In a certain bedroom with cream-colored walls and a wooden floor, a lethargic teenage girl opened her sore eyes, waking up from her slumber due to the brightening room and morning heat. After all, it's summer.
The Mari of the past would get out of her bed and get herself ready to make the most of the morning, which she would continue by waking her little brother up.
However, the current Mari didn't even want to get up from her bed. There was nothing to look forward to… Not even a little brother to wake up either.
Ever since Mari had learned what had happened to her brother and also her mistakes, she had been ridden with an overwhelming guilt that weighed heavily on her shoulders. She rarely went outside her room, she stayed on her bed more, and her mother practically had to forcefully yank Mari from her bed to get her to eat… And that's just eating.
All in all, her mistakes had plagued her -even depressed her, and nothing she did had outweighed the guilt. She would escape that guilt through her sleep, where she didn't need to think, it was the closest she could get to peace. If she was lucky, she might dream of the beautiful memories of the past… or a nightmare to remind her what she had done, if she weren't lucky. It was the latter the night before, unfortunately.
… It's hot, Mari thought to herself, cursing at the sun for ruining her respite.
Soon after, a ray of sunlight had slid through the window, shining onto one of Mari's eyes, bothering her sleep even more.
Damn sunlight… Mari angrily thought. However, her annoyance quickly resided as a certain word reminded her of a certain someone.
Sunlight… I wonder how is Sunny? she thought to herself as her expression softened.
Mari stayed silent, not even willing to move from the ray of sunlight that had been bothering her.
Why did I even ask that? Of course he's happy. After all, he's away from… me.
Mari rolled to the other side of her bed afterwards, avoiding the sunlight and trying to fall back into her sleep to avoid feeling the painful guilt. However…
Grumble…
Her empty stomach disrupted her lull, making her unable to fall back asleep at all anymore. In her annoyance, Mari pushed herself to get out of her bed, as heavy as it seemed.
After Mari sat up on her bed, she slowly scooted to the edge of her bed and brought her feet out of the bed to touch the floor. She stood up carefully, with a hand on her bed's railing to balance herself.
However, her weaker body and lack of energy from starving herself had gotten the better of her as her feet slipped, making her fall onto the floor painfully.
"Ow, ow…" Mari winced from the dull pain that she had felt from the impact.
After a few seconds, Mari brought herself to stand up again with enormous effort and walked slowly out of her room.
Creak…
As Mari closed the door behind her, she took a deep breath and turned towards the stairs.
She stared at the dreaded stairs, remembering the incident from a year ago.
The loud noise from Sunny throwing the violin.
The trembling boy that was her brother.
The anger she had felt.
The push.
The numbing pain and the black void.
The white ceiling of the hospital.
And finally, the disappearance of her little brother.
The place where it all started, or rather, the place where the results of her own mistakes had reached its climax.
Mari's lips trembled as she broke in cold sweat, being reminded at full force of her biggest mistake that had ended up hurting her beloved brother:
Her obsession to perfection.
Mari took a deep breath as she readied herself mentally to walk down the flight of stairs.
The house was eerily silent. After all, Mari's mother was currently away due to a certain family problem. Mari's footsteps were making very light taps as her bare feet came into contact with the furnished wooden floor. She softly walked into the living room; everything was still the same.
The fireplace attached to the wall, the sofa in the middle of the living room, and…
the family portrait of a younger Mari laying down on the ground with her hands supporting her head as she smiled to the camera, her parents that sat by her left and right side, and her little baby brother Sunny, who adorably sat on his mother's lap, innocently looking at the camera with a pacifier in his mouth.
Mari looked at the portrait with a pained look as the portrait itself had reminded her of what she had done to the little baby who was her little brother. Mari pursed her lips as she looked away; it was too unbearable for her.
Mari walked towards the kitchen when suddenly someone knocked on the door, stopping her in her tracks.
Unlike a certain tanned boy's extremely loud door knocks (so loud, the entire house would shake from every knock. Just kidding), this one was very soft. However, it didn't fail to reach Mari's ears considering just how silent the entire house was.
Mari walked closer to the door, half expecting that it was just a door-to-door salesman. Unfortunately, the reality was the other half of her expectation.
"Mari? Are you there?"
The cute voice of a young teenage girl was heard from the other side of the door. Mari instantly knew who was on the other side of the door.
