A sizeable group of people – for Faraway, at least – were standing outside of Sunny's house, with several police cars and officers between them. The weather had cleared up now, leaving just puddles, and the news had gotten out to locals about the deaths of both Sunny and Basil.
"That's the second suicide this week!" said a concerned, skeptical mom. "And the second within this household in the past 4 years! Something must be wrong!"
"It's a curse!" stuttered an elderly churchgoer, waving his walking stick. "God is punishing us for our sins! We must repent soon or face grave danger!"
"This town will soon be no more!" said an unidentifiable person with a recycling bin on their head, their voice muffled and echoey due to the odd fashion choice. "We must ascend to the trashless world!"
Aubrey woke up, but her eyes were still closed.
In the dream, it had dawned on her. Could it be that she was mistaken about Sunny's feelings entirely? That he hadn't committed suicide because Aubrey had given him such a hostile welcome after 3 years? Rather, perhaps he felt like he had ruined any chance of redeeming himself, especially after last night with him walking out on Basil's corpse.
She entertained this alternate hypothesis further. Was there some kind of overarching connection between Basil and Sunny, that Sunny would end his own life if Basil were to die? She had always considered everyone to be "just friends" – except for Hero and Mari, and well, she had a slight crush on Sunny because her other options in the group for relationships… weren't great.
…
Ow! Aubrey felt a strong stinging in her abdomen as opened her eyes and tried to get up.
"Hold still!" said Hero—wait, Hero? Hero was in her room, standing there at the side of her bed and studying the location of her stomach wound closely.
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING WATCHING ME SLEEP?!" Aubrey yelled, startled by his presence, the pain restraining her from jumping out of her bed and destroying him with a comet hammer.
"Relax! I only just got here!" he explained sheepishly. "After you had the consideration to come over and see me and Kel, I thought I would do the same to you to make sure you were okay. We should all be there for each other, after all."
"I don't know what you said to Sunny or why exactly he took his own life, but…" he added. "I just don't want any more deaths. I'm not taking sides. I'm being responsible and right now I'm doing practise for my future job as a doctor. I cleaned up and covered your wound for now."
His tone of voice really was one of formality which was not taking sides. Things had gotten serious over the past few days, and Hero was taking responsibility. It was time she did, as well.
"Where's Kel?" she asked in the same tone.
"He didn't want to see you." Hero said. "That's a relationship for you to fix, yourself."
Silence. How was she going to do that? To be honest, she had never thought about Kel this deeply before. Now she felt kind of guilty for that.
"Now what?" she asked, expecting Hero to give her some privacy.
"I called an ambulance to get you some proper help." Hero responded firmly.
…
"No." she said. Not while all of this was going on and she had to sort things out.
The pink-haired girl got up all of a sudden and started running toward the ladder in her room. She winced at how this caused the wound in her stomach to move. Nearly jumping down the ladder, she closed her eyes and blocked out all her senses in an attempt to ignore the pain, bolting through the hallway and toward the front door.
As she almost escapes the house to not be found by the emergency services, she suddenly trips up on a tossed can on the floor.
Splaaaat!
Aubrey hit the ground face-first, landing in the rain's residue which had pooled in front of her doorstep.
"Ugggghhhhhhhh!" she yelled out into the street in frustration where everyone could hear.
All her fashion ruined with the stains of the mud, she didn't let it get to her. The girl resiliently got back up and ran toward the northern part of town.
Hero sighed, and briskly walked in the same direction Aubrey seemed to be heading. He knew what the girl was up to.
"Kel!" she screamed in a raspy voice, knocking on the door of the bedroom in which he and Hero slept. "Come out here right now!"
"Go away" he refused. "I've seen enough of you. You and your stupid gang."
"Hero needs to get something from in there." Aubrey lied. Kel fell for the bait and unlocked the door from the inside… Or maybe he was smarter than that, and he was using this opportunity to change the mood of the relationship and give her a chance.
As he did, Aubrey tackled him into a hug – or, rather, given her condition – fell onto him. But he caught the girl, proving his strength from basketball useful.
"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry!" she repeated quickly. "I feel awful for what I did to Basil, okay? I've been hiding it, but the group being torn apart once more is hurting me…"
"My judgement was clouded by my anger" Aubrey explained further. "I wasn't thinking about the harm that I caused to other people – only what I thought they had done to me. And I… I didn't think I could hurt someone… Enough to…" She started crying, thinking about Basil's suicide again.
Kel was speechless and shocked. He allowed her to sob on his chest for a minute, where her head reached. His top was now going to be both covered in tears and mud, but since Kel was Kel, he didn't mind.
"W-we need to work together" she added. "I don't want to push people away anymore. Let's always come to each other about our problems and try not to fall apart ever again, okay?"
…
Kel nodded. Hero smiled. The group was back together again.
"There's something… I still need to do." Aubrey said, back to her confident mood and looking at both of them. "It's for Sunny. Can we do it together as a group?"
The two of them shrugged, not out of unwillingness but because they had no idea what that "something" was.
"I'll buy you an Orange Joe on the way out" she offered to Kel. "I'll buy you a lifetime's worth of that junk. Even if the company has already gone out of business, I will hunt down every last can."
"That's a bit much…" Hero sa- "Wow! That's an offer I can't refuse!" Kel said, overjoyed. "Haha, just kidding. But a free can today would be niiiice."
"Sure thing." Aubrey smiled. "And if you guys ever need something from the gang, call on me and I'll see what I can do." She flexed her biceps as if to make a victory pose. "But first, can I chill here for a bit? This wound hurts."
"Whoa, how'd you get-" Kel worried. "None of your business!" Aubrey snapped, blushing.
"Back to your usual self, I see!" Hero smiled.
