about hiding the truth for four years? Most likely. But god, why does he even think that? It's not his fault in any way! His mind literally worked automatically, suppressing every memory of those horrors. Hell, if it wasn't for Hero's word and defense mechanism, we would have helped him a long time ago. But what happened is what happened. Then why does he still think it's his fault? - In the flow of one-sided questions to which no one had answers, the girl's voice actively grew exponentially with each word spoken. As she finished the final sentence, Aubrey finally realized how loud her speech had become, and when she fully focused her eye contact, she realized that her father's face was wearing the same concerned expression that had caused the young lady to feel a pang of guilt in her heart. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell like that. It's just that it's all so..."

"Hey, princess, it's okay. I know exactly what you're talking about. There's no need to apologize. " The parent said calmly, leaving the plate where it was and changing position. In a few careful steps, the man found himself sitting in a chair right at his daughter's side, reaching out and half hugging his blood daughter. "I'm sure you both can handle it. With your presence, it's almost guaranteed."

"Uh-huh. I know. Honestly, I really know, but I still feel bad about everything that's going on." - Aubergine chilled, nestling against her shoulder, resting her forehead against the red Hawaiian pattern. The teen's nerves were beginning to wane considerably, but that heavy lump of fears, refused to leave the girl's body. It had been living in her for over a month now. "This is all so absurd and stupid. Hell, what am I talking about. We all got absurd and stupid after we visited the hospital."

Eddie didn't say anything. Which was only good for her. There were no particularly soothing words awkwardly drawn out of him by the situation, or assurances that everything would be okay. He was fulfilling the option that suited her, stroking the short hair of an important child, giving her access to a limitless stream of thoughts where nothing would be used against her. And that access, she took great pleasure in using. Aubrey brought her fears to the surface for minutes, talking not only about Sunny, but about everyone else without noticing how. That was certainly not the first time such voice therapy had taken place. They had often practiced conversations of this nature with each other almost from the moment her father had been granted paternity, which had entailed soon becoming one of the few confidants in her life. "I... Can't to this day accept the words he spoke to us that day. You weren't there, but you still remember my paraphrase, right?"

"Yeah. About needing to break the abusive cycle and stuff, right?" - The artist decided to clarify, receiving an approving nod. 

"You got that right. Good for you for memorizing it," Aubrey grinned for a second before slipping back into her pessimistic state. "That sounds too weird for me. Probably because I'm not the one who went through his skin, but still. If I were him, I'd do my best to make sure the person who did this to me gets what he deserves. It wouldn't put him on the same level as the one who did it. I don't care about the good points and that he made that choice. I'm still outraged and don't understand why, he put himself at such risk for some, illusory good ending for all of us. We tried to have another discussion with him about it, and change his mind, but Sunny always puts a stop to such conversations. It's understandable that I need to accept the fact of his decision and all, but it just won't let me go. What if he gets hurt again by someone he trusted so much? What if... What if I'm the next person to hurt him...?"

"Aubergine. Can you look at me?" - her father asked in a stern, forceful tone, immediately seeing her comply with his request. In her official opinion, he only addressed her under two circumstances: when seriously concerned, or when seriously angry. To accomplish either of those things would take a lot of nerve, and it looked like this was the moment to do it. Eddie was famous for his behavior as a big slacker teenager, but despite, when the moment came, he could become someone who was easy to rely on. "You're not like her. You would never do that to him, and you never will. I may not know your new boyfriend much, but from what I've seen, he trusts you completely and you, in return, take care of him. You don't have to worry about that."

"How can you know that? How am I different from her? I'm just as human as she is. Fuck, she raised me while you two weren't around! W-what if I break under the weight like she did? W-what if I use not only Sunny, but Basil too? I... I..." - The high schooler began to shudder vigorously, completely lost in the fear attacking her, not noticing the tears rolling down her cheeks. The hideous fear of the concept of a future where she repeated the fate of someone important to her was replaying before her eyes, and the only thing that kept the girl from starting a panic attack was her father's kind face. 

"You're not her. You're a kind, caring, and genuinely strong girl who knows what your principles and barriers are, unlike her. That's never going to happen, okay? You're never gonna hurt them. They know that, and you know that. Don't be afraid. I and the others are there for you. " - Daddy assured in his soothing voice, not holding back his daughter from paying with all his heart. For a moment, a fear crept into her mind that maybe now, things were about to go downhill. That now the curtains would close, that now the irreversible would happen, but the fears, as they must, did not materialize. He loves her and will never do this to her. And she loves him, them, and will never do it. With a heavy heart, and a small amount of lightness in her soul, the girl allowed herself to break down for a while, drilling her nose into her collarbone, deservedly the best parent in the entire world. Fear still clung to Aubrey's gut, and certainly wouldn't leave her new domain for a very long time to come. One day, however, at this rate, it will disappear. 

-------------------

After a few minutes of calming down, washing her face, and picking out an outfit, the blonde decided to go to the park after all, despite Eddie's suggestions to reschedule the date for another day. His excitement was understandable, but still, she was eager to spend today with the two boys. Convincing the worried daddy had taken some time, but it had been a success. Variable success, because the bore almost forcefully shoved a couple of green bills into the pocket of the schoolgirl, no matter how much she did not refuse. The girl herself gave only a half-hearted rebuff to the man's concern, and not only because she liked to see her father's anxiety. Nevertheless, the purse is full, there are no tears left, the head is empty of negative thoughts, and ahead, she expects a pleasant time with two childhood friends. The main thing is that they don't do any shit before the girl arrives.

Aubrey had chosen today's outfit for the weather and her own taste. Soft, semi bedraggled tones colored the elements of clothing hanging from her figure.  Long summer pants almost touched the tops of her cross-ties, slapping lightly on the concrete path. Above them, the same cropped top clung to her skin, but now covered by a baggy, though shiny college jacket with shimmering shades of white and yellow. A neat panama saved the young lady's head from sunstroke, which was practically not felt by her hair, and provided assistance in hiding her eyes in a little shade. On the shoulder, a cute bag more than the whole torso, just suitable for long dates, filled with all the trinkets necessary for the three. Snacks, sanitizer, paperwork, Basil's stash, wet wipes, disposable gloves, and on and on and on. Nothing's missing. In the end, it's not only comfortable, it's beautiful at the same time. It is not a sin to run in such a thing, and spend a peaceful walk on a nice summer day. Just like this. 

As Aubrey walked along the concrete path, she passed people walking from Sabbath noon prayer to their homes. The eyes of the congregation rested in a steady arrow on her, regardless of old or young, male or female. When a lady with blond short hair appeared in the field of vision of a random person of faith, the reaction of such a citizen was always the same. Surprise, avoidance of eyes, peeping and finally, obscene whispers on the subject of the truth revealed, more than a month ago. And though these actions irritated, or should I say unnerved, Aubergine, in the five weeks since, had learned to let them talk past her ears. After all, their reaction was understandable. When a fact of such destructive power comes out of the shadows, turns the nation's vision of one man censured by the whole town upside down, and you've been quietly allowed to say things over other people's shoulders from an early age, you're going to start talking in front of your friend, the person in question, anyway. In theory, a high school girl should have begun to feel contempt for those who poke their noses into things. Especially representatives of the religious part of the population of the bedroom community. After all, at their core, they were hypocrites who, having just seen confirmation of their own terrible decisions directed at a harmless victim, immediately asked for forgiveness on their knees, hoping that once they received it, they would be able to spend their days in further ignorance. But she didn't feel anything close to the same way about them. There could be so many factors. After all, she herself had sent up prayers to the Lord in her worst years, genuinely believing that her faith was pure and could one day save her. That seems like one potentially realistic theory. Or, it's all about Basil, and his spirituality, which he kept alive like a flame of eternal fire, fueled by new beliefs and hours spent within the walls of a sacred place. When you spend almost four years with a preacher of one religion or another, being bound by true romance, willy-nilly a stop finding people of his type in a negative way. Anyway, it didn't bother the girl that much. As soon as she meets the guys and starts spending time with them, the thought of prying eyes into her would evaporate faster than a mirage after taking a few steps forward. The most important thing right now was that they weren't trying to cause her problems with their curiosity, which was already robbing her of unnecessary expense. But still, Aubrey couldn't help but wonder: If she's just uncomfortable with this, how much pain is Sunny in if he was their sacrificial lamb, going to the crucifixion himself?

"Stop going back to the same Aubrey stuff. He's fine, he's getting better and has normal relationships with the townspeople. No one hates him anymore, and he doesn't hate them. Just relax. " - Said the blonde to herself, gritting her teeth at the recurring, dark thoughts. A nagging pain, found a home in her temple, which was quickly rubbed by the teenager's finger. It was only recently that the lady was glad that, at least for a couple minutes, the thoughts had stopped taking on a grotesquely pessimistic image, as they immediately wanted to taunt her by entering through the front door with a foot. "So, what do we usually do at times like this? Right, distract ourselves and move forward. The therapist was saying the right thing. First and foremost, provide myself with some positive calm. Good thing I have one place just for such an occasion." With these thoughts in mind, the high school senior on vacation, with a nimble wave of her hand, pulled a cute, pink cot from the compartment of her purse. About a few weeks ago, the three of them had decided to keep in touch with Kol, who had left for Nearby, by adding his number, obtained on the day of his departure, to the chat room they had created. It was a good thing that their old phones had such a function, because no one could afford a full-fledged touch screen. Yes, they made good money from delivering pizzas and setting up shelves in Fix-It, but to throw five hundred into the air was completely stupid. A click sounded, and Aubrey, continuing to stomp along at her usual pace, decided to check on the three goofballs. Two favorite boys and one Harvard nerd, to be exact

Chat room "Not Perfect" / 4 online, 2 offline :

BlueCrumb - Daaaaaaaamn I'm bored.

BlueCrumb - Nothing to do. 

BlueCrumb - Already managed to run around the whole sleeping area.

Yellow Day - That was a very good run, Basil! 

Yellow Day - I enjoy spending time with you. Our workouts are a pleasure. 

BlueCrumb - Yeah yeah, whatever

Yellow Day - Awww. I can see your red cheeks from across the park!

BlueCrumb, you're imagining things.

Yellow Day - Cruuuuubm~

BlueCrumb - Shut up! I'm not soft! In fact, I was stronger than you last time!

YellowDay - Except I had enough of a couple compliments and you immediately gave up your position, dear.

BlueCrumb - I can't hear you, I can't read your messages, blah blah blah blah blah blah!

YellowDay - What a hoot.

Orange Giant - I just finished cramming today and you're already flirting like there's no tomorrow. I feel like I'll be diagnosed with diabetes sooner because of you, not because of my energy drinks. 

Yellow Day - Kel! Good to see you again! How are you doing in there? 

Orange Giant - Fine, could be a bit better. Finally earned a short break. Just thought I'd relax a little

BlueCrumb - Dude, they put your ass back in a chair studying for eight hours straight?  In the summer??? Your parents suck.

Yellow Day - Basil! 

BlueCrumb - Come on, you've seen for yourself how they treat him. I'm just stating a fact. 

Yellow Day - Mr. and Mrs. Martin are wonderful people. They just can be a little too... sometimes. Pressured. I'm sure they're just really scared about Kel's fate, that's all.

Orange Giant - No Sunny, he's right. They suck. No need to try to grease the corners. I'm glad you care so much, but I'm not mad at the truth at all. 

Yellow Day - Oh Kel. I'm sorry you have to spend time cooped up in textbooks. Maybe you could try and talk them into giving you a little day off. Or get a part-time job? Then you'd have a little free time!

BlueCrumb - Yeah, you should really think about that.

BlueCrumb - Brains are good, but you have to work with your hands a little. 

Orange Giant - Uh, we'll see. I'll try, but I can't promise anything. Things have changed a bit since we moved in, so who knows.

Yellow Day - I see. I'm sorry for starting off like that.

Orange Giant - What are you apologizing for? You didn't do anything wrong.

Orange Giant - Damn, now the chatroom atmosphere has gotten all touchy-feely again. Change the subject, stat. What are you two doing up there in Faraway.

BlueCrumb - Kicking ass. Waiting for Aubrey.

Yellow Day - We're going on our first date together tonight! I was so excited, I even got up at six o'clock in the morning.

 BlueCrumb - And then you showed up at my door at 7:00. I bet you would have sat on the porch for hours until I came out. 

Yellow Day - Found guilty on all charges, heh heh. 

BlueCrumb - Shut the hell up, you faithful cat. 

Orange Giant - Was that an attempt at an insult, or try of pet names?

BlueCrumb - You didn't see that.

BlueCrumb - Long story short

BlueCrumb - After this guy forced me outside, under the pretense of a morning workout, we went for a short run, did a few laps and stopped at the Park. This was about three hours ago, so the whole time. We've just been sitting around doing nothing. 

Yellow Day - Positive nothing!

BlueCrumb - Oh, excuse me Your Excellency. POSITIVE bullshit.

BlueCrumb - Somethin' like asdhasdwe =aasdk bkblkbasl

Orange Giant - Did he finally have a stroke after all those bumps?

Yellow Day - Oh, no. No, he didn't. It's just his new gang decided to say hello, and now they're honoring him.

Orange Giant - Really? They really made him a member of their gang of bullies?

Yellow Day - Well, they're not really bullies. They're more like a special interest group. Ever since your whole family moved in, they've proclaimed him their boss, and now they almost obey him like a king.

Orange Giant - What an amazing power that Guilt is. 

Yellow Day - You don't say.

Yellow Day - Oh, my God.

Orange Giant - What? What's wrong?

Yellow Day - You gotta see this.

Yellow Day - 'Photo of a crowd of motley teenagers carefully trying to lift a struggling figure off the ground.'"

Yellow Day - 'Photo of a crowd that managed to lift the figure into their arms. The man is actively resisting, turning into a blurry blur, which only makes the clarity of his outline worse, thanks to the crouched angle of the image.

Yellow Day - 'Barely discernible photo of the crowd throwing a guy up, whose carcass has become completely incomprehensible, as whoever was filming what was happening was laughing almost to the point of falling over.'

YellowDay - Ugh, he was also emitting such an adorable squeak, I can't.....

BlueCrumb - Sunny. As soon as we get to the mall, I'm gonna beat the crap out of you at the arcade. 

Yellow Day - Ohohohoho. Let's see how far that gets you.

Orange Giant - I bet you both have a twenty on whether or not your favorite tag in fanfiction is Enemy to lovers.

Pink Queen - Oddly enough, this is absolutely true.

Pink Queen - Hey guys! : >

Orange Giant - Showing up. 

Yellow Day - Aubrey! Very happy to see you again.

Yellow Day - Don't mind the lack of a message from Basil. He's just pounding the ground with his fist from the emoticon in front of him. 

Pink Queen - Aaaawwww~

Pink Queen - Boys, don't worry, I'm getting pretty close. Just bear with me a little longer and we can go full speed ahead!

Orange Giant - Okay guys, I'll go then. I'll check to see if Hero burned down the kitchen. Good luck with your courtship. I'll talk to you later. 

Yellow Day - Bye bye Kel! Say hi to him as he rarely responds to my messages.

Orange Giant - I will. 

BlueCrumb - Don't burn your stomach on the energy summit. 

Pink Queen - Good luck!

|  Orange Giant Offline |

Pink Queen - Well, try to keep each other in check until I get there, okay? I'll see you soon!

With that message, the girl returned the phone to its original place, shoving it deeper so it wouldn't fall out inadvertently. A couple of minutes of watching the behavior of two fools, the most important thing that they were her fools, immediately had a purely positive effect on the girl, humiliating and reminding of the joyful things in her life. Gone was the excitement, left only an inexorably strong desire to meet the two good boys as soon as possible, whose weight in Aubrey's life could only be outweighed by a few. Lifting a modest smile, the young lady stomped joyfully along the path, oblivious to the sights and cares that had troubled moments before. 

Faraway Park, as always, was in its usual July glory. The rustling trees created a pleasant shade for those who were feeling the heat of the day. The old soda machine was clustered with kids arguing over which flavor was better: lemon or grape, letting out squeaky laughs or shrieks. On the sports court, Sweet Boy and Jack spent moments of solitude in quiet serenity, doing their favorite things. One by exhausting sport, and the other by watching him with a bitten lip. The innocent youngster is full of all sorts of surprises. In a corner of the playground, schoolchildren resting from the tedious first year of school were having fun, making new acquaintances, friendships, and even the first love. The bench of this wonderful place was now occupied by three good friends. Caitlyn the candy store assistant in the middle, professional swimmer Chris on the right, and gifted artist Mincy. All three ladies appeared to be discussing something very animatedly and passionately, putting all their emotions into words, but in an extremely friendly manner. It seems that these maidens had become good friends over time. All of the above details, people, and elements of the environment saturated the whole place with soul, making the park a wonderful haven for anyone passing through, whether it was a family looking for a picnic spot or a random group of friends gathering once a month to reminisce about beautiful moments. Not like that strange, soulless copy from the nightmare. For here, she still had real, happy memories. 

And soon, another one would appear, thanks to the efforts of two young men who had decided to play a game of fool's game on a nearby table. Two opposites sitting opposite each other. Fire and water, heaven and earth, anchovies with pineapple and basil with mozzarella. Personalities with different views of the world, right now, were flipping cards, accompanying it all with friendly romantic conversation. And both boys, her boyfriends. Aubrey decided to watch them from a distance, hiding from their view not only behind a tall tree, but also a good old fence.

The one closest to her was the same young man who had comforted her for four long years with his presence, his desire to be stronger and braver than before. Of course, he still had that soft side she loved, showing itself from time to time in acts imperceptible to the blind eye. Little bouquets day after day, brief touches when they were alone together, and even attempts at cooking. Which he succeeded with mixed success, but that was already a huge accomplishment! The events of the four turns of the earth may have covered the young man's previously bright heart with a decent layer of ice, but it had failed to reach the center of the largest organ in his body. In company with the people who still cherished him, and who were cherished by the sullen ruffian himself, Basil showed herself almost as good-hearted as her other partner. His bilateral peculiarity, the young man most likely chose and inadvertently chosen outfit. Looking from the outside, one would immediately realize that the kid was trying to resemble a scary, dangerous bully. Ripped jeans with a chain on the pocket, tightened his pumped-up form, outlining just those angles, on which the young man always emphasized in his training. A leather jacket with built-in shoulder pads hung over his shoulders, serving as a heavy cape, easily thrown off in case of the extreme heat that had been reported this morning. A dark green bandana shielded his neon blue hair from the radiation, small spikes of hair peeking out from beneath the ends of the cloth. Such a superficial consideration, definitely lost the hidden charm of a truly lovely man. After all, all beauty, can easily be seen in tiny details. The badge with the colors of the flag of bisexuality on the right clasp of his jacket, given by her three years ago when he'd made his coming-out in front of her, was just direct confirmation of that. Or, that necklace on the left one. A rubber trinket, scuffed by the sands of time, worn down from frequent use. A reminder of the precious friendship shared between the three of them, captured with three colored rubber bands reflecting their favorites. No matter how much Basil tries to look menacingly crushing, beneath the exterior of the punk outfit, lies that stuttering flower lover, willing to do anything for his loved ones. 

