Author's Note: Oh dear god, I deeply apologize for disappearing like that. To put it short: Life got severely rough and I had to get my priorities straightened out. Thank you for understanding everyone. If anyone has any concerns and would like to talk to me privately just send me a private message of some sort. I'll reply within 1-2 days tops.


Chapter III – Broken Body

Those once beautiful vibrant colour eyes that used to shine with an absolute brilliance have become withered away to the dark dullness that has seized control over the once lush green shine. Those dull green eyes were staring at the ground just a few inches above where the male who owned these eyes could see the tips of his toes. He wore a simple robe to keep himself covered up as he sat in the large leather chair meant for reading in the study. The male's yellow-green coloured hair was an absolute mess, strands of hair sticking out in every which way.

A single large window, propped wide open, opened the doorway to the world of sunlight into the room he had barricaded himself in darkness. The warm rays of the Winter's morning greeted him happily and warmed his rather pale skin to a comfortable temperature to stop his chills and shivers. His head rose slightly from its downward tilt forcing his eyes to look up and out through the window to the world that awaited him. His eyes were greeted with images of a serene suburban styled housing area with bright coloured homes and lush green and well kempt lawns.

The small waist high white fence that surrounded the home he was in enclosed its lush and well kempt lawn to itself. He stared along the fence until catching the sight of a certain small, red haired female that was crouched down on her knees in a light red sundress decorated with a floral pattern and wearing a reddish-pink sunhat and matching sandals. She could be seen wiping a bit of sweat from her brow as she had sat up a bit to take a small break from tending to the small patch of yellow flowers near the doorway to the small fence.

A small greeting of a friendly smile was directed at the sitting male as she caught the sight of him staring at her before she went back to working with the flowers before it got too cold out to do so. He averted his eyes from the female and continued to gaze around the openness of the neighborhood he lived in until he heard a soft knock against the wooden door that sealed the study securely in which the male turned his attention over to the door and blinked a bit.

The door opened and a rather tall and built man stepped through with a tray of food that would be for the sitting male. The tall man had dark green hair and eyes, a light tan complexion wearing a black army tank top and dark green camo pants with black socks on while dog tags hung around his neck and clanked against each other with his movements as he shifted over to the side of the chair, standing tall and proud above the one sitting.

"Flaky made some breakfast this morning… Didn't think you were awake yet." He said with a slight chuckle, his voice was authoritative, yet friendly, "You should eat something Nutty, haven't seen you eat in at least a few days; you know how worried Flaky can get" he added.

Nutty looked down toward the tall man's feet and sighed a bit, thinking. It has been awhile since Nutty started to live with Flippy and Flaky. The only reason why he even agreed to live with them instead of living on his own was because of Flaky's worrying complex. It was a good decision though, if it weren't for Flippy and Flaky walking in on his suicide attempt in his own home when they went to offer him a gift to help him feel better. Since then he's been in their home, mainly sitting in the study and keeping to himself; barely moving, talking, eating, or even sleeping. Even after all this time has past, Nutty's depression still sunk in deep.

"Today marks three years..." Nutty spoke softly in response to Flippy.

Flippy raised his eyebrow and gently set the tray of food upon Nutty's lap, the contents of the tray consisting of a bowl of strawberry cinnamon oatmeal, a cup of juice, some toast, and a spoon for the oatmeal.

"Yeah it sure has been three years. It's pretty crazy that it's been that long since." He began to say, "But y'know time has moved on with its flow and it's about time you do too. You've been cooped up doing nothing with your life ever since… Well, you know." Flippy said before sighing and sitting on the end table near the window.

"It's not so easy… Losing a friend like that." Nutty said in defense.

"Not so easy? Nutty, I've lost many of my close friends because of the wars we had to fight. I know it isn't easy losing a friend, but we all have to move on at some point." He explained before scratching the back of his head, "Y'know there are other people out there that care about you other then him. Just look at me and Flaky. We took you in with no problem and Flaky is always worrying about you, she's happy just to see that you're not hurting yourself anymore like you used to."

"I guess you're right."

"You know I'm right."

"What if you're wrong?"

"What if I told you I had a letter addressed to you from Cuddles across town?"

Nutty took a hold of the spoon for his meal and slowly began eating as he stared down at the bowl that held his food for him.

"Prove it." He said after a gulp of food went down his throat.

Flippy reached behind him and pulled out a small letter out of his back pants pocket and opened it up, dropping it down onto the tray for the other to see before crossing his arms in minor irritation with Nutty's attitude. Nutty's eye gazed over at the letter and read the handwriting:

"Dear Nutty,

It's been a while since I've seen you around town. I'm pretty worried about you and I hope you're doing alright. I've been meaning to come around and check up on you, but I've been out of town for the past few years on a trip with my parents to get my mind off of things. We spent some time away from the town and went traveling; we just recently came back so I thought maybe we could spend some time together. I was wondering if you'd like to help me clean Toothy's grave on Tuesday. Since I'm sending this on Saturday it probably won't get to you till then so if you do decide to help me out, come to my house around 5pm. You know where I live and just in case you don't I live on the opposite side of town from Flippy's house. The only yellow house on the block. Hope to see you very soon.