Aubrey.
Mari instantly froze, making an effort to not make a sound. After all, this wasn't the first time Aubrey went looking for Mari, and Mari knew why Aubrey was looking for her.
"... Mari, don't you want to go see Sunny?"
Mari stayed silent, just a few steps away from the door.
"Sunny… he misses you, you know? It's been hard for us to get him to talk to us again, but he's getting better! He's talking to us more and more, and… he's asking about how you're doing."
Mari pursed her lips as she stared down to the floor.
You're lying, Mari thought.
"... Sunny's not mad at you, Mari."
Mari's lips trembled, It's not possible.
"... What am I saying? No one's answering the door, so the house is probably empty. Maybe… I'll try again tomorrow."
Steps that slowly faded in the distance were heard, indicating that Aubrey had walked away from the house. On the other hand, Mari stared at the floor, deep in thought.
… Should have I opened that door?
No. You've seen Sunny before. He didn't even try to look at me.
While Mari was staring at the floor, pained by her own thoughts, her stomach grumbled, stopping the circle of self-loath just before it started. Remembering the reason why she had gone down from her room, she walked towards the kitchen room to find something to eat.
As Mari entered into the kitchen she went straight to the refrigerator, hoping that there would be something to fill up her stomach. Usually, the refrigerator was filled with many foodstuffs…
…but that wasn't the case that day.
Mari opened the fridge only to be met with a comically empty refrigerator. It was so empty, it was as if it was a newly bought fridge.
Mari was confused at this sight, opening and closing the fridge a few times. She couldn't believe that the usually filled fridge was empty. During an instance when she closed the fridge, she noticed a note on the fridge. It was addressed to her.
"Mari, I'm sorry I couldn't prepare you breakfast. Something came up so I had to go. I left some money for you to buy breakfast, lunch and dinner and some groceries, too. As for the groceries, I left a list of what to buy with the money. Eat something healthy, okay? Love, Mom."
Mari stared at the note, and sighed tiredly in surrender.
Donning a simple white dress and a simple baseball cap to shield herself from the hot sunlight, Mari lazily walked in the direction to Faraway Plaza. It was just a little over 9 AM, but the summer heat was already uncomfortably hot for Mari. In fact, it was a whole lot hotter that day. Due to the said heat, a lot of the residents of Faraway stayed inside their homes or drove by car, making the pedestrian streets empty. Not a single person was in sight. Even the crazier kids that would go out in this heat were all away in another town (if you could even call it one) to visit their one-eyed friend.
"Huff…" Mari wiped the sweat on her forehead.
Mari walked by the empty playground known as Faraway Park. There were some people in the park. Some were resting under a tree, a few were sunbathing, and a bunch of moms were doing morning exercises to a rather annoyingly repetitive workout song. Mari wondered why those moms were able to take the heat. Mari concealed her eyes with the overhang of her baseball cap even further as she walked further towards Faraway Plaza.
Lettuce, cabbage, eggs, meat, potatoes, and bread… that's all of them.
Mari crossed the last item on the shopping list and brought the rather heavy cart with her two slender hands. She started walking to the cashier whilst the Othermart's jingle played into the ambience.
~Othermart, for all your daily and other needs!~
The yellow-walled supermarket was empty that day, with only a few customers shopping. After all, it wasn't a grocery day. It was just an unlucky coincidence that the Suzuki household had run out of foodstuffs.
After Mari had arrived at the cashier, she put her cart and shopping money onto the cashier table, not even bothering to look at the clerk.
"That would be $69.42… Wait, Mari? Is that you?"
Mari slightly jolted. She recognized that voice. She looked up and saw a freckled girl with short brown hair. The girl was one of Mari's classmates.
"O-oh… hi, Mel," Mari dragged her cap's overhang lower to conceal her eyes as she looked away insecurely.
"Oh, it is you, Mari! How's your holiday?"
"Um… it's all good!" Mari lied, "...what are you up to?"
"Oh, this? Just saving up money for college. Money's a bit tight these days," Mel cheerfully answered. However, her appearance changed when she started to notice Mari's unkempt look.
"Uh… Mari, are you okay? You don't look so good."
"Ah?" Mari looked away whilst tidying up her bed hair; she hadn't been taking care of herself well, "I… I watched a horror movie last night, so I woke up really late and I had to buy groceries and I didn't have time to wash myself," Mari lied again.