Sunny shares this eager desire with him, though unlike the painted man, she does not hide her passions. If her basil tries to make a fuss of random passers-by with his appearance, this young gentleman has chosen the opposite approach, both to people and to himself. A yellow over-size hoodie, baggy athletic pants, a backpack by his side, a wrist band, and plain black sneakers. An unremarkable outfit for a man who's had enough attention in recent years. The outfit is minimalistic, hiding most of the skin on the black-haired do-gooder's body, but still comfortable enough to wear day in and day out. Not like those extravagant shirt jackets of the past few years. Watching now, from the shadows of the foliage, Aubrey made detailed comparisons in her mind to his past image, infuriating the townsfolk with his distinguished grotesqueness. Gone was the perfect cut, the hair lacquered like the strings of a violin. It had turned into something resembling the classic coiffure of his early, childish years, with the addition of a couple of fidgety curls. Those perfectly toned muscles had lost their former power, shrinking in size from the lack of exercise in the month since the truth had been revealed. He no longer had the need for it, and there was little time left for something so costly, which made him lose weight to some extent. And finally, the frightening face was gone. Chiseled from the wooden base of a dead doll, the mask disappeared with the last word he had spoken that day, leaving his post and allowing a quiet sadness to take the throne deserved by suffering. Those empty eye sockets, pierced by the sharp blades of the gaze of all who would stand at his side before the fulfillment of his promise, would no longer be able to instill fear into the souls of others. That's banal because, now, it's one soft eye, looking at the world around him with the curiosity of a small child arriving for the first time in a new, previously unseen country. This man, is profoundly not perfect. He never was, no matter how hard he tried to try to resemble the object of his praise. He is not destined to be perfect. But he is not required to achieve great things or meet expectations in order to be loved by her, or by everyone else. With all that has happened, all that he has done, and all that has been done to him, Sunny has remained to this day an altruistic boy, with one single goal. To help his friends. He did it out of concern for others, having spent hours as a child listening to her stupid chatter. He continued to act the same way, out of guilt over what he'd been given the fate of an innocent victim in. And he was doing it right now, but this time, at his own pleasure. Sunny does live up to his sunny name.

Aubrey must have been in ambush for several minutes, because soon, Basil's fist hit the table, scattering the cards when the universe willed him a bad hand. Disgruntled growls and half-loud curses spread around the park, along with the cautious chuckles of a young man with a non-ideal nature. While the bandana-wearing young man was accusing him of cheating, to which he received only an annoying stare, his vision caught the last member of the date hiding behind the fence, a little surprised. Occasionally, the young lady would forget just how well developed her many skills were, catching her off guard. Crossing glances, the maiden's heart skipped a beat for a second, expecting absolutely anything. Perhaps the remnants of nervousness that had settled deep within her after the conversation with her father had played out, but they were quickly dispelled by the strength of the meek smile of the former baby of the group. A bunch of little butterflies fluttered at the bottom of the blonde's stomach, but were slightly lessened when the memory of another smile came out from around the corner. A forced smile. A smile that hid a terrible secret underneath. Aubergine, however, did not let thoughts of this nature come to the stage with fanfare. Tonight, they had no place here, and why, she answered with a smile of her own and also a quick wink. The youngster's eyelids lifted in surprise, and for a moment flamed with interest, worth the unvoiced idea reaching his brain. One prank visited two minds, which led to the execution of a diabolical plan. With quick, and yet unquestionably silent, steps, the girl passed through the archway of the entrance to the Park of Faraway Town, cautiously traversing the feet toward her unsuspecting goal. Body by body movement, the teen caught up with the unsuspecting boy as he continued to blather on about his missed victory. Soon, his cries of such triviality, would become cries of pure amazement.

"I'm telling you Sunny. You were the last one to shuffle the deck, so don't think I didn't notice your quick hands. One more round of games. No, two rounds! Yeah, two rounds in a row, and I'll be the one shuffling the cards. That way, you won't be able to cheat. When I was a kid, I would have beaten you easily, believe ME!!!" - squealed the kid in the bandana, immediately changing his habitually low voice, for a sixteen-year-old punk, into a thin squeal. The vegetarian's arms hugged the kid from behind, scaring the shit out of him as the blonde shouted the iconic 'BOO' in his ear. The two members of the new couple immediately burst into laughter all around the table, leaving the intentionally scary-looking teenager genuinely embarrassed. When the situation calmed down and realization of what was happening reached the bully's head, his cheeks immediately ignited, figuratively, along with his ears. "Aubrey! I told you not to do that again! Mgrrrrr..."

"Ahahahahahaha! S-sorry, I couldn't resist. It's just that you looked so pissed off from the outside, I thought you could use a little surprise." - The girl said in a loving tone, petting the muttering bully. "By the way, Sunny. Thanks for not giving me away. I owe you one!"

"'Heh heh. No big deal. Just glad to bring this fool down to earth." - He smiled modestly as the blue-haired teen's head turned aggressively back and forth between her and him.

"Wait, he knew this was going to happen! How long have you been around anyway!!!" - Questioned the petty criminal in surprise, not believing his own ears.

"Well, about ten minutes or so. I stood at the gate and watched you play. Didn't mean to distract you. Don't be mad at me, bunny. I was only joking," Aubergine said in her childish voice, poking the pouting boy on the cheek, soon giving up and instead sitting down next to him, enjoying the sight of the offended teenager. "'Heh heh heh heh, okay. That wasn't nice of me. Anyway, how I missed you boys!"

Now, the trio of teenagers had reconvened. After weeks of not being able to meet, due to some peculiar circumstances, and more precisely to recover both physically and mentally, these guys were able to see each other face to face, already emitting a kind of positive energy. The decision to become a trio was voiced by the black-haired boy ten days later, after Hero's unpleasant fight with Sunny, which ended with the loss of the latter's normal vision. This was followed by the revelation of the horrifying truth that devalued the brightest moments of their past, and with that, the image of Mr. Perfect was removed, revealing a young man wounded to the point of no return, whose life had been ruined for the stupidest of reasons. Subsequently, one particular decision made by the young man served to cause serious discord in the company of not only the main members of the group, but everyone associated with them. For some time, the blue-haired man and the pink-haired woman, after his loud, pure-hearted speech, could not accept such a self-destructive desire, which led them to visit the boy in the hospital, thus setting up a conversation on elevated tones. The two sides, outnumbered by an entire unit at the other end of the ring, but the unwavering determination of Suzuki's son, put a resounding end to their arguments with his ruling. The young man had finally decided that he was going to continue to act as he wished, and would never again allow anyone to silence his voice. Such an endeavor was certainly viewed with praise, but also with a distinct degree of concern. Either way, the man who had accepted the hard option of the future remained adamant. No one could change his mind, and therefore, what Aubrey, what Basil, at that moment surrendered, accepting them the desired consequences. The loud, difficult, and painful topic, was soon followed by a much quieter, easier, and gracefully healing one, ending in tears of pure joy. Sunny's confession, to match the teenager's name, brightened a dark situation, bringing some color to it. In the end, by unanimous agreement, the usual couple, included a new member. Of course, with the arrival of such a significant person, so came the sensitivities of all parties. Very simple, but also very important. 1. Not to discuss his, that very, decision. 2. Not to feel sorry for him. И 3. Just let him be there for them. 

"How are you doing? - As an inoculation for the counter conversation, the blonde said, placing her hands in a bridge and resting her chin on them. They had nowhere to rush, and consequently could relax a bit over casual chatter.

"Everything is just fine. I managed to win a softie at cards while you were away." - said the simple fact to the young man with one eye, grinning victoriously at the guy in the bandana.

"I'm not a softie, for the hundredth time, and anyway! I'm willing to bet anything that you cheated!" - growled the florist unhappily, grinning his teeth, receiving nothing more than a fake scare from a man glad of his victory. Preparing to continue his furious accusations, he soon met with the cruel truth of the mismatch between reality and expectations, feeling someone's small hand stroking his neck, instantly releasing into free flight the negative emotions from such an unexpected way of calming down.

"Take it easy, my sprout. We all lose from time to time." - Aubrey sang lullingly, causing him a second of embarrassment and shame at the very fact that he had let his strong persona slip in the presence of two kinder persons. In theory, the girl should feel in a sense ashamed of herself for such a cruel act..... But she couldn't help it. All she got from him were the most doting reactions in the world.

"Grhhh... Yeah yeah. Heard it more than once." - The high schooler barely intelligibly mumbled, moving to the left so her enchanting touch wouldn't turn his head. "And why are you late? It's not in your spirit, miss punctuality."

"Hehehe, yeah, is it that noticeable?" - The vegetarian awkwardly scratched her cheek, closing her eyes in quick contemplation. Telling the real reason for her long absence was something she couldn't do. They were already worrying about each other a lot, and to add their silly nightmares to the mix was not a wise decision. The benefit of today's applied makeup saved the disclosure of the tears shed over half an hour ago, leaving the young lady with only the problem of coming up with a plausible lie. It didn't take a second for a good one to emerge. Asking Eddie's wordless apology, the damsel used the appropriate words. "Daddy had a can of paint spill in his room there when he was trying to paint with his toes. I had to help him clean up the resulting mess, and then I had to spend a long time cleaning up the stains myself. Same as always."

"Ha! Aubrey, I always think your dad couldn't do anything crazier. But every time, he surprises me more and more. " - Basil emphasized the obvious truth. 

"Wait, are you serious? He really did that?" - Sunny inquired, looking first at the young lady and then at the punk. Both nodded low. 'Eddie sure looks like a man of expression, but to do something like that?"

"Oh, man. Right. You've only known him for a couple days." - The short-haired lady remembered, realizing that his perception of the unique homo sapiens wasn't even close to those who'd been through his antics for years. A second ago, his daughter had regretted offering such an absurd lie as an excuse, but now, when the opportunity arose to lift their spirits at the cost of mentioning the most humiliating moments of the strange art historian's life? Oh, my God. She takes this chance to the fullest. "Trust Sunbun, you can name any impossible shit you want, and he's highly likely to have done it before."

"The man was literally living the stereotypical stories of all the fathers in the world." - mentioned the teenager in the leather jacket, nodding quickly in response to the disbelieving look from the guy across the room. "Fuck, he's probably pulled off bigger feints than a young Kel!"

"That's a very high bar." - commented the former violinist, thinking for a second or two. "Let's see... Has he ever tried to do a triple somersault on a bike with no driving skills?"

"It happened back in May. Polly and I, the whole four of us, were out for a walk in another neighborhood, and he got the idea to bet five bucks that he could do it. This guy took the kid's bike, rode it to the ramp, and ended up doing the trick!...." - told the story of the daughter of the said individual, delaying the moment when the important episode was revealed. "... And almost landed on his neck. We were really scared at the time, and this nutcase just whined and celebrated like a madman."

"Heh. His mom almost nailed him for his prank," the guy grinned, remembering the look on his legal representative's face, which was full of a mixture of anger and suppressed laughter. 

"Wow. Okay, I take that back, for some reason I'm starting to believe it." - Whistled the teenager, in the making, creating an amusing picture of a crazy stunt by a great-aged man. 

"And that's another of his weakest transgressions. " Aubrey decided to elaborate, amazed at what a rich folder of dirt she had amassed on her own father. 

"W-wow. Oh my gosh, then it's unclear how you two haven't started growing gray hairs at this rate..." - Sunny grimaced, imagining the incredible incidents that could have happened to the two of them, and that father figure, over the last few years. 

"Coloring." - the first members of the romantic connection announced in unison, throwing in some unnerving information. 

"Ah. Right." - Realized the guy. 

"Yeah. What's weird is that the two of them haven't developed a single gray hair at all in four years. Must be vampires or something." - The young lady waved her hand at such injustice, while inwardly grumbling at their cruel, albeit unintentional, behavior. "By the way, I was thinking about something. You two were coming up with a plan for our date, weren't you? Why don't you just spill the beans completely already? I've been kinda burning with anticipation since the minute the whole venture was proposed. "

"Oh, no big deal. Just a simple trek through a newly opened mall." said Suzuki's son, not seeing anything specific about it at all.

"Uh-huh. Yeah. It's nothing special. Expensive arcades, food, exploring a new area, etc. Bitch, Sunny, stop being so modest. You spent hours looking for a place for our first threesome! Show yourself some respect, man!" - commented the muscular rascal playfully, smiling evilly, though behind that smile, there was genuine gratitude for his carefully spent time.

"Basil's right, Sunny. This date already promises to be special. He and I had our first one just at home, which I really enjoyed, sweetie..." - mentioned the blond, stroking the shoulder of the beloved bully, giggling from his flushed cheeks. "... But your prepared version right now sounds excellent! We really like your efforts and are grateful. Really."

"Thanks guys. Really, thank you." - thanked both partners from the bottom of his heart, the man visibly teary-eyed. Such full-heartedly kind words made the girl's heart squeeze like being hit by a sharp arrow. The tears of a boy, who was definitely no longer a little boy, remained a great rarity to the eyes of strangers. In Aubrey's memory, there are two incidents documented in detail by the tape of memories, when salt water rolled off his glands. First, the day of attempting to make his friends happy with his complicity in an extremely foolish leap of will that ended with him approaching his grandmother with a scythe. Then, the altruistic child's tears fell along with those of his savior. And the second, more recently. Drops of bitter water that broke the dam of repressed memories, washed away the dirty veil of lies, and showed the old group of family the terrible truth about the day that turned their lives upside down. In both cases, the subtext of the events had been gruesome incidents of fear and pain. But now, hand in hand with a brief smile, those tiny tears, carried only gratitude. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Aubrey had set herself the goal of making her beloved partner so happy that one day, he would cry with nothing but happiness. 

"You're welcome, Sunshine. Glad to help." - sang out the enchanting young lady, flapping her eyes and then her brushes once, ending their brief conversation - "So what are we waiting for? Let's go to the bus stop then! Let's get on the bus and finally turn your plan into reality."

"Heh heh. Easy on the eyes. Well, we should really get going. Let's have some fun." - The florist spat out furiously with a grin on his face, getting up from his seat, along with his adored girl. Soon, however, their desire was thwarted by one short request.

"Stop!" - Sunny shrieked, startling the two lovebirds with his raised voice. Turning around, they saw the scene of a teenager on his feet, with nervously clenched lips and, for some reason, intense eyes fixed on them. Not just a hard stare, but the full-fledged gaze of a man preparing to talk about a mysteriously serious subject. He and such apparent seriousness, definitions hard to combine. Unless, in the case of discussing certain topics. But that's certainly not the case here. After all, they had agreed to forbid such discourse, and he was not one to break promises made. "Basil. Aren't you forgetting something?"

"Hm? What are you talking about, du..." - The boy stopped talking. His eyes widened like droplets of soap solution on the surface of water, staring in the direction of the tense man. Aubrey seriously wondered what was going on here. No answer followed, exactly, nor did she continue the discussion that had started from nothing.

"Boys? Are you okay?" - The damsel asked, snapping her boyfriends out of their trance. They, glancing between each other and her, nodded at the same time, jointly deciding to do something mutual. Standing up from their seats, Sunny moved a couple feet further away from the table, towards the forest edge, while the florist on the other hand, stayed where she was, wanting to clear something up first.

"Uh, Aubs, you'll have to excuse me, but there's something he and I need to discuss. Don't worry, we'll be back shortly to tell you all about it, okay?" - warned the guy named after the plant, throwing his other leg over the seat and walking off to his old friend, immediately starting the process of a very active, engaged dialog in a rough whisper. Aubergine, struck by the act of the two young men, went into a little considerable shock. Apparently the turmoil they were discussing was bringing great trouble, for the sight of such vivid gesticulation, coupled with the almost audible muttering at least ten paces away, was seriously causing complicated perceptions of the situation. In the young lady's mind, a thought was forging an interesting thought of its own.

'What on earth are they so concerned about? If it's so serious that they're not including me in this conversation? I certainly owe it to them to find out what's going on, don't I?" - questioned the high school girl subconsciously, growing more and more impatient as the minutes passed in silence. At the heart of all these relationships, is an ironclad trust. With them, it's not just a tenuous assumption, but an actual fact, established for like two years now. Basil and she, from the beginning of their new relationship, have realized for themselves that no matter how painful, difficult, embarrassing or unimportant the topic, it must be talked about. Communication is the key to development, and neglecting the key will never open the lock to the treasures of a bright future. And from that, the current picture of two heatedly arguing cavaliers, seriously strained the root cause of today. Frowning at their, from the girl's point of view, neglect of the main factor of romantic connection, the only young lady of the trio got up from the wooden bench, corrected her panama, bag, and strode to the place of their passionate dispute. "If it's something that concerns me too, I'm obliged to take part in all this buffoonery."

"Sunny, what if she says no? She'll wring my neck just for mentioning it, and yours too!" - whispered the neon-haired boy, spreading his arms wide in a gesture of frustration. Neither of them seemed to notice the second woman's latent disdain for the other's ability to handle the bully's difficult temper, which gave her little opportunity to hear the details of the conversation. 

"Basil, if she says no, nothing will happen to us. Aubrey is still seriously freaked out about it, but not enough to forbid us from going to their place." - Calming the guy down, he ended up getting the opposite result, recoiling at the increased irritability in the young man's tone.

"Fuck, dumbass, I wasn't talking about them. I meant..." - The bully's words died in his throat as the approaching persona they were talking about was at their backs. Jumping up, they turned to face forward towards her, almost straightening up in a string. In another situation, it would have looked comical, but now, it only raised more questions. 

"Okay, what's going on? Why aren't you telling me what's going on?" - The girl came up trumps, drawing out expressions from the boys that resembled those of when they'd gotten shots as children. A prickling pain, held back through force. The excitement in the lady's soul only grew stronger from that.

"Auby, please calm down. We were just discussing one thing we wanted to ask you but didn't know when. That's all.' - Sunny clarified, raising his hands in a restraining gesture, trying to bring the overall mood down a couple degrees. The schoolgirl who was now being addressed in turn raised her eyebrows in surprise. The boy had stopped using affectionate names a month ago, and if he was back in the habit, the subject must be serious enough to warrant a secret meeting. 

"Okay, I get it. But are you ready to tell me what's what now? I'm actually worried, you know." - The maiden expressed a serious impression, putting her arms crossed. Their behavior was seriously getting weird, but from the looks of it, there was definitely some specific reason for it. "Come on, speak up already. It's not like I'm going to overreact anyway. You know me, after all... What's with the faces?"

The last words, turned out to be so as a result of the deteriorated expressions of the pair of conspirators, looking at each other with a single, unknown to her thought. The reaction was interesting, but only raised more questions. Soon, the blue-haired punk spoke up after all, wanting to give some vital warnings. "Knock it off, Aubs. Before we say anything, promise me you won't overreact, okay?"

"I doubt that's a reasonable promise." - The black-haired Cyclop whispered with one lip. 

"Silence." - replied the same young man, soon turning to his friend with a smile on his lips. "Still, please promise."

"... You guys are suspicious as fuck today. Whatever, all right. I promise I won't get mad, no matter what you guys have in mind. - the lady formally declared, crossing her heart with two fingers for effect. "Satisfied? Now, are you going to explain why you look like you're planning to make me an accessory to a crime? And by the way, Basil, if your plan really does include an item to steal or break in anywhere, I'll make sure your lucky bush becomes compost.""

"Auby, this has absolutely nothing to do with our date tonight." - put a final stop to the story, the guy tried to soothe his whitened boyfriend with a tentative touch, but decided to abandon the attempt without touching his shoulder. The sight of his distressed face, hit the girl right on one of the valves. "It has more to do with what happened a month ago and theirs."

"That's the way it is. Then I'm listening," Aubergine said this time in a serious tone, preparing himself subconsciously for whatever the current conversation promised. If what the young man had said was true, and they were about to discuss those two people, she would need to be prepared. Taking a deep breath and clearing her mind quite a bit from that annoying, panicked voice of instincts, the young lady nodded briefly. "Go ahead, pour out the can of worms."

"Oof. Just wait a little while, I need to get a little more prepared..." - Sunny sighed tiredly, not even starting yet, glancing around to make sure no one was overhearing them. A strange habit he had developed after a week back from the hospital. Making sure no one was around, he did a final fill of his lungs, starting a dialog she wouldn't forget for a long time.