-Cuddles"

Nutty continued to eat the entire time he read the small letter. He hummed a bit in thought and swallowed some more of his food as he ate. Flippy looked at him and raised his brow.

"Well?"

"Well what?" Nutty responded.

"You told me to prove it, so I did. Are you going to go or not?" Flippy answered back.

"Hmm. Maybe. I'll have to think about it." He said as he finished up his food and quickly gulping down his juice before standing up with the tray in his hands.

Nutty walked around his seat and started to head out, leaving Flippy alone as he left the study and went into the hall going down its length to the kitchen and setting the dirty dishes into the washer and leaving the tray on the counter once he was done. He turned to look at the clock on the microwave and blinked as he read the time: "12:03." It was still fairly early in the day, he had time to spare for now.

Nutty turned himself around and went back through the same way he walked and instead of heading back into the study he passed it and headed straight down the hall to the guest room that he had the pleasure of staying in for the past three years. He opened the door and stepped inside, swinging the door behind him once he was in leaving it ajar. Nutty opened his robe and let it slide off his slender form, revealing his nudeness into the open air as he wandered over to his dresser and opened up the bottom drawer and picked out a pair of yellowish-green boxers.

He set the boxers on the floor and stepped into them, reaching down and sliding them up his legs to where they needed to be. After that he ended up picking two completely different socks from the same drawer and slipped them onto his feet, wiggling his toes a bit to fix the ends of his socks. After closing the drawer, the male went to his closet and opened it up to be greeted by greens of every shade with shirts on one end of the closet, jackets in the middle, and pants on the opposite end. Nutty picked a light green long sleeved shirt, a darker shaded jacket and very dark green jeans. He put them on accordingly and looked down to the bottom of the closet and pulled on some mismatched shoes to finish his look.

The male strolled over to the mirror just above his dresser and stared at himself. This was the first time in three years he had ever put on his normal attire, he was either wearing the robe or something big to cover himself up in such as a large blanket. He looked up to his hair in his mirror image and ran his hand through it a bit, feeling tons and tons of knots in the mess of green that blanketed his head. The male bit his lip slightly and looked around the dresser for a brush, finding one just to the left of the mirror. Taking the brush he began his work on fixing his hair. It took some time, but once he was finished his hair was as soft and neat as it used to be.

Gazing over at the clock once more he read the time yet again: "1:35." Did he really spend this much time getting himself ready? It never used to take him this long to prepare himself for anything, but then again he was feeling sluggish and unwilling to move due to his lack of happy emotions. Nutty groaned and rubbed his eyes before dragging his hands down his face, making his face look as if it was melting before letting himself go and his face returning to normal.

Nutty shook his head a bit and looked away from the mirror before walking away from his dresser and heading out of the room and heading down the hall and toward the front door, putting his hand on the door knob before getting stopped.

"Hey, where are you heading?" Flippy asked from the living room, staring at Nutty from the sofa.

"Going to Cuddle's house." Nutty responded.

"Be careful, it's pretty cold out. The town hasn't been very safe lately."

"I'll keep that in mind."

Flippy shook his head a bit and sighed a bit before rubbing his forehead as Nutty left the home. Nutty began walking down the path from the front of the house to the fence. Flaky's head rose up to see Nutty walking and she waved a bit, standing up with her hands folded in front of her as Nutty came to a stop near her.

"H-Hey. How're you feeling today Nutty…?" she asked timidly.

"I'm alright I guess." He responded nonchalantly.

"Oh, well I'm glad you're feeling okay at least. Um, are you heading out somewhere?"

He nodded his head, "Mm-hmm. Going across town to see Cuddles."

"Oh! That's good." She smiled warmly before reaching into a small pocket in the side of he dress, pulling out a small rock with a crystalline structure within it, "Do you think you could take this to him for me? I found it a couple days ago and I know how much he likes rocks with these kinds of crystal stuff in it." She added.

Nutty nodded his head again and reached out his hand in which Flaky set the small stone in. Nutty looked down at it before putting it in the pocket of his jacket.

"I'll be sure he gets it." He said before walking to the fence door, unlatching it and opening it before walking onto the sidewalk, closing the fence door and latching it.

"Alright thank you!" she said happily as she watched him walk off toward town.

Now Nutty began his travel. It was going to take some time for him to reach the other side of town, it was quite large after all even though the number of inhabitants was fairly small even though the population was slowly increasing in value. It took half an hour walking just to get to the main district of town! Nutty looked around at the various shops; funny how in three years a place can change so much. There were a ton of new venues and also a ton of old ones. The one that caught Nutty's eye the most was Shifty's and Lifty's ice cream parlor cleverly named "Shift and Lift Taste Robbery" with their sales pitch right in the name sign: "Robbing your taste buds of their senses and cents!"

Nutty stare off at the parlor for a while, thinking back before closing his eyes and shaking his head, walking away with a faster pace. The memory was too painful to even bare, just the sight of that place was enough to make him sick, in fact it did make him feel a bit sick in his stomach. Sighing he continued his way through town, noticing the shift in the sky's colour from the change in time. It was getting close to 5pm already. Soon enough Nutty was in the other side of town, walking up the sidewalk and to the front of the only yellow house that could be seen.