"But… you don't like horror movies, Mari."
"Ah! S-sometimes you have to try something new, right?"
"That's true… but-"
"Anyway, here's the money. Sorry, I… have more things to do at home."
Mel looked at Mari silently with worry, but she knew that Mari didn't want her to stick her nose into what Mari was going through, "... Okay then, Mari. Right… your change is…"
"Thank you for your purchase!"
With the closing automatic door behind her, Mari had all the things she had to buy, as according to her mother's shopping list. With a relieved sigh, Mari started to walk back home quietly (and sweatingly, cursing the clear sky and hot sun). Mari wiped more of her sweat off her forehead, her vision hazing due to the heat.
It's alright, just a few minutes away, she thought to herself.
Like the rest of Faraway town, Faraway Plaza didn't have a lot of visitors. Well, with the exception of a few Hobbeez goers who wanted to play the arcade game they had. If only the sun wasn't so dizzyingly hot, it would've been a pleasant day for her and her friends to go on a picnic.
A picnic, huh? Mari thought to herself.
Mari reminisced about the more recent past. The day of the 31st of March last year, to be exact. The day when she, her little brother, Aubrey, Basil, and Hero went out on a picnic.
She remembered the warmth on her lap while she was complimenting Hero's cooking. The fluffy head that belonged to her little brother.
Precious, little, Sunny, with the face of an innocent baby, a darling.
Mari remembered how much she loved him, how much she cared for him. She wouldn't let anything bad happen to him… until she did.
If only I didn't push him too far, she thought regretfully, Things are beyond repair now. We, I, can't make it go back to how things were before. I-
"O-oh no! What should I do?!"
Mari soon came to be from her train of thoughts, interrupted by someone's frustrated yelp. Mari looked up to her front, and realized she was now in front of Faraway Park. There was a person some distance in front of her, by the bus stand; a blonde haired girl who was wearing a frilly blue dress, and a pair of sunglasses. She seemed to be the one who cried out just now.
Mari took a step forward, approaching the stranger in the blue frilly dress. She appeared to be shorter, just by Mari's shoulder.
"H-hey, what's wrong?" Mari asked.
"Ah! Thank goodness someone's here! I-I'm lost…!" the stranger cried.
"Lost?" Mari looked down at the stranger's hands and saw a map.
"I-I might have a map here, but I swear, I'm very bad at directions! Please, help me!" The stranger got closer and made Mari take a step back.
"O-okay, okay. Where are you going?" Mari looked at the stranger's map.
"Well… I'm going… here? I think it's called Somewhere. I'm trying to meet with an old friend," the stranger pointed at a certain part of the map with 'Somewhere' labeled on it.
Mari's lips twitched a little bit. It was a location close to you-know-who, and it wasn't a very pleasant visit, "Ah… well… take on the next bus and go for four- I mean, three stops. At the third stop go down and you're at Somewhere."
"Ah, I see! Thanks, miss!"
Thinking that the stranger's problem was resolved, Mari sighed in relief and decided to go back home. However, just after three steps forward, Mari felt a hand grabbing her sweaty forearm, which prompted her to look back and saw that the stranger grabbed her arm.
"M-miss! I-I…" Mari couldn't see it, but the stranger's eyes were darting all around, "By any chance… are you going to Somewhere, too?"
"... No?" Mari raised an eyebrow.
"I… I don't know the town… so…" the stranger was fidgeting around, until she looked at Mari with puppy eyes. Her eyes were of a deep blue color, "...could you accompany me?"
Why did you go out alone, then? Mari questioned the stranger in her heart.
As much as Mari wanted to go home (and NOT go near Nowhere), she felt bad leaving the stranger behind. Besides, she didn't look suspicious at all. Rather, she'd probably be the one being on the receiving end from bad people. Also, those puppy eyes were pretty irresistible to deny.
Mari sighed, "... Alright, alright. But, first, I need to go home and… put all of these, okay?"
"Okay!" The stranger's childish voice made her more of a child than she already looked to be.
As Mari walked back home, the stranger followed suit by Mari's side.
"Hey, what's your name?" the stranger asked.
"Um… Mari."
"Ah, Mari! Cute name, my name is Ja- I mean, Ella! My name is Ella!"