"About a couple days ago, Hero called me." - The one-eyed resident of the tiny town decided to come up trumps, pausing to watch for a reaction from her interlocutor. There was almost no reaction at all, if you excluded a mile-second pause for breath. Aubrey herself missed such triviality, continuing to remain silent as if nothing had happened, despite the tiny prick to her heart. Discussing the eldest son of the Monte family, was a difficult thing. After all, he remained one of the three root causes of the state they all found themselves in, and with the details revealed, was on the verge of death, for the crime he had committed. His and Kel's move, a month ago, had cut off all ties with him, not only because no one had his number, but because no one wanted to talk to him anymore. The girl was amazed that her new boyfriend had the strength to forgive this scoundrel, after the suffering that the teenager had put him through. But the fact remained, and may the opinion of the two, at that time painted people, reduced to the strictly opposite, the choice remained adamant. For a full five weeks, Sunny and the older boy called and texted regularly, exchanging first-hand accounts of their process of coming to terms with the truth about those days. Basil, Aubrey, wanting to not give in to their anger and respect their second lover's opinion, held their opinions, but also refused to try to limit them by trusting them. They may have been angry at Hero for the heinous accomplishment, but they had no right to redirect their bubbling hatred towards the main victim of years of torture. "We discussed all the same things we usually do. News, recovery, how Kel is doing, on and on."

"I see. And?" - The lady asked with a raised eyebrow, unknowingly treading with her foot. The gesture was noticed by the two boys with a quick glance down, immediately looking the girl in the eye. 

'And then he told me some news.' - he continued, gently gesturing with his hands, resembling a lion tamer cooling down the beast's ardor. 'His and Kel's parents, got themselves tickets for a vacation. Like the Canary Islands or something. Two weeks vacation. And so..."

"I found out if I could join them in town for a week." The teenager's words doused the maiden like a bucket of cold water. Her eyes immediately grew wider than before, even glancing to Basil for a moment to clarify if she had heard it, or if it was true? The guy who was the target of the blonde's stabbing gaze nodded with a tired face, saying in his own way that he didn't like the sound of it either. With an expression of deep disbelief, she was about to ask a couple of very important questions, in an unseemly tone, but a sweeping hand, overtook the schoolgirl's intentions. "Before you start asking me why I did it, let me make it clear that you already know the answer. It's been a month, I've forgiven him, I'm worried about him, and I want to see them both. "

"I.... Argh, okay, okay, okay. I get it. Your right. If you want to go, then go." - With a heavy heart, the girl let it sink in through her teeth, fiercely showing that the concept itself certainly didn't make her happy. But since it is a crime to restrict a person from traveling, and she loves this fool very much, she certainly has no other choice. We'll have to discuss this topic soon, but certainly not now. Today should be a great day, and something tells me if this dialog continues, the mood will prove to be ruined. "Was that what you wanted to talk about? Can we go now?"

"Actually, no..." - The young man nervously replied, swallowing in preparation to continue. Except that his blue-haired boyfriend, had the urge to ease the difficulty of the conversation.

"Sunny, I'll take it from here. I can't just stand here idly," the former bully shrugged, stepping forward, taking his partner's turn at the until recently hidden news. "Eh, I'd better tell it straight. He told me about this week-long sleepover thing two days ago, we argued for a while, then calmed down and then, I agreed to go with him for company. Do you want to come check them out with us too?"

"Basil, I think you broke it." - commented the hoodie-clad boy, examining the hovering young lady after the final sentence. If it hadn't been for the stupor that had overtaken Aubrey's physical. Aubrey's shell, the young lady's jaw could definitely have been on the ground. She had no idea of the young man's motivation, and with all the horror going on in her head that had taken the form of a shit storm, she refused to parse it out, immediately letting the misunderstandings that had arisen loose. 

"Okay. First of all, what the fuck? Why would you do that? I mean, you've been the loudest in expressing your dislike for him!" - Raising her voice, the young woman in the panama waved her hands, having no other way to describe her frustration. In response, the guy who was addressed grumbled loudly, stretching his face a few times with a loud mooing into it, lowering it, looking seriously tired.

"Because I'm sick of being mad at everyone forever. I'm specifically fucking sick of it." - The man practically spat the answer back at her as his eyelids fell lower than usual and the bandana pressed down on his eyebrows that fell towards his eyes, giving him an objectively nervous look. With this way, one could sense that just the fact of discussing the reasons was pissing the young florist off. "Is that answer convenient for you?"

"Basil..." - whispered the younger teenager, though the words didn't reach the speaker's ears. 

"'That doesn't explain anything at all! At the hospital, you were almost ready to strangle him, and now all of a sudden you're talking completely differently. What's gotten into you?" - With an incomprehensible tone, the girl pulled questions out of him as she came closer. His manner of speech showed some restraint, but it was at once evident that the young lady's behavior was testing the index of susceptibility to an undoubtedly stressful situation. But she didn't care at this point. Although, this wording is wrong. She rather did not think about what the nerd had meant by those words, and from that, she demanded a concrete explanation, unable to restrain herself sensibly. For a moment, it seemed that the old image of the boy was preparing to return. The same one that for years had troubled her thoughts about the excessive cruelty of thought. But with a couple of inhales and exhales on the part of the man in question, those suspicions vanished, and with them the maiden's frustration. Now, in place of that emotion came anxiety. For such an emotion on the face of a partner had never before been seen. A state of something very deep. 

"Eh... Do I really need to explain this? I mean, it's pretty self-explanatory. And you've seen for yourself how I've been acting for the last month." - emitted a heavy reply from the teenager, no smile, no strong expression, and no loud words. Purely the deepest weariness. "When I said fucking tired, I meant fucking tired. Literally. Just, look at what my anger at everyone around me has turned me into. Kel the Hooligans, Hero. Sunny at the end of the day. I literally wanted to kill him because I refused to have a normal human-to-human conversation. Isn't that crazy?"

"Oh my God..." - Aubrey whispered, covering her lips with her hands as the realization of the whole situation hit her in the head with a sledgehammer. She reached her arms forward, trying to hug her lover, but her boyfriend's arms prevented her from doing so.

"Let me finish, okay?" - The boy asked, waiting for a nod. "Thanks. As I meant it, this is complete nonsense, and if I had the ability to go back in time, I would without a second thought answer my young self with a savory slap on the wrist. Maybe then Sunny never turned into that Mr. Perfect. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. I know beating myself up won't help anything, but I'm telling the truth, hey? Anyway. Who knows what this trip will do for me or if it'll help at all. But if I can somehow connect with that asshole, maybe someday I'll have the strength to talk to her. Although the fucking chances of that are minimal. As far as our offer goes, I'll tell you right off the bat. No one's going to force you, Cyclops and I will understand perfectly well if you're not ready, and therefore we'll accept any answer."

Aubergine seriously wondered what she should say on the matter. It was at once clear that he meant the possibility of spending as much time as would be necessary in principle for such an uneasy choice. In turn, however, she longed for an answer right now, and right here. At the same time as thinking about the specific question, a cloud of guilt loomed in the maiden's mind for the fact that the high school girl had never noticed the obvious signs of the very feeling that had consumed the young man throughout the month. They had tried to spend as much time with each other as possible, trying to accept to the point of exhaustion the fact of the information that had turned their brains into a muddy smoothie, but even under those circumstances, she had remained blind to his suffering. It would be a long time before the blonde would apologize to him for such a transgression, but right now, it was necessary to give her answer. 

"I'm sorry. I'm still... I'm not strong enough to see him yet. Let alone live under the same roof. But I promise, I will definitely talk to him in the future." - Aubrey replied guiltily, soon feeling her partner gently embrace her. Sunny stood back, watching with a smile as she returned the favor.

"Aubs, come on. Did you not hear me? We said we'd accept any answer, and we meant it. Right?" - The man confirmed, while simultaneously asking his boyfriend, who nodded furiously.

"Of course. Don't worry about it dear. I'm sure Hero said himself that he's almost accepted the fact of the possible fate of never having contact with you again. So don't worry so much anymore." - Suzuki's son waved his hand, quietly reveling in their interaction.

"That sounded very unsettling. Okay, for that matter, when you go, like, give him my regards." - Aubrey muttered, letting go of the boy and looking at him guiltily. "Sprout, I'm sorry for doing that. Honestly, I didn't mean to."

"Oh, never mind. We've all had our brains messed up since the hospital. What happened is what happened, so don't give me any credit. Okay?" - Basil asked rhetorically, letting go as well, standing still.

"Okay okay. Man, you know how to be all snotty when you want to be. And you refuse to be nicknamed, you rascal." - With a devilish grin, the young lady, to the surprise of her naughty partner, grabbed his neck in a lock, to Sunny's delight, giving him a nice uggie. Whatever muscles the big guy had, when it came to physical, purely joking confrontation, the punk's body went into wimp mode, as if recognizing the girl's touch and knocking out any serious resistance. When the blue-haired man did try to get out of the cruel lady's grip, waving his arms and muttering unhappily, she let the poor guy go, laughing, fixing his bandana. "So, shall we go now? Now that we've solved all the problems, we can finally have some fun. "

The boys fell silent. The movements stopped, as the fact that the topic had been dropped reached their minds, putting an end to the first conflict of opinions, and pulling the pin on a grenade that was ready to explode, it was worth the quick words to turn into life. The two looked at each other, visibly disturbed, but the one-eyed teenager who stepped forward, with the two eyes trailing behind her, made an important, albeit highly destructive decision. " Actually, we have one more problem left."

"Of course. Okay, talk then? You've both been strangely quiet." - Aubrey commented, glancing over her shoulder at a serious-looking Basil. The look sent a wave of goosebumps down her spine at the strangeness of it. Shuddering and turning back, the schoolgirl dyed her head slightly sideways, marveling at how much the atmosphere between the three of them had changed in a matter of seconds. 

"Just understand me beforehand. I... Won't take anything painful about the words you might say in response. They will be completely fair. It's a very controversial request, and it's clear to me that after your refusal, I won't think of mentioning it again." - The young man spoke extremely cautiously. Now that was something she was definitely uncomfortable with. The deliberation of every word and such a frightened tone coming directly from his lips caused the general heaviness of the air to grow. She had seen such behavior only twice before, and God knows Aubergine would pay all the treasure in the world to keep him from behaving like that around her.

"Sunny, you're really scaring me. I'm not an animal that's gonna get off the chain at the drop of a hat. I gave my word, so I'll stick to it." The emotional young lady waved her hands, continuing to maintain a positive image, but it was getting harder and harder to do so with what was happening. The boy talking to her didn't make the problem any easier, on the contrary, it made it worse, getting more and more nervous as the seconds passed. Something could seriously go wrong soon and she didn't like it at all. 

"I didn't think of you in that way. A trivial precaution so you don't feel guilty afterward." - gestured the young man, remaining in place, but here was the trembling in his legs, betraying a noticeable level of anxiety, before the impending reveal. 

"'Okay, just tell me what the matter is, and if it's as serious as you're showing, then I'll say 'yes' or 'no' appropriately, and then we'll move on. I think that option will suit us all. - urgently cut short the growing complexity in the interaction, Aubrey dropped her hands to her seams, waiting for a response from her boyfriend. Tom, it took a long second of what she could call internal self-calming before getting down to the main process after all. 

"Yes. Yes, you're right." - confirmed the young man definitively, gathering his strength for the difficult enlightenment. In the mind of a teenage girl, the impending topic is hardly as dangerous as he says it is. In days gone by, as his old behavior toppled his narcissistic personality, noticed more than once and more than twice those countless moments of fear of simple things. Those things that were never his fault, but continued to haunt the high schooler both in reality and probably in dreams. She or Basil had had to talk him out of it many times, but for the most part, the topics he brought up in moments of high stress were nothing more than trivia, though they still took them as seriously as he did. In the backseat of the Consciousness car, the young lady desperately hoped that in this case, then, it wouldn't be a serious trifle. She'd had enough hardship already. 

"The thing is..." - The young man procrastinated until the last moment, finally giving in and telling the truth as it was. "... as surprising as it may be, our parents, next week, have a trip scheduled to the main headquarters of the company, for a very important meeting. It's going to be a long one, and apparently they're going to have to fly to another part of the country. From what I heard from my father, they'll be there for about seven days."

"Okay, got it. " Her friend nodded slowly, tightening the grip she had formed on her pant leg. The thin voice in her skull grew only inexorably louder as the seconds passed, showing that her suspicions would soon be confirmed. "What's the problem then?"

"The fact that... Oh, how do I say this..." - Sunny, the second child of the Suzuki family, asked himself, throwing his gaze exactly to the side for a second, only, to return to the cooled coals instead of Aubrey's eyes. She was well aware that her gaze must be intensely frightening to the kid right now, but the filling feeling of danger in her gut overrode any empathy. 

"Say what you have to say." - The hard tone went over the youngster like sandpaper, freezing his movement. A thin ray of guilt broke through the thick shroud of gloomy assumptions, but without a millisecond of life, found itself smothered by that black stench. In her heart, the young girl begged that it was not what she thought it was. Her pleas, however, were not heard.....

"If Basil and I leave with Kel and Hero, she'll be all alone. I've spent over a month trying to talk her out of every possible thought of.... You know what. But I think she's still drawn to it"- for the last time before the silence, Sunny spoke bluntly as he was required to, obediently using this skill after months of terrible practice. " She needs someone to watch over her, to prevent a sad outcome. I...  Can I ask you to be Mari's nurse until we get back from out of town?"

...Aubrey closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then a deep exhale, in the strongest attempt to calm herself. "It's not as scary as you think." - instantly ran through her mind, leading to the expected consequences.....

...She opened her eyes, and saw only red in front of her, like a bull with a handkerchief in front of her face. Emotions came out. 

"You want me to do the fucking what?" - Aubergine coldly clarified, turning her head slightly sideways, looking with her eyes at a horizontal angle. The icy sensation from the voice hit both boys like darts of ice. The teen only saw the step of one of them recoil back in shock, but here ears couldn't fail her.

 
"Auby, did you hear me..."

"Don't call me that. Don't call me that right now. What the... " - hissed the only one allowed to speak freely. Putting her fingers to her temples, carefully massaging the numbing pain out, the girl gave a defeated howl, opening her eyes again, waving her arms to the sides, not sure how else to describe the anger she was now feeling. "What the fuck were you even thinking when that fucking thing came into your head? М? What fucking thought made sense to you when you were going over your options for keeping that criminal from killing herself?"

"'She's my sis...'"

"Your sister's dead Sunny! She didn't die the day she decided to jump into a weird noose, or when someone threw her down the stairs, but when she first pulled down your fucking pants. I can't understand how the fuck you even think..." - most of the girl's speech went much further than simply disagreeing with his request. 1\12 years of repressed anger, occasionally manifesting itself in horrifying nightmares of things that hadn't happened and things that had happened, had broken through the dam of moral principles, drowning in rage not just anyone, but a simple guy who had fallen victim to manipulation.

"Aubrey, please, I've said this before..."

"What did you, may I ask, say? That it's the same person? That you should, ohhohoho, just take it, accept what happened? Is that what you meant when you stood next to her in front of her bunk, giving that pithy speech about the cycle of abuse, yes the need to move on?" - The blonde asked rhetorically, taking steps towards him, almost blazing with rage. The fiery feeling burned away any restraints Aubergine had with her tongues, opening a passageway for any cutting words, blunting the perception of the painfulness of their utterance. "I'm willing to bet everything I have on the fact that you don't fucking believe it yourself. Surviving it is out of the question when the threat of a repeat is walking free. Alive for fuck's sake!"

"T-prison won't help anything here! She won't be able to..."

"She can't rehabilitate herself in prison. That's what you're saying. Of course. Of course, because she's itching to forget everything she's done and go back to who she was before you kissed her. That's how life works!" - short, weird laughs started coming out of the speaker's mouth. The young lady's body and her crumbling mind, crumbling into dust under the weight of the facts, were playing with the high school girl, bringing her to a near hysterical state. "Holy hell, i thought you're done with the whole 'Mr. Perfect' circus. So why the hell did you stay so dumb?"

"Aubrey, stop, we under a..."

"Don't fucking interrupt me here! I'm not done with you yet. If you dare mention that scum, act like a human being and listen to the end." - the girl who was older than he was, practically shutting the boy out with herself, throwing out the window everything that had been bothering her a moment ago. They have no date, no relationship, and no one in this park besides the three of them. These two, the traitors who repeated their despicable act and wanted to leave her alone again. Not just anyone, but her, of all people. They deserved to hear everything she could let out of her wailing head. "Just take it and damn it admit who she is. Stop making excuses for her and trying to whitewash the bitch!"

"She's still my sister! Yes, she hurt me, but I still love her like a sister!" 

"She's not your sister! Mari is dead! She betrayed and raped you! For what fucking ideas do you keep doing this to yourself? With us goddamn it! You gave a pedophile rapist a chance, you didn't return our calls for almost a month looking out for her, and now you want me to live with that crimiinal under the same roof?"  - the blonde lost herself at the moment, on the verge of tears pinning the young man to the tree with her presence. The teenager's tiny form, strong and muscular, looked horrifyingly tiny compared to the woman shielding him from the light, a head shorter than the fallen victim. Most likely, such a picture raised from the dusty recesses of the character's memory library, far from pleasant memories. She probably would have seen it, but the sunlight falling from behind was blocking her normal vision, leaving her in blissful ignorance, enveloped in rivers of anger. Suddenly, the strong hand of a certain individual squeezed Aubrey's wrist, pulling her out of the privacy of the innocent of what had happened, giving her no choice but to stare into the face of an equally, if not more, enraged Basil.

"Aubrey, that's enough! You've said enough already, so calm down immediately!" - Punk scolded in an orderly tone, leaving his grip the same, allowing the emotional young lady to recover from her bout of negative behavior. Perhaps if she hadn't been under the influence of the barrier-breaking feelings, she would have immediately noticed the new speech, previously unheard, and this considering their heated arguments from time to time. The blue-haired lover always tried to behave more calmly in the presence of the hippie girl, and from that knowledge, the expression could have hit her with triple the guilt. But it didn't. Instead of regret, fueled by repressed desires, the young lady only grinned, taking her lover's aggressive request as mere snark. 

"Oooh, I'm perfectly calm. You can't find a calmer person in this world than me. All I'm doing is telling the truth. You're in on the whole fucked up thing too, Basil, by the way." - The girl spoke threateningly, piercing the leather-clad man with her icy gaze, which weakened the strength of the brush enough to release him. Shaking off the stranger's skin, the maiden took a step forward, instinctively trying to intimidate the one she loved dearly, but given what kind of man our florist was, he didn't give in, remaining standing his ground. Though, a slight nervousness was visible in his stance. "You seriously support his decision? Really? Fuck, this is getting absurd. I thought it was just Sunny who was crazy, but it turns out I've got both boyfriends crazy!"

"Aubrey! Damn it, calm the fuck down! You're going too far!" - I shrieked annoyed at my best friend's change of heart, becoming more nervous after the words she said. 
"Then be kind enough to answer directly. Are you happy with the very concept of me living with her under the same roof? You want to send me away for a whole week where she can easily do to me what she did to him? Is that what you want?!" - was expressing a vivid scene of displeasure to Aubergine, only an inch from touching her face with her forefinger. Her shout shook the persistent image of the bully, giving the first impetus for a defensive step backward. They wanted very much to continue to stand their ground, to hold their ground and respond intelligently, as someone who had the ability to reason within the bounds of common sense. The continued pressure, however, was gradually doing its job. 

"Don't attribute to me what I didn't say!" - tried to establish the former, sensible talk of the teenager, of course unsuccessfully, under the weight of his lover's presence. "I just decided to support him, because I thought you'd have a chance to at least come to terms with what's going on and talk it over with Mari! That's all. So if you don't want to do that, then okay! That's it! End of story!"

"Like hell I'm going to let you jump off the subject that easily, you idiot piece of shit! Why would I even think about being around her on the same block! She ruined everything I've ever cared about, so on top of that, she tried to escape! The damn coward deserves to die, and I'll pray for days that she has the slightest regret in her empty head, because maybe then she'll be able to successfully hang herself!" - With all the strength of her aching lungs, Aubrey screamed in all directions, uttering words of genuine hatred for the person in question. For over thirty days, the bottled up feeling described stunned the minds of not only the two men, but also the screamer herself. During all this time, the blonde carefully tried to suppress any manifestation, every little thing, grain by grain of flaring, violent desires. Now, the bottles were thrown wide open, causing a fiery hyena, and right now, she was fine with that. At the end of the speech, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up, for the sensation of someone else's observation had taken the blonde by surprise. She immediately realized whose red eyes, were drilling into her skull. Who, in a burst of altruistic desire, concern, excitement, after the words she had heard, was stretching his hands toward her. And the disgust she felt at the evil moment was unbounded. Guided by a final flash of anger, the childhood friend abruptly turned one hundred and eighty degrees, slapping Sunny Suzuki's arm, baring her teeth at him.