Standing in front of the home he waited for Cuddles. It didn't take long for the short blonde male to come waltzing out of his home, locking it up like he normally would when he left, and greet Nutty with a wave as he walked up to him wearing a yellow hoodie with cream colour shorts and yellow tennis shoes and socks.

"Hey! You decided to come, huh?" he said smiling, "Glad to see you're still around."

"Yeah. You seem to be doing well for yourself." Nutty answered back.

"I've been alright, better then before that's for sure. You seem to be doing well for yourself too." He responded.

"Ah, yeah well.. I guess you'd be right." He reluctantly said after a brief pause in conversation.

"Well, let's get going. It'll be dark soon."

Nodding his head in response, Nutty followed the lead of Cuddles whom began walking down the sidewalk to the cemetery. On their way there Cuddles talked about his trips he took with his parents as Nutty listened. The two of them past by a large public park and the post office before coming up to the large metal gates of the towns memorial cemetery, the one and only. Nutty blinked and went up to the gate, opening it up and heading inside without even realizing that Cuddles was still standing at the gate, frozen in place. It would seem Cuddles was mentally preparing himself, taking a few deep breaths as he watched Nutty walking the dirt path to find Toothy's grave, which didn't take him long at all to really find.

Nutty began to think to himself as he was walking alone, finally realizing he was by himself: 'How come he gets to be so happy? Why can't I be happy like that?' he asked himself in his head.

'He's not broken like I am and he lost his best friend just like me! How come he can be so happy and I can't be? Why am I the one that's so broken!' he shouted in his mind as he gritted his teeth together, 'It isn't fair that I'm broken and he's not! Damn that Cuddles, thinking he can just be happy no matter what and not even realize others can't be that happy.'

Nutty stood in front of Toothy's grave, staring down at it as he continued his inner ranting. He was so focused on his own ranting within his head, he didn't even hear Cuddles walk up next to him and stand there silently until he spoke, breaking Nutty out of his enraged trance, making him jump from the sudden sound of his voice.

"You know today marks three years, right?" Cuddles said sadly, a small frown planting on his face.

Nutty looked at him and raised his eye brow a bit, "Yeah, I know." He said a little irritated and puzzled from Cuddles now sad expression, but then again he was standing in front of the grave of his best friend so it was to be expected.

"I wish it never happened… He did nothing to be preyed upon like that."

"We both wish it never happened… We both lost our best friends."

"You can still get yours back though. I can't. My best friend is gone forever." Cuddles replied, his voice quivering a bit.

Nutty decided to keep quiet as Cuddles knelt down and began dusting leaves off the grave to keep himself from spilling any tears, but it was to no avail.

"N-Nutty… Do me a favor and get me a couple of flowers from that patch by the giant oak. Please…" he asked as he wiped his eyes with his sleeves, feeling more tears welling up in his eyes and he silently sobbed.

Nutty stared down at him and bit his lip slightly, feeling absolutely horrible for what he was thinking about him as he was standing there before Cuddles ever came up to him. He turned away from the crying male and looked over at the big oak, walking over to it and staring at the patch of purple and white flowers that decorated the base of the tree trunk. How could he be so ignorant and arrogant? Thinking Cuddles had gotten over the tragedy and was back to being his same old self? Cuddles was just as broken as Nutty was since then, the only difference between the two of them was that Cuddles made the attempt to hide it all with fake happiness and smiles while Nutty made no attempt to hide his bruised and battered body.

Nutty leaned down, picking out an even amount of purple and white flowers to make a small bouquet with. While he was busy with preparing the little bouquet, footsteps traveled up behind him, crumpling the grass and crunching the dead leaves on the ground. Nutty's one track mind focused on the flowers and excluded all noise and distractions until he was done. At that moment he began hearing the footsteps. They were faint in the distance so he chose to ignore them, thinking it was just Cuddles walking to get something.

He gazed up at the sky, seeing the mixtures of purples and reds that painting the once blue canvas thanks to the artistic style-lings of the setting sun. He admired the sight for a bit and placed a single hand in his jacket pocket, flowers held in the other, and he felt the small stone he was given by Flaky to give to Cuddles. As Nutty realized he didn't give him the stone yet, he heard the footsteps behind him get louder and then coming to a halt, thinking it was Cuddles he turned around. His head was down, staring at his pocket as he tried to pull out the rock.

"Hey Cuddles, I got some of the flowers you wanted. Also Flaky wanted you to have-" he stopped dead in his sentence.

As he looked up he saw a familiar male, wearing blue trimmed glasses, a light blue shirt with a brown jacket and dress like pants and black dress like shoes. His bright blue eyes and his noticeable blue hair gave away his identity fairly easily.

"It's been awhile… Hasn't it Nutty?" the blue-haired male said softly, a slight smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Nutty was speechless, no words came to his mouth as the two of them stared at each other after their three years of being separated. Three years of separation have made three people suffer immensely. A reunion that should be filled with happiness is filled with nothing but a sadness and anger that tugs at the hearts of the ones who've lost their friends. Why was this happening here and now?