"Get away from me, you little fri-"

The words, a vocal expression of rotten thoughts, died in a throat exploding with lightning. It only took a measly second for the atmosphere of the surroundings, to drop to zero temperature.  He was shivering. Badly. Just as he had when the tale of Mari's horrible torture had left his lips and his legs shook with fear. The lad's stride, half an hour ago standing at full height, encouraged by the day's preparations, now changed from straight to crouched, close to the ground. She could easily tell that what the boy wanted most of all was silence. Silence from the screams, silence from the judgmental eyes, and silence from the screaming scratch left by the older girl's fingernails, red, barely visible droplets seeping from her skin. His eyes brimmed with horror. Breathing heavy, intermittent and erratic. Like the moments of those unwanted acts of sin he'd been unwilling to commit. Sunny was afraid of her, and quite rightly so. For now, she was most likely approaching the behavior of the monster that had robbed him of that childhood innocence. Turning the boy into a caricature of an idol that never existed.

She hurt him. Just like Mari did. 

The shock of the realization choked the blonde, exactly the way a cold wave knocked all the breath out of a drowning victim. The weakness in her legs added to it. The rustling of leaves, the mutterings of strangers, and the loud sound of Basil dispersing the crowd of gawkers were not audible to the woman's ears. All that was recorded by the brain was white noise. A ringing sound of monotone, leaving Aubrey alone with raging thoughts repeating the same truth to her. A logical conclusion to a dialog that ended in screams, nerves, and tantrums. But most importantly, inflicting pain on someone who had already gathered more on herself than anyone she knew. This kid, the unfortunate victim of the man's lack of self-control that had loved him beyond belief, was now crawling toward her. She did not even immediately realize that she had fallen on her heel, for the force of the realization of the damage she had done, in addition to destroying the usual perception of sound, but also for company destroyed the awareness of herself in space. The boy was saying something to her. Her eyes were blurry, and the speaker's lips were closing with too rapid a frequency to understand the sentences they were uttering. Did it make any sense, though? Why try to transfer the poor young man, now betrayed by the second most important girl in his life, if she didn't deserve to look at the sun? The answer was known without too much thought, which already could not be conjured up due to the surrounding circumstances. Soon, they would leave her. They would do it again, but now, with her head empty of anger, it would not be difficult for the girl to conclude that this action would be deserved. The day's efforts, repeating the same mantra day after day, the behavior would be in vain, for that was the essence of Aubrey. No matter how hard she tries to convince herself that she can be better than the two criminals who left indelible wounds on the bodies of people important to her, these endeavors are destined for one unenviable fate of defeat. Every child inevitably becomes a copy of its parents. And the two mothers had apparently had an indelibly negative effect on the soul of the third traitor.

But how surprised Aubergine was when the trying, sweet Sunny was approached by a second boyfriend, whose features lacked the anger of before. Regret took the role of a key emotion, ruling the punk's facial structures while helping the muscles work. The leather-clad man squatted down in front of her, remaining as calm as possible.  Well, within his physical limits after his girlfriend's extremely loud outburst, if she could basically be called one. The two marvelous teenagers sat literally inches away from her, not getting close, giving her space and control over the situation. Despite the hellish pain in her throat, as well as the difficulty in breathing, the teenager was slowly coming to her senses. This, morally, made her feel many times worse, as distracting, intrusive thoughts appeared as her head cleared. These horrible snakes eating the brain of the young blonde, one by one removed by the help of lovers. Although the gray matter of the young lady who exploded with screams out of nowhere continued to be full of them, the silent admonitions of the soft and firm guy, slowly doing breathing exercises to her, gave her incredible support. Soon, her legs regained their sensation. Grass and earth rubbed against her knees, through the layer of fabric.  Then, vision rushed in. The doppelgängers of the figures evaporated, leaving the originals to their will. And toward the end, normal hearing blessed Aubrey's presence, allowing her to hear normal words. She calmed down. 

"Aubrey? Can you hear us?" - Sunny's broken, fidgeting voice sounded excited. With now clear eyes, the vegetarian managed to make out the guy's twitchy face, which didn't make her very happy. No matter how hard he tried to bring himself to something bordering on order, the maiden's act had seriously shaken his hopeful figure. His smile was gone, his clothes wrinkled, his eyelids twitching, tear tracks stained his cheeks again, and his hair was an even bigger mess. She let him down. 

"Hey, Aubs. Please answer us." - The bully asked with a now husky tone, kneading his hands nervously. The teen's tone was due to nothing more than a shriek at the crowd, if memory hadn't jumbled the events in the wrong order. From the mess the young lady had heard and experienced, this moment still remained a fade maybe among the two he looked much more stable, but she was well aware that in moments of serious stress, like now, inner demons could do terrible things to this flower boy.

"I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm okay. - the girl repeated with difficulty in her syllables, stammering, more like a psychotic schizophrenic reciting a mantra to keep in touch with reality. Not that she'd gotten far with the example, though. Standing up, accepting the help of Basil's hands, back with their feet in the grass, the trio stood awkwardly in silence. The random townsfolk had long since left the park, must have been for etiquette reasons, though it was impossible to say with certainty, leaving the old friends alone. Running her palm over her face, brushing a few curls away from her face, Aubergine exhaled, moaning into nothing. "Damn, I'm so sorry, I just... I just don't know how to say it."

"Honey, take it easy, I'm not mad. It's okay." - the boy said quietly, startling the girl with his answer. Of course, to some extent this response was expected, for the naive nature of it is known to all members of the group, but to be so quick...

"Sunny, what are you talking about?  There's nothing good about this!" - Although her resentment at the undeserved forgiveness had reached serious heights, she didn't want to make any more trouble. So she spoke more in an exhausted manner than loudly. To make things even more confusing, the boy she was talking to only shook his head modestly, raising his eyebrows and smiling modestly. The girl's brains had only recently fallen back into place, but were already returning to a broken state from the irrational nuances. 

"Aubrey. That was your trigger. And I consciously pushed it, fully aware of the consequences. You could say it went even better than I anticipated.' the boy rubbed the back of his head as both partners looked in his direction, mentally envisioning the horrors of the one-eyed seducer's predictions.

"I don't even want to know what you've got brewing in your cauldron about that." - the young lady stated simply, storming the ground with shame with her eyes. After all, Suzuki's son's words implied thoughts of something far worse than the recent screaming. Perhaps she really had been flaunting her fears all this time, failing at one simple idea. "Ohhh, and yet. Why forgive so easily? I did hurt you, didn't I! Isn't that..."

"Just like Mari?" - Sunny finished her sentence for her. Alarmed at the mention of her former, specifically in her case, older sister, she fell silent, nodding cautiously. To which Mr. Unideal let out a chuckle through his lips and nose. "You're sorry, but I'm not as fragile as I seem at first glance. I can't be so badly frightened by a couple insults, screams, and a scratch on my arm that I can immediately put you at odds with her."

Basil and Aubrey raised their eyebrows in disbelief.

"I know, I know. It's hard to believe." - Stopped the two lovers from making sarcastic remarks by putting his hands out in a defensive stance, palms forward. Turning her hands, the high school girl discerned the seriousness of the injuries inflicted, fixing that those were no more significant than pathetic scratches. Stressed brains can do some nasty tricks. "But I stand by what I said. Just because you had an emotional outburst doesn't make you as bad as her. You don't have to exaggerate like that. Honestly."

"Okay. I hear you, I'm sorry. Didn't mean to be insulting, it's just everything...' - The blonde said, being cut off from speaking by the second tallest of the group.

"Honey, again, relax. You didn't insult me in any way. What happened is what happened, which means it's over. This isn't my first random approximation of a panic attack, and I've heard much worse things in the last four years. Forgiveness has been given to you. Period. Deal?" - Reasoned the girl paranoid about her actions. Although the arguments were painfully rational, but the body seized by guilt is difficult to change the mind with such easy words. Therefore, to avoid answering directly, the woman let the situation off the leash by waving off an effective joke. 

"Argh, it feels like you'd forgive a war criminal too, give you the chance." - She brushed it off, but seeing the smug face of his kind, she immediately regretted it. "You're kidding me."

"...Well, who knows what my father was doing in the Persian Gulf, so..." - The comedian shrugged, bringing a bit of positivity into the depressing environment. Positivity had already been a bad coping mechanism for him in the past, but at the moment, with the way things were going, perhaps this attempt would prove successful.

"Alright, you've made your jokes and that's enough. Are you two done being distracted?" - Basil snapped out of his blissful attention warp to the problem of the situation. Turning to the man in the bandana, the twin looked up at the seriously concerned face. Beneath the frowning features, lay a reinforced concrete foundation of excitement and worry about both of them. Placing his hands crossed, he coughed before speaking again. "Aubrey, I stand by Sunny's side too, about forgiving you. But here's what's bothering me right now, is this... The whole situation with Mari and your reaction. Believe me, I'm incredibly angry with her, too. I'm fucking pissed off. But this is too much. Dude, I'm sorry, please, but we should break our rule."

"Completely justified. Apparently there is some of my fault here, in all that reluctance to bring up the subject of her." - said the lad, ashamed of what he had done.

"We've all made a mistake here. I've been pushing too hard here too with asking about your decision." - confirmed her involvement in the silly creation of inhibitions while brushing her collarbone with worry.

"Same thing guys. Same thing." - The words of the man with the dyed hair ended the circle of involvement in what had happened. Looking over the two, checking that they were indeed ready to talk about such a heavy topic that had led to the recent neurosis, he mumbled heavily before finally asking the important question. "Aubrey?"

"Yes?" - Answered in the same manner of her lover's words.

"What exactly have you been thinking about during this month?" - decided to go straight to the main course, the florist knocking the air out of the questioned young lady's lungs. The word may have been exaggerated in some sense, but at this point, with who exactly they were to talk about bringing on the obvious discomfort, the dialog felt like a full-blown interrogation. Either way, the way back was closed, and Darling was the only one, only forward. For too long she'd been running from those thoughts.

"'Geezz, where to even begin." - The blonde asked rhetorically, directing her eyes to the side, subconsciously dumping the stacks of heavy musings plaguing her daily day in and day out. Rather, it would be easier to say what she had NOT been thinking about for a month. There's a much smaller list there. "Honestly... I've been thinking about everything and nothing at the same time. I have no idea how to explain it. One moment I was trying to realize the reasons why Mari wanted to do this, why she thought it would make her stress go away, and the next I was organizing the things I needed to do today. It was like..."

"'A hurricane?" - Sunny interrupted her, not taking off the different smile from before, not looking severely, abnormally tired. "You set yourself the goal you needed to fulfill, but one thought or another still popped up from time to time, sending the pre-prepared structure into chaotic, unpredictable flight."

"Yes. Please don't tell me that's what's been happening to you all these years." - groaned the young lady, ruffling her now-tangled hair from stress, knowing full well that there could only be one answer. A shrug. Black humor was his trademark when he wasn't acting like a soft boy, and the realization of the roots of this habit made a nasty lump rise in the blonde's throat. 

"Ooh! What on earth is going on with us..." - Asked no one in particular Aubrey, putting away her brushes and looking around at the awkwardly seated, silent boyfriends. Of course, realizing who she was talking about now, exhausted by the emotional outbursts, turned to the one who had joined the romantic ranks. "I know you said she was stressed, worried, had huge expectations placed on her. But no matter how hard I try, I don't think I can ever forgive her. Mari is still to blame for this, for whatever reason. It's too horrible of her to turn you into - You. I'm sorry, I can't describe it any other way."

"I don't hold a grudge. You say all the right things. But I wasn't talking about forgiveness. I was talking about moving forward. " The young man in the hoodie clarified, bringing the words to another stated growl.

"Yeah, that's understandable, but... Fuck, I can't just move on from this so easily. It's absolutely impossible while she's constantly around. She's constantly reminding me of myself, by some fucking little thing. A brunette walking by, someone's flirting with anyone in a white dress..." - muttered so that only those sitting an arm's length away from her could hear Aubergine. The boys' gazes joined each other, exchanging a similar thought before meeting the teenager's back raised head again. "Jesus Christ, that woman literally lives one block away from me and Basil. Every time I walk by across the street to get groceries, I look in the direction of your house and I imagine.... and I picture all of you. Oh, God, I'm gonna be sick."

"Aubs, hang on,  bag is coming..." - instantly rose straight up two scared for their beloved's condition young men where it was Basil who spoke. With kind souls, they prepared to run to the bench, for a possible bottle of water or something to help after the approaching vomiting, but a few snapping fingers from the short haired one, stopped them in one place. In a crouched position, the girl clapped her palm over her chest, trying with all her might to keep the liquid from coming out. Breathing hard, enduring the occasional acidic taste that showed its nature at the base of her tongue, Aubrey managed to fight the urge, gulping loudly, immediately gaining air heavily into her lungs. 

"It's all right! False alarm. Oh, bitch, that's gross. Blergh." - moaned the vegetarian tiredly, almost tasting the fake bacon again, coughing. Soon, two charming catchers bowed down in front of her, holding out the all-too-familiar H2O.

"Careful. You don't need to drink it so fast." - Sunny asked quietly, just in case, preparing to catch the bottle if it slipped out. Thankfully, that didn't happen, and the young lady calmly screwed the cap back on, handing the container back to her master.

"Relax. My throat is already dry from all that screaming." - The teenager commented on her thirst, slapping herself on the cheeks to recover a bit. "Okay, almost threw up, but that's beside the point. I think you've already realized how fucked up it is."

"There's no other way to put it. Aubs, I'm really..." - was about to say a sincere apology to the flower boy, but it didn't fit the teenage girl's plan, from which it was put under the knife of counter-argument.

"You're sorry, I know. The situation is a bit upside down, but from the looks of it, we both made the same mistake. Therefore, I forgive you. That's all. Let's better not stretch this out, sprout." - Nudged her boyfriend with her elbow, denying him the beginning of a fit of self-deprecation. If she made a similar mistake with him, and he quickly forgave her, what kind of person would she be if she didn't forgive him for his logical reaction to the truth? After enjoying the punk's blurry, twitchy grin, the damsel turned to her other lover, continuing the discussion that had begun. "How did you do it, moving forward? How do you keep just being happy about what's happening, knowing that the reason for everything that happened is out there waiting for you? At home. On the outside. And not getting any punishment."

"Well, with a lot of hard work. And time. And means. Although, I'm still not entirely sure I've truly come to terms with what happened..." - Sunny said, looking downcast. Her gut told Aubrey that she wouldn't like a quick answer, but because she needed some, she continued to listen. "... The thing that helped me the most was our memories with her. The bad ones too, by the way. At their core, they are deeply unideal. Neither of them. They're not terribly evil, but they're not beautifully good. I remember daily those moments when she helped me with my homework, solving incorrectly with me, or played music exclusively for me, wrong of course. I also have flashbacks to things she did. How she raped me. How her tears of regret flowed every time Mari did it. И... I know that the mere fact that she can go on living is inherently punishment. And she realizes that, too. And that in itself has become torture. Maybe, having internalized the fact that things are getting better and that my sister is serious about getting better, I've accepted everything that's happened as part of me? Do you know what I'm talking about, or do I sound too deep?"

"Mmmm, sort of. I got lost at the mention of..... You know." - The punk frowned, not entirely confidently, shrugging his shoulders. The blonde could practically see the gears jamming in the bully's head. Her situation wasn't any better, though. 

"Oh. Of course. So-so, still very much helped by the psychiatrist. You two should find yourselves one too, by the way. " The one-eyed boy mentioned. 

"Dude, don't give me that shit. You're the one with the rich parents, which is terrible. Since my farts gave Polly parental rights, not a dime has come in from them, and Aubs's dad's a teacher. Not everybody can afford that. " - said the real truth to the boy, snorting. Of course, he was mostly right. Especially about his own pathetic parents. But Eddie, on the other hand, always had some rainy-day bills, which, knowing the nature of the man, would have been in the good doctor's pocket if she'd only squeaked about wanting to talk face to face in his office. Therefore, Aubrey remained silent, not wanting to raise her father's already impressive costs.

"Yep. Unfortunately, it's the only way we live..." - The maiden said in a slightly quieter tone, drawing the attention of her beau. The circumstances painted the canvas in sullen colors. Her therapist was unavailable, her nightmares had been going on for weeks, her stress had reached such a high point that she was going into whacked-out maniac mode at the slightest mention of a woman, and the future, with the constant avoidance of the subject of what had happened, certainly didn't look desirable. At this rate, her fears will probably escalate to such an absurd degree that Aubrey won't even be able to look at Sunny without triggering. In the expanded picture of events, ignoring the problem had the potential to ruin a teenage girl's life. And with that, there was only one way to nip the chaos of consequences in the bud. The solution is difficult, far from the concept of pleasant. But to put it bluntly, if he was able to face the inner demons of trauma, with years of baggage of suffering on his shoulders and indeed direct scars from it, then to her, such a task should be a no-brainer. From a theoretical point of view. In fact, the young lady's mind was well aware of the absurdity of the option, carefully trying to dissuade Lady Principle, but, by sad experience, she knew the ugly truth. Sometimes, in order to achieve anything, one had to take risks. "... Oh, I can't believe I'm saying this, but..."

"I agree. I'm willing to be her nurse for seven days until you get back." - Just a few sentences, and there's a feeling in my throat like a bag of rocks being spit out of my gut. The feeling was new to her, but sticking to her instincts, Alana knew she would experience it oh so many more times. Lifting her eyes from the ground, the teen noticed the concerned faces of her partners, painted with shock. Sunny's face stood out the most, for after all, he was the one who had suggested this venture.

"'Auby, please wait a second, but you're a...'" - spoke the boy who hadn't finished his sentence.

"Yeah, said I never want to see her in my life, I want her dead and blah blah blah." - The blonde waved the brush in a joking, yet also serious, manner. "Don't get me wrong. It's still a radical stance, but I refuse to deny what I said. However, I can't sit on my ass flat and let something in the spirit of today happen again."

"Hey, you don't have to force yourself, Aubrey." - the bandana-clad young man tried to change his lover's mind, creeping closer to her, checking to see if she'd let him rest a hand on her shoulder, which he did as soon as the young lady nodded. "Look, you're the first one we've asked, and we don't want to burden you with this. As a matter of fact, it's easy for us to hire anyone, you know?"

"And how many people do you know in our town who are willing to be around her in the same room?" - The girl asked rhetorically, arching an eyebrow to her forehead. The bully opened his mouth, along with raising his index finger, in an attempt to come up with something logical, but then soon deflated, straightening his lips in a straight line.

"That's exactly right."

"Even so, my dear. Don't be forced into something you don't like out of guilt." - The kid put in, looking gently reassuring. When the subject came to deeds grown in the soil of compassion and regret, the fruit of those deeds always tasted bitter. Sunny had had enough of his own. "It's clear to Basil and me that you just need a little more time. "

"'That's very sweet of you, but listen." - Counter argued Aubrey, straightening her back and looking at them both with complete seriousness. If it weren't for the specifics of the scarred boy's condition, she would have immediately taken both his and her hands in a gesture of genuine sincerity. But given the aforementioned factor, the lady preferred to fold them at her hips. "I want to do that. I want to try to make even the slightest connection with her. Of course, nothing will ever be the same. One can only dream of that. But that's not the point. The point is that I need to get past this fear and get over it and be a better person. That's why I'm doing this. First, to move forward, as you said before, and then for you two."

The emotion-fueled words took the two boyfriends by surprise. Their faces immediately embodied modest smiles of gratitude, and a modicum of happiness for hearing the recognition. And Aubrey would have been only too glad to share this brief moment of quiet happiness with them, but an important fact must be announced, exactly as the final verdict. "Come to think of it, I may have said all that under the influence of emotion. So you'd better agree to it quickly, before I get my brains back in gear and change my mind. М? So what's it going to be?"

"Ugh, you're giving us no choice at all. " The guy sighed, wounded by the man leaving, fixing his hair and nodding briefly.  In the eyes of the individual read a good deal of trust, confidence in the favorability of the future outcome, and the safety of his beloved. The latter was obvious, for she had, after all, almost carried this giant to his house a month ago. "Thank you, darling. From the bottom of my heart. I'll tell you right away, if you think of backing out during the day, we'll take it easy."

"Oh, enough of that. We've made a deal, so we've got a deal.' - put a stop to the finished subject by the damsel, puffing to herself under her nose. She was renowned for her ability to back up ironclad decisions, and in this case, with her own psychological health at stake, it was titanium. The seriousness of the seriousness of the seriousness, but the very reason for their meeting today, had completely fallen out of the young lady's mind, reminding herself only now. "By the way, what time is it?" 

"Sort of..." - The blue-haired senior pulled out his phone, turning it on and refining the numbers. "... Two o'clock in the afternoon." 

"Uh-huh. What time were we supposed to be at the mall?" - The vegetarian asked, connecting the dots into a coherent picture.

"About one o'clock. Yaaaaaah." - now realizing the plan had been cut through the cabbage, the guy stood up with the others, heading for the exit of the park. They may have missed an hour of free time that could have been spent on something exciting, but at least a much-needed issue had been resolved, giving the lady some food for thought. Their first threesome date, began on a stressful note in. Not ideal, however definitely memorable.

--------

The trip to the new, recently opened shopping mall, in the center of the city itself, took the guys a little more than ninety minutes. First walking to the bus stop, then to the nearest meter, and then to the place of their upcoming date. A four-story spot full of every entertainment known to man. A store, a food court, a movie theater, dozens of stores starting from the usual ones dedicated to clothing or technology and ending with something more specific like fishing stalls, cassette rentals and others. Of course, taking into account the recent opening of this establishment, the people here were mountains. Old and young, went their own ways, often with their families. Of course, among the crowds were a bunch of teenagers fooling around on public benches, at soda machines, or in stores, looking at but not buying goods. But a couple of three people, of varying height, fashion choices, and appearance, stood out like a thorn in the side of the crowd. Did it bother them in the slightest? Only just a little bit. Having lived most of their adolescence as a deliberate study in uniqueness, the trio, in their own way, had gotten used to the occasional jaw-dropping stares. Basil was rarely bothered by other people's eyes examining his menacing-looking outfit. He must have just gotten used to the rare peeks, due to his aggressive appearance, and learned to score big and rusty on them. Who cares what anyone thinks of him, as long as he has his own pride and the love of those he holds dear. Aubrey's situation was a little different, for those casual glances were often of two types. Those admiring her taste in fashion, and those rudely lobbing them at her. The former remained her favorite to this day, for anyone could like positive attention, with the approval of a random person. She had always tried to be purely for herself when it came to choosing her outfits. As long as she is happy with the resulting picture in the mirror, and friends support the young lady, everything goes better than ever. However, the second type of fallen ok, sent wet goosebumps down her spine, when the sense of boundaries of personal space, was violated by someone's lustful gaze. It was extremely rare, and never farther away than a passing man looking behind his back as she walked by. But the small residue of the recurrence of such instances unfortunately remained. 

And then there's Sunny. A growing teenager in the prime of life. Someone who, until a short while ago, was licking every millimeter of hair off the top of his head, trying to look perfect. A young man who took every frightened or disgusted look as an expression of unconditional love in his direction. During the period of divergence of the old group of acquaintances, the boy actively suppressed his fear, pressing on the sore spot, and calling his suffering flattering names. Perhaps somewhere subconsciously, in his cerebral cortex, every eye turned toward him evoked in him a hidden terror. But fear is a sensation unknown to Mr. Ideal, so he turned the logical perception of ostracism to the opposite side, bathing in the rays of the surrounding 'attention'. Acceptance of truth was preceded by acceptance of fears. Recognizing just the fact that he was experiencing those feelings, the stress that made Suzuki's son human, had helped him on the difficult journey that had led the youngster to the backhoe they were all riding up now. Aubrey let out an inaudible sigh, inaudible to no one but herself, as she considered the back of her new boyfriend. That classic repertoire had never appeared in front of the girl again since the high schooler had been discharged from the hospital. Must be, with those memories lurking in the fabric of the pants, shirt, vest and shoes, he'd never want to accept them back on his skin. Anyway, the old closet was shoved under the stairwell, giving Sunny a reasonable opportunity for a change of style, which he took with fervent eagerness. The colors are faded, calm, unassuming. This appearance of a boy whose name screamed brightness created a kind of contrast between the name and the image. They are, even if in this image she is allowed to speak of him, boring. Realizing the implication of the choice, the young girl frowned. She really wanted to see her partner happy. To see him shouting with joy, dressed exactly as he wished, and shrugging the weight of the horror he'd endured off his back, walking on with his shoulders wide open. But he couldn't. He didn't want to appear in front of anyone if it didn't help him fight his recognized phobias, whether it was attention, or worse, physical contact.

Speak of the devil. The girl's eyes lowered slowly to the guy's large hand, certainly larger than hers. A strong, trained, but to the surprise of the surroundings, delicate hand. The many exertions had taken their toll on it, leaving blister marks the width of the entire palm. The first thing that came to the girl's mind when looking at this particular body part was how much she wanted to entwine her hand with his. To feel the heaviness, and the warmth of the limb on her. But at the same time, to let him visibly know that he was cared for. That he was loved, valued and cherished, no matter what. It's a simple gesture, one that millions of couples all over the world use every day, but it's not available to the three of them. Aubrey knows it will please him. As a child, no matter who held out their hand, he always gave his, crossing his fingers with one friend or another. What to take from that innocent child. A little kid who dreamed that summer would never end, school would never start again, and his efforts in helping the dear members of his self-named family of an older sister and four children meant something. He just wanted to help his loved ones. It was that desire that led to what stopped the girl whenever she trivialized the thought of the sim unforgivable act. As soon as the thought surfaced from the depths of gray matter, ripened like lotus petals on a lily, the flower immediately wilted from the truth poured upon it. A single touch, would entail a painful sigh and shudder. An abnormal reaction, bringing the maiden down to earth whenever she should have given it even the slightest thought.

With the thoughts fading from time to time, she and her two boyfriends made it to the floor they needed. The third. The interactive entertainment area. Video game stores, costume stores, stores with all sorts of trinkets. Hell, there was even a branch of Hobby Lobby. They'd always thought that that cubbyhole right after 'Gino's Pizza' was the company's only location, but as it turned out, no. Shocked by their new discovery, the trio celebrated with a brief look at the interior, and a few minutes of surreptitious comic book reading. However, by doing so, precious minutes were wasted that could have been spent on something for which the dreary bus ride had been overcome. 'Club 195' - a loud declaration of their superiority, over the pathetic plebs and old men before them. Only a couple times, the group had gone to places like them, but none had been this cool. Neon lights? Everywhere. Dark palette with strange colors and shapes on the floor? From one end of the hall to the other. Huge rows of slot machines, both the newest and old veterans? All for your enjoyment. They had special tokens instead of ordinary quarters. That's how superior they were. After standing for what seemed like a minute in front of the bright, white sign, the company went inside, greeted at the front desk by a cute young woman cashier, about two years older than them, in a purple uniform. 
"'Hello, welcome to Club 195. Is this your first time here?" - Linda asked in a positive voice. At least that's what the nametag on her chest said. 

"Yes. It's been a while since we've been to a place like this. Can you tell us how it works here?" - Aubrey admitted with a twinge of embarrassment while behind her back, the two friends discussed something of their own. When the lady started typing into the old computer, they took notice as well.

"'My pleasure." - She squeaked, stopping typing and straightening her back, pointing her palm to the left of the reception desk. "It's really quite simple. To the left we have old arcade machines. Pacman, Tetris, Donkey Kong and all the oldies. On the right, we've got all the ones that came out after '94. Behind, behind the wall and the toy store, arcade machines and anything that's neither right nor left. To play, we have tokens for sale right here. Two tokens, one dollar. Advance far enough at the end of the game, and you'll get a certain number of coupons. Collect the right number, and you can redeem them for a toy at the store! Since you're new to us, you get a fifteen percent discount. So, do you want to have fun?"

Did the three of them have a chance to turn out, after what they'd heard? Of course not! With a gnawing desire to get their hands on the little unique coins as soon as possible, they fumbled around in their pockets, pulling out their wallets and counting the available cash.

"Okay, Obi, Basil, I'll be paying today." - Sunny said confidently, pulling out a credit card before the bandana boy snatched it from him, along with his wallet, and shoved it back in.

"'No you pay." - With a straight line in place of his mouth spoke the common sense fact he tucked his own wallet into his pocket, surprising the boy.

"'What do you mean, I don't pay? I'm also paying! I have enough money to pay for the tokens." - resented the young man, but a short groan from the girl, with a smile on her face and coming out with purely positive intentions, cut short the attempt at persuasion. 

"'Sunny, Basil and I are very happy that you want to pamper us and show us you care. But today, is your day, and I'd rather eat a cow alive than let you spend a dime," the young lady said sternly but mostly playfully, tilting her head to the side and resting her hand on her belt.

"Can't I at least buy my own tokens?" - The boy asked expectantly, knowing full well the answer he would be rewarded with, but at least he would try to draw out the desired result.

'Nah. We'll buy YOU tokens, YOU take them and have a blast. Is that clear? - The girl boss rhetorically clarified, holding out the bills to the cashier, along with her boyfriend, watching as the expression of someone who's now had his plans scrapped showed on the guy's face.

"Also, you're going to lose to me." - completed the blue-haired rebel's list of today's actions, blurring into an annoying smirk that was soon adopted by the one-eyed boy as well.

"'Oh, you can't even dream of that.'" - in accordance with his desire to defeat his opponent, said the young man, remembering the challenge thrown by the bully in the general chat room.

"Is that it? Let's see how you'll sing when I've knocked off more points than you in all the machines' replied the leather-clad man with a tease, grinning at his lover. 

"Are they always like this?" - whispered the establishment's blonde employee, whose question she spoke to with a smile.

"Don't mind them. It's just their way of flirting with each other. Anyway, thanks for your work!" - the vegetarian said, picking up a handful of coins, enough for their first few hours of play, and heading straight for the retro arcade room, beckoning the biting, jokingly amongst themselves boys to follow. "Boys, keep up!"

The arcade, gave the trio of lovers a slightly different feel. Homey, cozy in its own way. Like when you come back to your favorite house, after a hard day, where you are greeted by a cold drink and a TV, showing a new episode of your favorite series. The perfect blend for a relaxing evening. Right here, it's pretty much the same, despite the objective difference between a private residence and a room full of assorted strangers. The electronic sounds of someone's turntable and early nineties' music playing in the background caressed the ears of the teenagers, washing away old anxieties to nowhere. Strongly running air conditioners cooled the air here, heated by the breathing of the crowd of players, and cleaned the pores of the spices emanating from the packs of chips. Flashing colors, shrieks of familiar digital characters greeted the trio in their long contest to find the best player. All in all, with the fact that they'd only been to a place like this once, the three traumatized by life felt blissfully calm for a while. 

Right now, Aubrey was assembling a Tetris tower in her arcade machine. The geometric pieces fell one by one, coming together in the semblance of a solid tower. She didn't have the same experience with video games as Sunny, which now, she was spending her tenth token in a row. The amusement was pulling all potential thoughts out of her head, focusing her attention on one point. To make sure she still had coins left. However, the task was more difficult than expected, because the two peculiar individuals were distracting her with their maneuvers, shouting and teasing each other. It wasn't that she was angry about it, but rather that she was just noticing an amusing fact. There was no way Aubergine could be mad at her boys for simply having fun. Two giants, a head taller than her each, were beating each other into a puddle at this very second. Of course, using the control panel in the old Tekken, commenting on every successful hook, or special move they pulled off. The score of the game was 7-1. In whose favor? Sunny's favor, of course. How else could it be? The brunet has always been known for his extraordinary skills, which no one has ever found an equal. Although, there were rumors that the fish saleswoman from Other m art melted under her desk an ancient device, famous for its title, and showed it only to a select player. But perhaps it was just a silly tale. The girl seriously believed that she could never find a better player than a modest looking kid. 

Anyway, forgetting about his ability to come out victorious when it came to any kind of game, the girl's attention was mostly attracted by the pleasant atmosphere that prevailed between the boyfriends. Friendly contests, where neither the first nor the second does not mean all the insults hurled, and in fact, say them for the sake of image, hiding the admiration of the rival feints shown. Boys, acting like boys, and she liked it very much. Such behavior, the young girl observed, far from the first time. Since the creation of their chat room and the beginning of full-fledged communication, when the dots were put where they were obliged, and the decisions were accepted, the two young men have fundamentally changed their attitude to each other. Now, they easily admit that they love each other, but as old friends, they still try to act like bitter rivals. It's just their thing. And to tell you the truth, it's pretty hilarious. Aubrey only wishes they hadn't gotten to this point in their relationship after the summer they'd been treating him. Maybe if one particular event hadn't happened, history might have turned the other way....

"Argh, that's enough." - The blonde frowned, stopping herself from continuing the negative thought. Things were going better than expected, but those annoying lines of internal monologue were still popping into her head. Her nervous breakdown had been forgiven on the spot, they had negotiated a very emotionally costly deal and now, were partying till they dropped, forgetting about all the existing problems, living like normal teenagers. Even so, it wasn't enough, for the thoughts were still showing themselves at unfortunate moments. Rubbing the bridge of her nose with her fingers for a second, the young lady didn't notice the loud sound of playing. Staring at the guys and losing interest in the game repaid in fair coin, leading the damsel to a large 'GAME OVER' sign. "Fuck."

"Ha! Finally! Suck it!" - cried the blue-haired punk triumphantly, throwing his hands up in the air, rejoicing in his enemy's defeat. At the same time, the loser, with the look of the main villain coming out from backstage, slowly clapped his hand on his arm. What a bunch of assholes. Here's to her assholes. 

"Well done Basil. That was a great fight! Now, let's see how it goes..." - said the normally calm teenager in his asshole voice, pulling out a piece of paper with lines and dashes on it. "... The final tally is 10 of my wins and two of yours. A new record for you!"

"What? I don't believe it. Show me that." - hissed the bully, taking the sheet only when the boy placed it on the character control panel. After inspecting it a bit, the young man rubbed his teeth together, holding the evidence back out to the owner. "'Tsk. Okay, you got yours. But that was only the first run. We've got a few more rounds to go, and that's where I'll definitely beat you."

"Aaaawwww. Sprout, you already know how this is going to end, don't you? " The girl sang out, approaching the two lovers from the side, smarting at the fiery desire of the bully. "'You may have been calmer before, but you never could win 'Sunny. "

"Hey, don't give me that shit. I won you all a lot of times at cards back when I was a kid. " the guy clarified, which of course everyone recognized as true. To some extent, he had a talent for gambling, for his naughty hands, coincidentally, were always blessed with a good card.  Aubrey only hoped that this very blessing didn't come out the side of his mouth. "By the way. Does anyone know if we have a casino or poker club in town?"

"Basil, I think it's illegal in our state..." - The girl was concerned about the legality of underage gambling, but the words that came out of the quiet young man's mouth rounded her eyes.

"Grandma Charlene has meetings in her basement on Wednesdays, exclusively at seven o'clock in the evening." - the young man said calmly, counting the change in his hand, not noticing the stares of his lovers.

"What?" - The men with dyed hair asked in unison.

"What?" - Answered the kid with a question for a question.

"You know, never mind. Let's better get a move on." - Uttered the young punk boy irrelevantly, amazed at the innocence with which his partner declared the existence of underground activity, walking further down the hallway with everyone else. It seems frequent assistance to everyone and a persistent desire to keep quiet had consequences of the main trauma as well. Shaking the thought out of her head, the girl decided that she would analyze this information later, when their date was over. In the meantime, it would be better to enjoy the time while life gave her the chance. 

At least that's what she thought before the aforementioned force took away her moment of calm. Among the group of teenagers, geeks, adults who'd been freed from the oppression of strict parents, there were two children running around. Two tiny little kids, no more than ten years old. A boy and a girl, apparently twins, with brown hair, blue eyes and loud laughter on their lips. Unnoticed by outsiders, they squealed with joy like any hyperactive creatures their age. Pushing each other in a game of catch-up in the middle of a crowded aisle, where the walls were slot machines, these guys ran at full speed, not noticing the others, which soon became their mistake. Giggling, shouting at each other and just teasing, the youngest of them crashed into the leg of a young man, many times older than her. Inadvertently wrapping her arms around him. Immediately falling on her fifth point, the wee I awkwardly got up from the floor, shaking off her pants and hastily apologizing. 

"Uh-oh! Ooh ooh... Sorry mister, I didn't mean to..." - The words didn't manage to get out all the way, for one look at the face of the person she addressed instantly took away the desire to apologize, to the desire to run as far away as possible. Thanks to the fact that Aubrey was now behind the two of them, she was able to see the expression that appeared on her lover's face. If Aubergine had been her age, she would have been just as frightened, if not more so. Sunny's eyes opened as wide as possible, emitting an aura of pure terror, much of which lurked in the thoughts hidden from them. His body stance became defensive, ready to defend against any potential threat, with one leg behind him. His teeth showed themselves in a grin, pressing against the calcium structure and gritting quite a bit. The blonde was well aware of the condition. In a moment of fear, when the body thinks only of self-defense, under the influence of a trigger, a common mechanism in many people turns on. 'Hit or run'. And from the looks of it, the man was ready to strike at any second. But thank the gods, the girl's petty crying prevented the worst-case scenario from happening, snapping the guy out of his trance. "Waaaaaah..."
"Oh shit! Okay, sweetie, wait, it's okay don't cry." - An older girl immediately rushed to soothe the wee one, squatting down next to her. She tried to speak as soothingly as possible, taking into account that it was just a frightened child. She wasn't aware of the implication of her own accidental behavior, and she had no right to hold a grudge. Glancing over her shoulder, Aubrey exhaled, realizing that her boyfriend was already on to him. Basil rushed over to help her boyfriend deal with the shock of the sudden haphephobia, taking him aside and supporting him in the breathing technique. Everything was going so well, developing so wonderfully, and just one small accident, ruined their carefully constructed plans.

Soon, through the gawkers and passersby, their peer appeared. An older brother, brought to the scene of the confrontation by the younger. The teenager is large, strong, muscular and looking somewhat menacing with his impressive musculature and tank top stretched over his fighting body. "So, what else happened here! What did you do to my sister?" - the man demanded answers from his seat, dropping to his knee in front of his relative and lifting her into his arms, causing her to immediately cling to him as she continued to cry. 

"Uncle is scary..." - squeaked the junior high girl, wiping her tear-dripping snot on the guy's clothes, calming down. 

"You either tell me everything in detail right now or I'm going to security, and you'll be escorted out of the club by the scruff of the neck. " he growled menacingly, looking exactly at the panting pre-panicked young man. Having no other choice, the maiden took a deep breath, calming down before beginning to explain what had happened.
Explaining what had happened, took them much longer than she had anticipated. The constant whispers of those around her, the interruptions of a defensively inclined stranger, and the sense of danger before a direct conflict that came literally out of nowhere took a lot out of her, yet the problem resolved itself. The other party to the hotly debated event actually apologized for their loud words, bowing and following their own path. When the crowd had dispersed a bit, and the lady had calmed down, she turned to her best friends, finding them sitting together, sitting a foot away from each other. The boy's breathing had stabilized, and now, with a nervous smile, he looked away, ashamed of his own reaction.

"Sunny, how are you? Better? - the young lady worried, approaching the two lovers and examining them from the side. Basil was still warily peering in the direction of the stranger who had left them, as if preparing for a repeat of the conflict, while the young man who had survived the trigger was scratching his neck awkwardly. 

"Yeah. Don't worry about me, I'm fine. How's the little one doing? Did I scare her too much?" - The brunet asked, sending a brief needle of mortification into his mistress' heart. 

"Shit, Sunbun. You'd better worry about yourself." - Aubrey smiled briefly, soon frowning again. "There's nothing wrong with her. We explained what happened, taking out some of the details."

"Good. Very good." - Mumbled Mr. Unideal, chuckling to himself. Silent for a while, he wanted to say something extremely important, but the girl ahead of him, who immediately understood the teenager's intentions, said her five cents.

"Don't even think about apologizing. You got triggered, that's all. It's nobody's fault. You told me the same thing, dummy. " the lady positively shut down his self-injury, looking at the one-eyed man affectionately. 

"Yeah. I know. You know how to read my mind. Thank you guys. Really, thank you," the doting catcher thanked his partners, eliciting short chuckles from the two.

"Hey, don't mention it. That's what lovers are for." - Punk quipped, climbing down from his seat with his boyfriend, starting to walk away from the scene of the conflict. "Okay, I think we need to check our heads a little. Not enough to get us into apathy again. So, ready for round two?"

"Heh. Thanks for trying to cheer me up. Get ready, honey. I'm coming." - smirked the beau who was back on the dating rails, glancing at Aubrey walking behind him.  "'Wanna join the competition too?"

"Oh, boys. I thought you wouldn't even ask." - The blonde smiled devilishly, crunching her knuckles. "Make way for the lady. Now your mom will show you how to play."
With those words, the trio walked off, straight toward the hall with the new machines. Though the thought of what had happened still bothered them, and the context of the younger one's reaction was slowly but surely eating away at the gray matter, the young lady kept hope that at least today's date had a chance to end on a positive note.

In a new place of competition, a trio of people in love with each other, began to do what they had been torn away from. Persistently, having fun, revealing who will be the best in what game. Having gone through many different genres, trying unusual machines and even a couple of times playing those devices, whose languages were unknown to them, the result was clear to them. Of course, the winner at the end was Sunny, their skillful sunny. The teenager's skillful fingers hadn't lost their grip after a long rest, defeating both contestants by a huge margin. And maybe Basil was not particularly happy about this fact, losing to his lover for the second time already, Aubrey was not particularly concerned about getting the metaphorical first place. First of all, it was their joy on the pedestal of priorities. The fun of their time together. Although, it was hard for her to deny that the taste of victory she experienced the minute she passed the finish line in the jet ski racing game had a euphoric effect. It seems those lessons learned while traveling in Europe proved useful.

Afterwards, having collected all their coupons, the trio of high school students went to the middle hall of the arcade to see what was going on in the middle of the mysterious room. As it turned out, the truth was a little simpler than originally expected. A dozen of the other funny looking mechanisms seen at the occasional fair or amusement park. Walking around with a ton of cardboard tickets in their bags, the lovebirds tried every single contraption, led solely by curiosity. The witch's boutique, gave each of them a prediction. While the boys got a 'difficult conversation', Aubrey, in turn, was given a piece of paper labeled 'meeting with the devil'. Neither one understood what it meant, and from that, threw the scraps into the nearest trash can. The machine for calculating the impact seems to have been defective, because there was no other way to explain how all three of them managed to hit the point of the hammer with enough force to make the circle hit the gong. Maybe her training had really taken its toll, though. The photo booth lit up the lovers several times, giving them the number of Polaroid strips they coveted as a keepsake. As the requisite gestures, two guys and one barmaid, twirled around the embarrassingly seated Sunny, dignifying their reason for today's event with their full attention. One strip per pocket. When the entertainment came to an end, and there was not a single game left unplayed among the games, the three teenagers decided to give the coupons to the male cashier for counting. The guy was long-legged, but thin, with long hair and an espagnole under his nose. Already at his place, the coupons given were given an exact number, and surprisingly, they were all enough to get two plush toys each. Normally, it was not typical for sixteen-year-olds to carry items of such vulgar cuteness. But these three were not 'ordinary' teenagers, so they gladly exchanged their sweat and tears, the latter being rare and frivolous, for gold awards. The brunet had chosen a classic pairing. Sweetheart with Spaceboy. Aubrey, content with the cutest things, to be used for their intended purpose in the future, took a round kitty, in duet with a rabbit. And finally, an embarrassed Basil, denying his love of adorable things, snatched his babies out of the hands of a random person behind the counter. Baby plants. Tiny little guys, with vegetables instead of heads. Tomato and potato, to be more specific. Soon, of course, these marvelous creatures were out of his hands, for by a singular idea that came simultaneously, they had exchanged toys as a reminder of a simulated first date. The smile that spread across the black-haired boy's demure mouth melted the blonde's heart, along with that, spread a coat of thick red paint, across both of the bully's cheeks. "Totally worth it," the older members of the date thought at the same time, following the sunny youngster. 

Soon, the trio's feet led them to the penultimate location of their much-anticipated date. A food court, with eateries for all tastes and colors. Soon, there would be a screening of the sequel to their much-loved movie. And since by the time they get out of the arcade machines, the guys' bellies are a little bit underdone, the tanks need to be filled, but not too much, because otherwise there won't be room for dessert. Popcorn and soda, simply put. Thousands of smells of salty, sweet, spicy, fragrant, sour and even sometimes bitter circled between the noses, calling the lovebirds to themselves, causing a whole sweat in their mouths. It was only through sheer willpower and the realization that soon, they would taste the sweet texture of corn seed pulp doused in caramel sprinkles that the boys restrained their appetites, stopping for a quick bite. Punk ordered a hot dog with onion sprinkles and gherkin sauce, while the other two savored a salad, with sesame oil and fruit.

"Mmm. Sunny." - Distracted the boy from his meal by another boy taking a bite of his appetizer. The aforementioned individual with the scar, stopped the plastic fork at his mouth, from which a few leaves fell. "Did you decide to go vegetarian too?"

"No. Just felt like something light tonight." - The young man replied unassumingly, chewing the cabbage leaves carefully, not skipping anything extra. The lady smiled, looking proudly at her new follower of her love of plant foods.

"There, see? You should eat something healthy more often too, not just one pizza and sandwiches. Maybe something with, uh. with basil?" - Aubrey teased, stretching her lips in a darting grin, mooing under her breath with another mound of salad in her mouth as the beau sitting next to her jumped with laughter, quickly covering his lips, looking away, spiteful of the man with the twitching eye.

'Good lord, that was awful...' - spoke through short chuckles from the teenager in the hoodie, carefully trying to hold back a wave of hysterical laughter.

'I despise you both. I hope you both burn in the fires of hell, you filthy sinners." - gritted through his teeth with a look of disgust as the guy got up from the table, walking away to the nearest trash barrel a dozen feet away from them. Turning toward them, he waved his fist roughly, shouting unserious words, many seemingly threatening. "You hear me bitches? Jesus sees all and knows all!" 

"'What a dumbass." - The girl giggled under her breath, amazed at how mentally gifted her boyfriend could be sometimes. Well, she was always glad to see that side of him. After all, it showed his outstanding versatility and ability to find the best way to interact with others. Such a trait, the young man had literally shown them hours ago, something Aubrey was extremely grateful for. When the figure of the blue-haired boy disappeared from sight, hiding behind the table, vainly trying to find a trash can that didn't overflow, the maiden turned to the second boyfriend, studying the behavior with interest.

The guy, at this moment calmly ate leaf after leaf, staring into empty space with emotionless eyes. It seemed that his mind was disconnected from the world around him, concentrating on monotonous movements, cramming into his mouth useful vitamins and trace elements contained in greens. After a few moments of the lamb's behavior in the middle of the clearing, and those tiny curls on his head made him look even more like one, Sunny turned his head a couple of degrees toward her interestedly, raising his ankles in a gulping motion. "Is something wrong? Is my face dirty?"

"Oh, no, no, come on. Just a little broody." - The blonde answered the tom honestly, waving her brush towards him. "Go on, I'll stop."

"Honey, is something bothering you? You can always talk to me, right?" - mentioned the boy with all the joy of any altruist, quietly piercing layer after layer of viands with the tips of the plastic. The previously known sentence, misspoke not for the first time, and as on all previous occasions, the young lady bit the inside of her cheek, taking some time to think. Now, she could have easily dismissed her behavior as idleness and an attempt to keep herself busy during the absence of her second suitor, but it was clear that the idea was pointless. Suzuki's son was famous for his ability to read the faces of the people around him, which did not surprise anyone for a long time. Spend four years alone, and whether you like it or not, you will begin to study the smallest topics of his own consciousness, so as not to go crazy. Or else, the consciousness will start studying you. Either way, seeing the answer only as sincere honesty, the young lady rubbed a strand of her short hair a couple of times, daring to tell the truth.

"There is, of course, but not much. It's nothing special, just a little thing." - she said with a hint of humor. Though underneath it, there was a touch of suspicion. "True, though. Why do you want salad so suddenly? Last time I saw your offenses, you were eating almost more than Kelly Basil put together."

The answer didn't come immediately. In front of him, the young man's expression took on discomfiting features. Streaks across his forehead, a lower lip lifted upward, and a set of eyes set aside. A familiar set of signs heralding the imminent arrival of the topic that had asserted itself more times today than it should. Despite the traits that came out in the dialog, the guy answered the question asked, not hiding the gist of things, no matter how much the detailed information stabbed him. "Oh, it's really quite simple. I don't need this anymore. "

"Don't need to eat anymore, like you usually do? I don't fully understand." - Confusedly muttered the young lady, tilting her head. With an uncomfortable chuckle, the boy put down the cutlery, now talking to the girl face to face. Having such a specific vantage point now, she noticed how the man's wounded eye twitched more actively, giving only more hints of darker undertones. Was there something she was missing? 

"Mmmm, to put it in simplistic terms, it was one of my... Defense Mechanisms," Sunny blurted out a confession, looking at his lover with soft, albeit mournful eyes. "I picked it up from my father. After everything that happened, he gained weight by stuffing his stomach to the point of failure. I did the same thing."

"'That's how it is...'" - Struck by the truth, Aubrey sat shocked once more. No matter how well today had gone, no matter how much they had walked away from the events that had changed them at the root, they still followed, catching up right after a brief lull. With a shiver running down her spine, the blonde found a heavy thought in the back of her mind that needed to be clarified. "Sunny. Basil and I, when we visited you a few times in the hospital, talked to you about this. You mentioned your alcoholism and unusual behavior. But what about your body? I mean, why did you work so hard on it? I mean, it took time away from helping others and coping."

"Mmm, no. Quite the opposite, it's in its own way helped me along the sym path." - The brunette emphasized, giving a tiny smile. Now, she wasn't entirely sure what was behind that smile, whether it was a diminishing of the importance of the situation, or an attempt to take what had happened with an uplifted spirit. Either way, when talking about such a traumatic topic, she didn't like it. "With the amount of food I was consuming on a daily basis, I needed somewhere to put all the fat. So that became one of the peculiar sub reasons for the craving for perfection. I could do anything from mastering the skill of lock picking or a thousand and one part-time jobs. As long as I could thereby achieve an imagined perfection, it was worth it. At least, that's what I thought at the time."

"How... You talk about it so calmly? Doesn't it hurt you to remember all four years of constant busyness? It sounds just awful, doesn't it!" - raised Aubrey's tone by only one octave, though even so, the defeat at the former violinist's calmness was easily readable in her voice.

"'Cause I've accepted what happened, of course." - said the young man with a manner as if the answer to yet another, boring lesson had come out of his mouth. "I will never be able to change what has already happened. It was, is, and will be my past that built me into the person I live now. Like, yeah. Those memories suck. Well, the ones I remember, to be exact. A lot of them are almost impossible to make out, after all these years. Still, they suck ass. But what's in it for me, locking them back in the closet? No way... That's good enough for me. And if I want to move forward, I need to learn to live with them. Simple as that, right?"

"Sunny..." - With the few words available, the girl whispered. More than anything, after hearing the monologue, she wanted to hug him and never let him go. The thought and difficulty with which he had achieved such a perception thrilled the teenager, surprising her to the core. "You may not believe it, but I've never seen anyone stronger than you. "

"Whoa whoa. Where do you get such softness from?" - The older boy joked back, with a flush on his cheeks, sitting an inch back from her. "'And by the way, Basil will be stronger than me, anyway."

"Dummy, you know what I meant." - The girl pouted at his stupid joke, holding back from punching him in the forehead. The consequences would have been downright unpleasant.

"Argh, just... Be gentle with yourself, okay? I'm proud of you and the journey you've made and how far you've come in a short time, but please. Don't race so fast. "

"Okay..." - the now embarrassed kid muttered, fidgeting in his seat. After that, that strained smile, the mask worn in an impulse of complacency, was replaced by a sincere curvature of the lips, striking the maiden exactly in the heart. Between the two lovers, there was silence, and from the distance available between them, one feeling flared up. 

A feeling romantic, and intimate.

"And-sorry, I'll be right back. Gotta go to the bathroom." - she threw him a quick glance in response to Aubrey's incomprehensible look, getting up hurriedly from her seat. Leaving the unfinished snack and rushing to the other side of the food court, the young lady screamed at herself for allowing herself to experience such emotions. One trip to the restroom, with cold water in her face, should solve this problem. The blonde just hoped that Sunny, in her absence, would be okay. He certainly wasn't a little kid, but he had always had a fear of being left alone. Oh well, she would try to get herself back in order as soon as possible. 

"Phew. Okay, where is our table?" - the young lady asked, adjusting her clothes and looking among the crowd of gawkers walking in different directions. A trip to the ladies' room had cleared the teenager's mind, though it left a couple of dents in his heart, so it was safe to go to his overexcited boyfriend. The important thing was to find one first. "Shit, there's so many of them, it's hard to find."

"Tell me about it. I've been wandering around for ten minutes." - said the bored blue-haired guy who'd been standing next to the bathroom entrance the whole time. With the hairs on the back of her neck standing up straight, the girl almost jumped in surprise, not expecting the punk to be here waiting for her. The bully himself was drinking a soda from a paper cup as if nothing had happened, sucking on a straw and maintaining eye contact. "Wusssup?"

"Whussup? You're freaking me out like that, you freaking little weed!" - shrieked the startled high school girl, momentarily applying her familiar technique, namely pulling on the ear of a sudden sprout. 

"'Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow! Let go of me!" - squealed in pain from the man much taller than her, soon holding the reddened ear as the grip disappeared. "Fuck, that's why you do that every time..."

"So you don't repeat the same prank. God..." - The young lady exhaled through her nose as she let go of the occasionally annoying youngster, tucking her hands under the armpits of her jacket. "Where have you been all this time?"

"I already told you, looking for you. Found the nearest trash can just off the main lobby, had to go downstairs, and when I climbed back up to the food court, there was already a crowd gathered around. Then I saw you running into the restroom and decided to wait." - the guy in the bandana said bluntly, shaking an empty cup with a flutter of ice cubes in it. Basil's right eyebrow changed position, going up a third of an inch. "Everything okay? The last time I saw you running to the bathroom with such fervor was when the waiter at the diner accidentally served you a caesar that you didn't notice. "

"We agreed not to talk about that." - Aubrey grumbled, embarrassed by the memory of Aubrey's accidentally mixed up order. The establishment employee had heartily apologized to her, and she had forgiven him, but a serious residue remained. Now, not wanting to bother the kid too much with her own cockroaches in his head, the young lady used a simple, but believable, lie. "Forget it, it's fine. Just had to use the restroom in an emergency. "

"... If you want to still discuss it, I'm around." - The florist shrugged. Of course he'd seen through her lies from the first words. She shouldn't have expected to be able to fool the blue-haired tomboy without any tricks. When you live with a loved one hand in hand for such a long period of time, you don't want to, but you'll start to recognize some of the pens before they're official. Of course he wouldn't mind supporting the lady in her time of need, and someday, definitely soon, she would take advantage of his sweet treatment of her. 

"Thank you, Dewdrop. Some other time sometime. " Aubergine said with a smile, relishing when a light blush made its way onto her cheeks. Had there been time, she would have spent a long this amount to mock him for being soft, but since business was calling, she had to get to the main issue at hand. "Okay, for now, let's go find our tough guy. You don't see him in all this crowd."

"Let's see. I see a bunch of kids throwing food around, emo listening to music too loud, old veterans on a bench, a bunch of Karens running after the action at the grocery store, and..." - The boy stopped. The eyes of the second ago speaker let an arrow shoot toward some place she couldn't see through dozens of running bodies. "... Oh."
"What? What did you see there? " Asked the young lady, getting excited. Subconsciously, she really wanted it to turn out to be a small thing, aloof from the three of them, but judging by her tone, the wish was futile.

"Aubs, I think we're in trouble. Look." - Basil muttered with a clenched jaw, pointing a finger in the right direction, she struggled feebly to find the point shown by the phalanx. The task was a bit difficult, thank goodness for her small stature, but in the end, hopping on her toes, the girl's eyes also took on a distinctive, cold look.  They managed to find their lover's seat. Except with three unexpected guests.

At the table, a black-haired guy was sitting nervously while a girl of very unusual appearance was almost clinging to him. About his age, though probably older. High school girls, dressed in something that revealed much more than it should. Skirts above the knees, very revealing t-shirts, short handbags.  And what stood out more were the hands with eyes. Just in the movement of those particular body parts, the way they looked at the covered young man, and the way they constantly tried to touch him, spoke volumes about their motives. The solution was solely one.

"Basil. You go towards them, and I'll come up behind you..."

"Oooh, what are you so shy about? Don't we suit your taste? Don't you find us beautiful? Come on baby, we know you guys like that kind of thing~" one of the three, apparently the main one, sang out with a predatory smile. Her long black hair was criminally close to her frozen, averted gaze. 

"N-no, that you are! You... You're beautiful, there's no arguing that, but..." - Sunny's words came out with great difficulty. The brunette was gradually moving closer and closer to him, pressing in with her presence, practically violating the boundaries of personal space. In fact, all he had to do was say one little sentence, explain that he was in a relationship and the matter was over, but it was worth the effort as the suggestion choked his throat.

"Oh! Look how he stutters. What a cutie~" the ponytailed blonde stretched out, bringing both hands to her cheeks. Such behavior, a condescending underlining response, had the teenager further cornered into mute self-defense without a vocal response. Suzuki's son gradually felt weaker with each comment from the ladies who happened to see him. The truth had opened his eyes, endowed him with terrible pain, but hardened him, showing that he had the strength to fight back. He's capable of standing up for himself, of just yelling and getting away from them, of not letting his voice be drowned out, but with so many women... In overly revealing outfits... And with a dark-haired stranger, whose facial features looked so much like a femme fatale, practically poking his muzzle away in fear, he could only be afraid.

"I like quiet boys. They're the best at keeping their mouths shut." - smirked a standout with her fiery hair down to her shoulder blades, a woman about his own height. Brown eyes stabbing him with a red-hot bayonet through his mind expressed an unequivocal desire to possess anyone. An animal pretending to be human. Sunny, second by second, only grew more nervous, flinching when the hairs of the stranger bending over him were once again too close to his arm, or leg. 

"So what's up sweetie? If we're pretty according to you, why don't we have a little fun? The offer is one-time and very entertaining~" the main one spoke deliberately softly to the kid, finally cutting off the youngster's room for retreat with her movements when the aforementioned one rested his shoulder against the partition of their seat. Things were not going well at all. Worse than he'd realized. In his thoughts, he was screaming for help, while on the surface, his face remained skewed with worry. "You're sixteen now, aren't you, cutie? "

"'Y-yes, but..." - mumbled the brunet, breathing heavily, and as if seeing the doubling images of his own hands before his eyes. It could start at any minute. He was on the verge of his own nervous breakdown, closer than he had been in those past moments of today. A few more minutes of pressure, of persuasion, and his shell, his protective crust will be shattered by obscene behavior, turning him back into the man he was. It would all go to waste. However, perhaps not all is lost yet. There is always a chance for salvation and a better outcome. He just needs to try harder. Harder. Gathering his will into a fist, he turned his head to his abuser, and despite the familiarity, he answered directly, though with broken words. "... I'm b-busy."

"Busy? Oh, pretty boy, why lie like that. I don't see a nice lady around you. You're probably just scared. No need to be scared of us Let Aunt Triss help you~" the girl, who was much older than she looked, whispered.

"'He said he's busy,'" suddenly came a certain rough, angry voice. The unknown girl's hand, squeezed the pitiful harasser's shoulder hard, snapping her out of her trance, giving her an excuse to turn her head.

"А? And who is he busy with?" - The tone of the stranger's speech changed at once from seductively dark to rudely elevated. True, both face and voice immediately dropped to a frightened one, once the lady saw the hoodie-wearing lad's savior.

"Us." - Aubergine spoke clearly, directly and matter-of-factly, punching the entire image of the vile woman through, along with bringing the steel knuckles on her fist up to her jaw. From the look, the tenseness of her hand, and the murderous stare, one can immediately realize that she's not bluffing.

"What, who the hell are you? And what 'us' are you talking about? I only see one annoying bitch in front of me." - spat the words in the face of the potential, and most likely actual, criminal, though a hint of genuine fear could be heard in the speech. 

"Now count again," a second, even more angry voice suddenly added. Behind the two incomprehensible girls, Basil stood a rock. His head tilted to the side, adding to the creepiness of his bloodthirsty grin and glittering, blue eyes. A large, abrasion-covered hand emerged from his pocket, clutching an oblong, black object. The blade of the knife whistled forward. 

"Now, you sluts have a choice," the blonde whispered venomously to the other blonde, touching the metal to her chin, pressing lightly. "You either pack your bags right now, and get the fuck out of here, or we're going to have to deal with this the hard way. And believe me, I'll be very angry if even a drop of your fucking blood gets on my jacket. Make up your mind. Now."

"Argh, fuck you. Girls. Let's go." - hissed the deranged woman in response, shoving the maiden to the side. Aubrey nodded calmly to her boyfriend, giving her consent to end the threat, shooting the departing dissidents a glance in passing. At the last moment, her ears caught the brief curse spoken by the company boss. "Stupid freaks."

"'Tsk. You're one to talk," Aubergine muttered under her breath, gritting her teeth at the sight of the girls disappearing into the crowd. When there was no trace of them, and a glance at her surroundings confirmed that there were no spectators to the conflict that had not occurred, she turned to her lover with a worried air. "Sunny, how are you? Did they have time to touch you? If those disrobed scum even tried..."

"Honey, calm down. I'm fine... More or less fine." - the teenager spoke up in a relaxed tone after the incident, relieved of the weight of excitement the second the situation was back under control. "Damn, you guys would know how grateful I am. You can't even imagine it."

"Sunshine, are you sure you're okay? You look insanely tired." - She worriedly remarked, letting the joy of her lover's appearance pass her ears. Being closer than usual to her boyfriend revealed those weary, third stressful incident of the day, features to her. "Sunny, don't take this the wrong way, but you look like a sprinter after a marathon. Do you want Basil and I to take you home?"

"What? Oh, enough of this. I'm fine!" - the guy said more seriously and more irritated this time, waving his arms and examining the two saviors in turn, noticing the mines of real concern on their faces. Taking a deep breath, refusing to make an even bigger scene of emotional behavior than a moment ago, the teen adjusted his breathing, trying to answer calmly. "Again, I'm fine. I'm fine. You don't have to worry about me so much. Let's... just go to the movies, okay? Forget about what happened and have some fun, for God's sake. I mean, that's what we came here for, to take our minds off things. "

"Dude, that sounds great, but fuck. How do you let yourself have fun when you just almost got carried off by a pack of hyenas?" - A guy in a leather jacket asked incomprehensibly, getting two things with a screwdriver. An offended look from the young lady, whose eyes threatened to burn a hole in her, and downcast eyes from the injured man, whose lips pressed together in an uneven line.

"Basil!" - shrieked like struck by lightning Aubrey, with the thought of slapping the man who had said such a dark representation of the actions of three strangers brewing in her mind, quickly changing her mind when the urge settled in her head, fully manifesting itself. "What are you thinking, saying such a thing?"

"I just do what I have to do. Handling it straight, and without greasing the corners." - The flower man said bluntly, answering the look with a look of his own. Once the young woman's eyes softened in their barb, the man turned to his best friend, sounding extremely concerned. "Just... Man, why don't you just tell us what's going on? Like, yeah, it's not my right to judge someone for wanting to get off-topic. That's what I suggested an hour ago. But then it was an accident. It happened and it happened. Now you've almost been dragged into the middle of nowhere! What's the matter?"

"The point is, I want us to have a proper date! Is that it? Are you happy? Now, will you stop pushing?" - the boy said to their surprise, letting loose the words that had been languishing in his head for dozens of minutes, insisting like a poisonous poison. The two lovers took a small step back, not expecting the deflection of the calm boy's barricade. The lovers' reaction brought the boy out of his state of severe frustration, slapping him in the face with a slap of realization of the mistake he had made, letting bitter guilt coursing through the living creature's veins. "Oh my God. I'm so sorry."

"Hey, Sunny. Relax. You said that on emotion. Breathe." - The damsel immediately rushed to soothe her panicked beau, moving to the side of the table and stopping at the stipulated two-foot distance between them. Already there, not allowing herself to violate the boundaries of personal space, the childhood friend waited for a stabilized state, something good, managed to go only slightly beyond the standard. When it happened, and now the three lovers were sitting on the same soft surface, a pregnant silence hung between them, bubbling them into a mini world dedicated only to them. "Well done Sanbun. You did a great job. Now, can you tell us what's bothering you so much after all?"

"'Oh...'" - Suzuki's son exhaled with an exhausted groan, finally raising his head from his lap, making a smile so tiny that it was almost invisible. If one of those had appeared on the face of his younger version, she might have cringed. Except that, for the moment, it was about to be born on the face of a man whose experience had overtaken the teenager by decades. Aubergine saw for herself the strength accumulating in the catcher's lips, multiplying on top of each other to give life to words insanely complex. "You guys mean a lot to me. So much that it's hard for me to put it into words. And I don't just say it. These words are very serious. So can you please not interrupt me?"
They nodded understandingly. 

"Thank you. So... I only want the best for both of you. You've been my best friends since I was a little girl, you've been around all the time, and it's with you that I have the most vivid memories I've made in my entire life. And four, rowdy, years later - you are still. My best friends. My childhood crushes. Honestly, I still don't understand how you accepted my proposal. But I remain eternally grateful. I wanted so badly to show you my excitement for the opportunity to be a part of your relationship that I spent days with Basil to put together a near.... perfect date plan! But in the end? It all went to hell as soon as some kid touched me and a bunch of women flirted with me. And now, this date will be remembered not as a day of happiness and fun, but as a day of wasted time, because ohhohohoho. Look at what we got here. Some inept kid throwing a tantrum over some petty bullshit. Oh, God. Why can't I just do something right..."

The girl's heart cracked into billions of tiny shards as soon as a new sentence replaced the previous one. The weight of the pain he felt and the tons of guilt he felt for something he was never guilty of knocked her down like a huge wave sweeping away cities. The young man through him didn't seem to remain stoically indifferent to his words from the depths of his soul, biting his tongue just to keep out the unwanted sounds.  They both had one fiery desire to embrace the innocent boyfriend, to show him that everything would be all right and that he didn't need to blame himself for something he had no control over. However, circumstances forbade this method, leaving only the verbal way of helping. 

"Sunny. Jesus Christ, Sunny." - The young lady spoke softly, pitifully as her jaw quivering with sorrow warped the words, making them undulate and sound even more mournful.

"Please stop. This was NEVER your fault. Do you hear me? Never. You can't make yourself stop reacting like this. I'm begging you to stop pushing yourself so hard."

"But I did..."

"What? What you did?' " the boy almost shouted angry at his friend, taking the approach of aggressive concern, even if it felt discomforting. Clenching his fist, he barely talked himself out of hitting the table, settling for the option of simply talking through his teeth with a grudging enunciation. "None of us know how to control our psyches and bodies. No one is omnipotent. Get the fuck clear on that. Please, just fucking leave that shit somewhere far away. Do you really believe we're gonna be mad at you or look back on today with regret? Damn, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. This is the best date we've ever had!"

"E-exactly!" - said the girl much softer than the fellow problem solver. Though she didn't like the harsh tone Basil spoke to him in, at least she could see that the very ideas he was conveying were anything but true. With a palpable moisture in her eyes, Aubrey applied all the sincerity available to them to at least coax the suffering lover. "We're begging you. Stop oppressing yourself like this. You are innocent of what was done to you and what happened today. That's a fact. You know it yourself. Remember what I asked you a few minutes ago? I'm gonna ask you again. To get it loud and clear. "Be gentle with yourself. If not for your own sake, at least for ours..."

Silence. It met the two agitated friends, covering the pause with an iron blanket. The young man who had made so much effort, so much suffering, was silent into a ragged silence, staring into the emptiness of space. Judging by the eyes in which there was a spark of life, but flickering its white light only half as strong, he knew of how silence killed those dear to him. In a desire to cut through the wall of silence, the lad dropped his heavy brush straight onto the table, subsequently swinging lightly. "Alright. I'll do my best. " The teen said without much enthusiasm, certainly wanting to get away from the current topic. Their efforts were in vain. One could only assume that they had planted a tiny seed of doubt in his head after all, but it would take him plenty of time, and them plenty of effort, for it to grow into a sunny tree. Standing up from his seat, grabbing his bag with the looking kitty and baby vegetable, he walked out from behind the table, of course waiting for Basil to make way for him, fixing his clothes and hair. She liked this look less, bringing back old, better forgotten memories. "Let's better get going. The movie starts soon. It's the last part of the date. Then we'll go home, okay?"

Nods of agreement answered, sending the charges back to the teen's feet, it was worth it for the others to gather themselves as well. Though the two of them didn't want to leave the topic open and let him walk away from an honest promise so quietly, they both realized that going any further wouldn't lead to anything good. He had enough stress on him as it was, with all the unwanted encounters. However, for the future, the twosome put a reminder in their subliminal notes, of the need to talk about this topic again. Walking toe to toe, exiting the food court and heading towards the other end of the floor, a black, old movie theater, the tiny silence was interrupted by Sunny, with an unexpected question, far removed from the thing recently discussed. "Aubrey, I was wondering something. Where did you get the brass knuckles from? "

"..." - The girl was silent, smothered in a mixture of embarrassment and disbelief at the question asked. He could have asked absolutely anything to break the silence, but for some foolishness, he chose that one. Well, if that was his way of removing the veil of awkwardness, so be it. "Dad gave it to me for self-defense. My little boxing knowledge is good, too, but I'm not that strong. And all iron hits hard, so..."

"I see. Basil, why do you have a folding one? Don't you carry your favorite garden shears everywhere?" - The brunet inquired, involuntarily causing the kid's eyes to plate. Arching an eyebrow, the young lady watched in shock at the growing incomprehension, glanced at her lover and felt the tips of her lips lift slightly from his annoyed mien. 

"'Dude, are you serious?" - the flower bully asked rhetorically, rolling his eyes, refusing to predict even slightly what infernal mixture was brewing in his cauldron. "That kind of antics only worked in our neighborhood. And the folding one is always with me, handy and works great, unlike the bulky scissors. And besides, it's not like I'm going to use it. More like a trinket for image."

"I see. Eh..." - Sunny moaned, soon turning his head towards them while wearing a shit-eating grin that made their stomachs grow heavy. "... If you had told me about your taken weapons beforehand, I would have definitely brought a vodka rose with me. It wouldn't have made a bad threesome."

"Sunny!" - shouted the two teenagers as the third ran off at a jog to the establishment's cashier, to their disgruntled exclamations.

It didn't take them too long to prepare for the hour and a half session. With a short list of two items, it was a simple matter. Popcorn and drinks? On hand, just a large bucket was taken, with three cups. Tickets? There was no queue at the box office, so the tickets were in the hand of the one who paid, namely the brunet, who did this atrocity to the evil of his loved ones, in an instant. Here, having entered the hall, and having settled down right in the middle, the trio sat down on the acquired seats, having managed to be right in time for the beginning of the movie. 

For four years, the black-haired young man had hardly allowed himself to rest for a second. The teenager's mind was always busy with something, whether it was physical exertion, part-time jobs, tasks from the people of the city, taken from them without permission with a smile, or exaggerating those things that helped him distract himself with little benefit. Unfortunately, watching movies was not on the list of such quirks, leaving the boy without the amazing experience of the stories of numerous masterpieces. Including the first installment of Pirates of the Caribbean, whose sequel they came to see today. Pirate stories have always held a special place in the hearts of a group of little friends. Back then, they were just comic books about space adventures, but who cares? Pirates are pirates. The only difference is the setting, but the essence is the same. Exciting stories of untold treasures, brutal massacres and battles that stole from the once tiny children breath from the lungs, in fear turning page after page. Days before the release, having seen a TV ad for 'The Curse of the Black Pearl', a couple from Basil and Aubrey, happily went to the nearest movie theater, coming out of the show satisfied with the tape. Impatiently they waited for the next part, because by that time, there was official information about the continuation, theorizing what adventures await the crazy drunkard Sparrow and noble Turner. What is there to talk about, in those days they both had a crush on a smarmy pirate with a ponytail for a few months. This, not the fact of falling in love with a fictional character, but a favorite movie, was something the one-eyed teen had learned about days ago, after discussing potential viewing options with the blue-haired one. And the winning number, became so solely due to one fact - this story was the best, according to the two friends. 

The thought, a point in thinking about the essence of what was going on in this room, brought a frown to the watching Aubergine. Sunny had spared no expense on her and Basil, calculating the smallest details of the date, and communication in general. A poisonous thought of guilt, of excitement, gnawed its way into the gray matter, making a cozy house for itself, to the evil of the mistress of the body.  For sixty long minutes, she diligently kept her gaze in the spread canvas with the broadcast, forcing herself to concentrate only on the events of the movie, but no matter how strong her desires were, the mind, one way or another, drifted far from positive things around, simultaneously controlling and head, turning it to one and the other partner. The polyamorous group, seated with a single girl in the middle. On either side, the young lady was covered by young men of wonderful disposition, wonderful memories, and growing into proud, talented men. Over the years of living next to them, and considering the four-year hiatus with one of them, they remained the key personalities that changed the high school girl's life at the root. In emotional terms alone, the two guys stood on deservedly high pedestals, next to Polly, Eddie, and one shattered pillar. 

But what about the other one? The physical one.

The thought flew like a sleeping pill dart through the blonde's mind, brewing a thick lump of nervousness in her stomach. Looking to her left, she saw her first boyfriend. A notorious bully, who had cast aside his old ways and embarked on a path of redemption, out of respect for his friends, family, and her. A noble act, to be sure. However, that personality trait had no bearing on his appearance. And his appearance was, to put it lightly, outstanding. She'd always liked strong but soft guys. Many characters from comic books, books, movies, animated series, or even from history books. The type was based on her own father, which isn't surprising. After all, every son looks for a girl who looks like his mother, and every daughter looks for a guy who looks like her father. In this brute, she just so happened to find many such characteristics, placing great emphasis on strength. She had lost count of how many times since the relationship had started, a blush covering her cheeks. Most importantly, it appeared from his initiative unintentionally. Casual, so to speak. Whether it was sitting in the bedroom watching something on the laptop, working out alone together at the Secret Place, or sleeping innocently in his arms. When those long, strong, protective arms wrapped around her from behind, or stroked her head in moments of calm, it was easy to forget about doubts. His face was already red by then. And in their duet, it was she who most often embarrassed the blue-haired florist. Such close, bodily contact felt incredibly pleasant, both for the soul.... and for the body. 

Aubrey found, and still finds Basil attractive. And she hated it.

To her right, sat a second, equally important boyfriend. Sunny. There's a lot to say about him. Perhaps in the future, with his experience, skills, imagination and passion for helping others, he will write a book or create a whole cartoon, as he often dreamed of in his childhood, thus conveying his own experience through colorful images, so that not one child in the world, did not experience similar experiences. Altruism and boundless kindness are the names of the foundations on which the magnificent mansion called Sunny Suzuki was built. Guided by them, the kid has racked up a bunch of painful bumps, survived a wound that would reduce any other man to the open roof of a skyscraper, and with all of the above, continues to proudly carry a crushing weight on his back. The teenager was referring to those words spoken at the table. He is indeed the strongest she has ever seen. And by sheer coincidence, this detail was also something she found attractive, far from a purely platonic view of things. For more than a thousand days, the boy walked around the city with the smile of a maniac, dressing as expressively, neatly, and to her sorrow, tightly as possible. His back was always straight, his posture even, his muscles showing through his clothes, honed almost to the point of resembling marble. These particular descriptions, drooled a hateful sweat, in moments of somewhat temporary contemplation of his appearance. Her partner was no exception to this sin, for even with his hatred of him, he recognized the very fact that he, too, liked the sight of a strong, and trim body. Attachment often never dies. After the events of the two fateful days in the hospital, the long absence from the sight of the two friends, the former Mr. Perfect, appeared on Basil's doorstep with a completely different person. A softer one. A grown-up version of what the outcome of that little fiddler's maturation could have been assumed to be without what happened. And the universe, that day, decided to take a serious poke at the emotionally drained, after a long discussion of events in a closed room, girl. The infinite space of the universe's matter created a thought that seeped through the twists and turns of her brain, keeping her awake that unfortunate day. His new look of frail young man, affectionate giant, she liked it too. Physically. 

Aubrey found his past image as attractive as his current one. And it disgusted her.

Then and now, in moments of sinful realization, regretting her thoughts was a key task for the young woman's mind. Any reasonable person in her understanding, after the experience, after hearing from the lips of the victim of such vile events, would certainly have forgotten all intimate things. But not her. She, for some unknown reason, continued to insult with her thoughts about his attractiveness not only Sunny himself, but also her partner of many years, who, after what had happened, had stopped touching her altogether. Aubergine understood exactly why, for the sensations of her movements were tainted with the tar of truth. Every embrace had lost its warm sensation. Now, all that could be found in them was a stifling coldness. Holding hands had changed as well. Grasping at each other had turned into a debilitating morass, jabbing metaphorical, nasty needles into their skin. And the kisses...

The blonde focused her gaze back on the teen, snapping out of her haze of thought. He looked adorably interested in the movie. Just a normal kid, coming to a session with those he cared about. Eyes burning with eagerness to learn about the impending end of the battle with the Kraken on the deck of the Black Pearl. Handsome, long fingers held the edges of a large red and white striped bucket. Teeth that gapped as he ate the treat, with bits of corn seed stuck between them, gave him a charmingly dorky look. His unkept hair, with its curls sticking out in different directions, was a marvelous addition to the boy's somewhat poker-faced image, making him look more handsome. The boy leaned forward, preparing himself for the coming events of the movie. In curiosity, Aubrey turned her head in the same direction, watching the unfolding picture. At the main sail, stood Captain Jack Sparrow. Next to him, at close range, entering his personal space, pressed against the wall, was Eleanor Swanson sharing a speech. The dialog was conducted in whispers. The rejoinders of the characters suggested a strange sense of danger. In a moment...

She kissed him on the lips. Passionately. Filthy. Handcuffing him. Betraying him.

Sunny continued to stare interestedly, but his eye, that wounded one, twitched at the scene.

... The kiss, became a symbol of the cain that killed the future of his blood. What once had brought only comfort and security, now at the slightest thought, brought disgust. Aubergine wanted to give them comfort, care, understanding and protection. Words were effective, but from everything she'd seen today, yesterday, a fucking month ago, it wasn't enough.  He wanted only one thing. To love them both. To love deeply, passionately, and mutually. But the opportunity was gone.

And all because of Mari.

--------

It was evening. The sun was sinking below the horizon, spilling red, pink, and purple across the sky, blending them into one palette. At the end of the movie, having seen the unexpected cliffhanger, the trio packed their bags, heading home. Out of safety concerns and a desire to spend some more time with their new boyfriend, Basil and Aubrey told Sunny that they would walk him home. He didn't resist their decision much, forgetting about the negative events of the date, preferring to discuss what he had seen in the movie theater with his best friends. He hadn't seen the first movie, so he didn't know the characters in the film that preceded it, so he bombarded them with questions, mostly answered by Basil. Aubergine spoke only in passing, laying out what she had seen, thinking about it, and preparing herself for something important.

"Man, it's a shame they didn't show the whole Kraken fight. No, the slo-mo moment was cool, but not enough." - The blue-haired teen resented, throwing his hands behind his head, wrapping his elbows around his hands. 

"Mmmm, I don't know. That sounds like a great primer for the future to me. Like, I doubt he'll really get taken down that easily. I mean, it's pretty obvious there's a third installment coming. The Disney bigwigs can't just dump such a charismatic actor." - analyzed the brunet, with a finger at his chin, looking at the multicolored void above his head. "By the way, and I still don't get it, who was that man at the end without a leg? Some big shot?"

"Ohohohohohohoho! You can say that again. Dude, it's Barbossa. Captain Barbossa! He almost killed Jack many times, and he was a skeleton too." - the bully informed his friend, smirking at his impressed face.

"So there you go. Fascinating. Hmm, I think next time for a date, I should rent a tape or DVD. I'd really like to watch the first movie with you. Well, if you don't mind, of course. I won't force you into anything." - Sunny said embarrassed, scratching the back of his head. 

"Never mind, man. Of course we don't mind. It was a great date, so there's plenty of others waiting for us." - said the former bully in a positive, though obviously strained tone, showing a grin to the boyfriend. The young lady appreciated his efforts in boosting the morale of the trio, and at the same time envied such an endeavor. Everything has an end, however, and after walking through the empty house where Kel and Hero used to live, she stopped at the stone pathway to the north.

"Boys..." - Aubrey said monotonously, getting their attention, which immediately went to the building they were by. "We're here." 

In front of them, loomed a standard bedroom neighborhood house, of which there were plenty to be found throughout the United States. White walls, a black ceramic tile roof, two stories, a window facing the road, and a garage on the left. The garage was closed and the car was missing. From feet away from the place, muffled sounds could be heard from inside. Someone's multiple, joyful voices. Broadcasting. There was only one person inside. Everyone knew exactly who was in there. 

"Oh." - was the only thing Sunny could say. The two lovers, looked in his direction. Face unreadable. There was no emotion at all. But the overwhelming excitement, readable in his hands, the brushes of which clutched his sweatpants, leaving indentations in them. "Time flew by so quickly."

"Sunbun?" - The girl said weakly, feeling tiny against the house that seemed to loom over them. The boy turned his head toward her. His face softened, showing without words that everything would be all right. But she believed it was a false hope. For if it were true, there would be no small, red sparks in his eyes, hidden by a black haze. Like those eyes, in which nothing living could be seen, for every encounter they had had before the hospital. Wanting to save the day, the young lady came up with an emergency option, hopefully, at least for now, he would accept her help. "Maybe you want to extend the date until tomorrow? "I mean, we could ask Polly, or we could ask Daddy to set you up with a sleeping bag for a pajama party. Sounds cool, right?"

"Aubrey. I'm fine, honey. Relax." - the teenager announced with the same false smile, striding toward the front door. Somehow, with every step, the girl felt like she was losing him. That he was going where he was forbidden to go on pain of an agonizing death. Still, it was partly true. If an innocent child died here, then what was stopping a noble teenager from dying? Worried, the couple looked amongst themselves, following him in a blind attempt to change at least something. "I need to do this anyway."

"Dude, please stop." - added to her voice, the eye of the blue-haired delinquent, who, with a peculiar heaviness in his speech, was worried about his best friend's condition. There, they stood on the threshold. Three in front of a door that they had entered many times before, but only one, entered and exited regularly to this day. It cast a black shadow over them, turning their stomachs. With a movement of his caddy, Basil convinced his boyfriend not to harm himself. "'You can spend the night with us. Really, it's no trouble for us. Just say the word and we'll get it organized right away, eh?"

"Darlings." - said calmly, but with a tiny note of wave, Sunny, turning toward them for what he thought was the last time today. From his eyes, his stance and the position of his hands pressed into each other, you could quietly tell that he wanted to get this over with as soon as possible. To say the right words, reassure his lovers, and go inside. That's what he was doing. "Thank you both so much for spending the day with me today. Seriously, I'm... really, really glad I was able to make you happy with this middle date. Next time, it's bound to be better. Don't worry, I'll be sure to post before I go to bed. So, good luck and good night."

Without letting them reply, the young man quickly touched the doorknob. Freezing. Everyone froze. Not a word was spoken. Behind them, cars were driving. Programs on the other side of the door were talking about different news. Birds in flight flew over the building, chirping I their own language. They need something to say. Something to help. But their throats were clenched with excitement. Their lover, the third piece of the puzzle, the snow-white tulip, trembled nervously, breathing heavily and holding onto the doorknob. After a few moments, stretching as if for years, he still opened the passage inside...

She's in there. Alone. There's no one in the house but her. No father. No mother. Just Mari. Sitting on an old couch, a nineteen-year-old woman, silently watching television, not moving an inch. A blanket wrapped around her. Her hair was greasy, rumpled and unkept. She hadn't washed it in at least a week, if not more. The living room furniture, had become her sleeping place.  The pixels showed a picture of the center channel reporting on her accomplice. Three girls caught red-handed trying to molest a minor at the mall. She showed no sign of reaction. No sound, no movement. Nothing. Just a statue of the devil that had destroyed everything the group held dear. 

If her sister had a bottle of cheap beer in her hand and hair was the color of dark blonde, Aubrey wouldn't have distinguished her from biological mother.

They're all in danger.

The door closed. Sunny stood hunched over, scrabbling at the wood with his free hand. His head rested against the jamb, shuddering as he tried to inhale some oxygen. To no avail. The two fared only slightly better. But their hearts, were preparing to explode in pain for him, at the sight of such a soon fall into terror.

"Ha...Ha... Ahahahaha... Why am I exaggerating so much? After all, it's just Mari... My favorite sister... Wonderful Mari..." - Whispering to himself, the brunet chided himself as large nerves erupted on the hand that was peeling off the thin outer layer of paint. Suddenly, in one jerk, like a doll that had been given the correct pose, he straightened up, clenching his fists. Unclenching them, the boy began to adjust his clothes in a hurry, smoothing corners, smoothing creases, keeping his hair in place. The hairs still stood up, no matter how hard he kept hitting himself on the top of his head, forcefully pushing the unruly strands down. With a quiet grunt, he grabbed himself by the collar of his hoodie, pulling it aside a few times. "Ugh... This won't do... Were these clothes always this stuffy...? Let's fix that now..."

Grasping the above collar, the guy aggressively pulled it off over his top. He didn't care about the presence of a zipper in his sweatshirt, or the look of how he handled the garment as if it were a stinking thing. With a single tug, Sunny threw the outfit under his feet, along with the bag, revealing what had been hiding underneath all this time. An old, white shirt, worn by him the day of the fight with Hero that ended in the loss of an eye. Clean, washed, but with hints of old soiling. Blood almost impossible to wash out completely. Sighing at the top of his lungs, arching upright, the young man dug into his pockets, finding another fatal object, drawing a shocked sigh from Aubrey and a tense muscle from Basil. A hand-held, cracked mirror. Standing with his back to them, he placed a tender kiss on his reflection, not noticing the piece of glass slipping off, falling to the concrete floor.

"S-sunny? What's all this mean?" - The damsel mumbled in a trembling voice, wondering just how scared she was. She was frightened by the mere words and the mere sight of the criminal's back, now squirming in her seat like a wet cat. It was the most disgusting sensation in the world. The lover's head jerked up. He heard her, coming out of the manic world, turning toward her.

She could swear to God that there was no limit to her regret for the words she had spoken. Her nightmare had come true.

A smile. Wide, full teeth, from ear to ear. The expression spread across the high schooler's face, contrasting grotesquely with the eyes that pierced their souls. Bulging, frightened, with red pupils. Those eyes were full of fear, releasing rivulets of tears. "What are you talking about, dear? Everything is fine!.... Everything is wonderful... Everything  is ... Perfect." - In a broken tone the boy whispered, trying to appear stable and reasonable, but with his returned demeanor, as well as his deliberate decision to speak quietly, the young man's condition was immediately clear. He was STRESSED OUT, and the last thing he wanted to do was walk through a door, even if his hand, was already resting on the knob.

"Sunny. Step away from the door. Please. " - Basil, thinking he had taken control of the situation, moved forward with his hands raised at head level. The florist was clearly showing that he wasn't going to hurt or provoke the guy to worsen his psychosis, but the desire to resolve the situations, sounded clear in the words. Sunny thought differently.

"No... No, you don't understand... None of you understand... I'm the only one who can do it..." - the boy whispered crazily as the teenager's eyes glowed menacingly in the dark shadows of the porch, sending goosebumps down the backs of the two friends. His breathing grew heavy and tears poured down, falling into his mouth open in a smile. "I am the sacrificial lamb... I gave my word... A promise..."

"Sunny, there's no more promise! - Aubrey argued with them in a raised tone, but still quietly, checking around each time to see if anyone could hear them or not. If Mari heard them in the house and went outside..... The consequences could be enormous. In such a chaotic state, only God can tell what exactly is going on in the mind of the unfortunate victim. "W-we're here, Sunny. You don't have to smile anymore. Just... I don't know, just come to us. "

"S-silence.... I.. I can make you happy... I can give you a reason to smile again!..... I just... Need to go inside again..." - Mr. Perfect gibbered, being attacked internally by Mr. Imperfect. With a loose brush, he frantically beat himself on the head, trying to knock the slightest thought of other behavior out of his head, instilling fear in his loved ones with such actions. "I can do it, right? Suzuki's charm always works... Yes... That's right... I can protect you... I can make you all happy again... Including her. You just have to... Keep pushing..."

"Don't say that. Anything but that!" - the guy in the bandana asked him, taking another step forward, making him shake harder. Aubrey didn't realize whether this made the situation a little better, for the narcissist man's hand was off the doorknob, or worse, for the youngster's legs began to wobble, making the pose imperfect. But either way, she decided to follow in the same direction. The main thing was to take extreme measures in time. Just so long as it didn't come to them. "Dude, we want to help you. We're right here for you. Just tell us what to do, okay? It doesn't matter what. "

"Smile... Now..." - The brunet's commanding tone caught the couple off guard. Stopping, they stood there horrified, watching as with each successive word, his stability and confidence in the need to enter, crumbled before their eyes. They had no time to make a response, or follow orders of going insane under the force of returning memories of horrible events, after a full day of happiness with his loved ones, as he slowly rolled down to the concrete floor, falling to his knees in tears. "Just smile... Is that so much to ask...? One smile... From everyone... Why are you all miserable...? What haven't I done? Why doesn't she smile... Why isn't she perfect..."

The smile reached its peak. The lips, in some places, had acquired imperfect imperfections. Cracks, dryness, redness. The eyes of the victim, a sad man who had survived a betrayal undeserved by no one and nothing, sobbed softly through his teeth, never ceasing to press the grin. All of today's joy, all of the positivity he'd used and every attempt at upliftment, because of situations directly related to him, had repaid him with another failure. Sunny looked, sounded and felt like a broken puppet, with the strings cut off. His old image was reduced to tattered shreds, but would forever be his most famous outfit, reminding those around him of what had happened. The splinters of the doll's wood are sharp, and hurt not only those around him, but also himself, worth someone's push, making the body of the girl inside him cry out in guilt, wounding the ears that were cut out. Eyes, empty, burgundy abysses that knew nothing but fears consuming from within. 

Aubrey, thought she, if she didn't do something now, would lose him forever. The full weight of events pressing down on the teenager's spine threatened to crush him completely. Tears, waterfalls of them, poured straight down her shirt, silencing her already falling drops. Basil closed his eyelids with his hands behind him, squatting down, unable to look in his direction. The conversation on the playground, the random kid in the arcade, and the encounter of three unfit ladies had hit hard on the overall quality of their date, but even so, they had a tiny chance of a happy ending to the day. Now, however, with a dissociating teenager on their laps and their hopes dashed, they'd lost faith in that... 

Still, she had found one possible way, at least in the slightest, to turn things around. It could either turn it around for the better, or it could completely ruin everything they had worked for. At least she would try. Sunny had shown her this method all the way from before and after the hospital. All she has to do now is try it herself. With a heavy breath and wiped away tears, she sat down on her knees in front of him, crawling closer. He responded by pressing his back against the door, arms spread wide, clinging with a slippery grip to the wall. A reaction expected, but that made it no less painful to her heart. Parting her lips, Aubrey spoke. "Sunny... I want to help you... You're scared. And you need to overcome that fear. But you can't do it alone.... So..." - she reached out her hands towards him, stopping half a foot away from him, which unfortunately had already resonated with the teenager, stopping his breathing. He - became an antelope. She - became a lioness. Hunter and prey. A comparison that let a lump down the girl's throat, which she successfully pushed back up. Aubergine didn't move an inch further. "... Give me consent."

The tears, the breathing, the movements. They all stopped every second, scaring the high school student to the bottom of his heart, thinking he had it stopped. The seconds stretched on for centuries. The boy soon resumed his tearful sighs, constantly gasping at the ugliness that his face had become. She could lunge forward, take him by force, put him in the right place and calm him down...

But she wouldn't do that. She's better than that. She cares and she genuinely wants to help. She's not Mari. She's Aubrey. His girlfriend. The young woman who loves him. With only a brief nod, followed by a crying Sunny, the blonde cautiously crept forward, doing so slowly so as not to scare the panicked young man more than before. Her fingertips touched the skin of his cheeks, cheekbones, sideburns, forehead and temples. his eyelids opened wider than ever before. Eyeballs practically glowed in the darkness, showing the "Fight or Flight" instinct was on, and at any moment, the situation could take a terrible turn. A shiver nearly tore the teenager from his seat, but he braced himself against the surface, pressing his fingers into the doorway, scrabbling with his fingernails, looking that one exactly in the eye. He trusted her. Even now, when his mind was wracked with fear, he still trusted her. And she wouldn't dare, betray that trust.

She brought her face closer to his face...

and touched his forehead. 

His breathing recovered, becoming jerky, stuttering. The smile fell like a cleaver on the criminal's head, becoming a mouth broken in a silent cry. She had a hold on him. It felt painful. But the pain was different. The pain of pulling out a pulpy tooth. The pain of inserting a dislodged limb in its place. The pain of stitches placed in a wound. The healing pain that will surely be followed by recovery in the future. "Regain your breath. Listen to my voice. "Focus. Let go of all unnecessary things. No one is perfect. And that's okay. We're here for you. You're not alone. Breathe..." - spoke Aubrey's mantra, followed by obedient, trusting compliance.

Breathe in

Breath out

Breathe in

Breath out

Breathe in

Breath out

Breathe in

Breath out

Breathe in

Breath out

Breathe in

Breath out

Breathe in

Breath out

Breathe in

Breath out

Breathe in

Breath out

Breathe in

Breath out

Heart rate's stabilized. His breathing became even. Tears dried on theyre cheeks, drawing faintly prominent streaks from eyes to lips. Lips that turned over into a tired frown, hiding grotesque teeth. A shiver left the young, imperfect teenager's body, setting his physical shell to lie stony down on the cold floor. He looked tired. No, even worse. Squeezed out of everything. No rage, fear, pain, hatred, disgust, or whatever has been there. Just exhaustion, after the emotional tornado that had tossed the doll around the world, bringing it back in an even worse state of used wood. At the same time. Basil and Aubrey, continued to cry silently. One from guilt, having lost the strength to turn around to do something to help a dear friend, while the other, from fear of the final outcome. The boy is silent, barely breathing, staring into nothing.  Damn it, he doesn't respond to touch. The chance that she had failed after all and made a serious mistake, mentally breaking the boyfriend to a state of deepest apathy, was itching in her subcortex, annoying and maddening.

Sunny's further movements dispelled all the fears of the twosome, thus igniting a flame of tiny hope. The brunet gently placed his hands on lover's wrists, startling the girl with his sudden contact. He didn't squirm, or fear, or panic. He did it with such stunned monotony that one would think it was as if hapheophobia hadn't cursed mind with its ghastly presence. Looking up, to his beloved's eyes, the son of Suzuki smiled,  as he heard Aubrey let out another bitter cry. A tiny smile, faint and dim like the fires of smoldering coal in the middle of a blizzard, reminded the lady of the first time she had seen one of those. With a white noise in her ears, after hearing the truth, watching the victim of the two criminals, smiling just the same, in her light blue patient's robe. Her lungs, breath after breath, sputtered with needles of shivering, braking the young lady in an attempt to inhale. Changing position, the guy helped the girl stand back up on wobbly legs. Standing to his full height, he let her go, allowing her to fall into the arms of the other partner waiting for them both. There was silence. The boy nodded to the other, to which he only opened his mouth in a failed attempt to ask in the most unflattering tone possible. Not allowing him to continue efforts, child of the sun turned his back to them once more, examining the fateful door. Hurriedly, ineptly and messily, he put his clothes back on. The sweatshirt hung like a robe, and broken mirror went back into his pocket. Sunny stood incompletely, hobbling and hunching over, unable to find the right pose for himself. Soon, the schoolboy forgot any further endeavor, resting his hand on the pen. Time stood still. The man spoke.

"I'm so sorry. Honestly, I'm so sorry for making you worry right now..." - he spoke hoarsely, soon coughing up those words in a huff and loud tears, drowned out by the added sound of the television, left a mark on the kid's vocal cords. His voice had sounded with a baritone note before, which was unusual for his age but justified by his old habits, but now he had the aura of an old man.  A veteran who had lost everything important from life.  "... I... I was obviously too caught up in our date.... It's been a long time since I've smiled so much... I had so much fun with you. So happy that I almost forgot about everything that happened in this house.... Stupid..."

They remained silent, though they wished they could change his mind. Guilt knotted their mouths together. 

"You know... After my stay in the hospital was over, I still continued to visit her... Her parents didn't like it, but I didn't care... I was the only one left on her side..." - Sunny said measuredly, with a tone of regret in his voice. Embarrassment over the actions hidden from them, made itself felt. "She was always silent. Never started a dialog on her own.... Regret wouldn't let her. I can understand her... Partly. Still, I'm not the one who raped..... The conversations always ended quickly... Sometimes I couldn't stand the discomfort, and sometimes she asked to be left alone... Mari once promised me that she would never hurt me again... That she missed the role, my older sister...'

He laughed. Not a hearty, warm, loud laugh. But a sullen, dark, sarcastic one. 

"She lied to me... Apparently." - spoke the truth to the boy, dropping his head and resting it against the wooden surface. "'Perhaps when she first came home from the hospital and didn't leave the house, there was some hope of improvement, but...' After she and I walked around the city... Not a word. I tried to talk, I tried to joke, I tried to be sincere... I even... I even h-hugged her again. Nothing. She... disappeared... Hidden in her cocoon and won't come out... Barely speaks to me. It's like she's chained to the bed again, lying there like a corpse. I just want her to be herself again... "

The grip on the door strengthened. The young man prepared to enter. Turning one last time, he gifted them with his humble smile.

"I'm probably boring you by now. Sorry, it slipped out of my tongue. I apologize in advance if I startled you too much. Don't worry, I'll figure something out about it eventually. You know me. I think we'll call it a day. I'll make sure I pay you back for that nervous breakdown. You've been a great help. One more thing..." - Sunny was silent. But soon he spoke the phrase that had their hearts in a vise. "I love you. Both of you. Good night."

With those words, he closed the door behind him. 

Another victim, not made so by a bloody sacrifice, was finally convinced of her decision.