Sunny washed away the blood on his hands. Mari worked him raw with no breaks, saying he had already wasted so much time. The only reason why he was able to wash away his blood was that Hero came over, and whenever he or any of their other friends came over, Mari would show her true self.
She would take off the mask of the horrible person he's seen these past few months and revert to the sweet, caring Mari that he knows and loves. Someone who would bake him cookies and not force him to take five-minute lunch breaks. Or allows him to sleep in her bed when he has a nightmare and does not let him sleep alone because she's frustrated with his mistakes. That was the Mari he couldn't wait to see more of after the recital.
Sunny exited the bathroom and made his way downstairs to find an energetic, long-haired, Orange Joe loving boy in his living room. His first friend ever, Kel.
"Hey, Sunny! Hero and Mari already left for their date night, but they left us some money for pizza!"
Date nights were something that their siblings would try once a week whenever their parents were out. They would drop off their younger siblings at one of their houses and have dinner at the vacant one. After an incident when they were much younger, Mari decided that it would be best for them to be close by in case anything happened.
"Come on, let's order pizza and play some games! I swear I'll beat you this time!"
Kel forced a phone into Sunny's hands before setting up the fighting game they were into at the moment. He wanted to give back the phone to Kel and make him order, but the energetic boy was already engrossed in the game, leaving him to do the dirty work. Sunny made his way into the kitchen to avoid the loud noise that was coming from his tv and dialed the only pizzeria in town.
"Hello, Gino's pizza! How may I help you?"
Gino's, home of the greasiest, but most delicious pizza in Faraway. Just one bite and you'll feel like you gained ten pounds. They also sell hero sandwiches but the owner hates it when you order them.
"H-Hi, I would l-like t-to order a large pep-pepperoni p-pizza, please."
"And will you come and pick it up or like it delivered to your home?"
"D-Delivery, p-p-please."
"OK, and please describe your house."
The only downside to Gino's is when you order delivery. Unlike most food establishments when you order delivery, they won't ask for your home address. Instead, they'll ask you to describe your house, which has led to multiple orders being stolen. It's one of the reasons why every house in Faraway has some type of distinguishing feature.
"W-We are th-the house with a picnic b-basket and pi-pin-pinwheel o-out f-front."
"Alright, we'll see you in twenty minutes."
Sunny hung up the phone and took a few deep breaths.
That was torture.
Sunny never liked to talk much, only ever opened his mouth to speak when he had to. He was always someone that you could go to and rant about your problems or tell secrets to, it wasn't like he was going to tell anyone. He liked that he could be relied upon to help others with their problems.
Sunny returned to the living room just in time to see Kel finishing his match.
"Did you order the pizza?"
Sunny gave him one of his signature thumbs up.
"Awesome! Now, come on, I know I'll beat you this time."
Kel tossed Sunny a controller and the quiet boy caught it before sitting next to his friend.
Twenty minutes passed and Kel lay sprawled out on the living room floor. The tv screen showed its fifth KO graphic of the night as Sunny had a small satisfied grin on his face.
"Aw man, how are you so good at this!? What does that make the score?"
45-0, but who's keeping count?
A knock on the door returned his signature smile to his face. He raced to the door, opened it up, took the pizza box from the delivery boy's hands, and returned to the living room in under ten seconds. Sunny huffed and walked over to the bewildered delivery boy.
"This was the house that ordered a large pepperoni, right?"
Sunny nodded and handed the boy some money that would cover not only the price of the pizza but also a tip for the boy. With the transaction complete, Sunny went back to the living room to see that Kel already finished half of the pizza.
"Don't worry, I saved you a couple of slices."
Sunny rolled his eyes and took the box away from Kel before he could take any more slices. He went to the kitchen and wrapped the two pieces in tin foil to save for later before returning with his dinner on a plate.
Deciding that he had been embarrassed enough for one night, Kel wanted to watch a CAPT. SPACEBOY movie. Ever since their siblings started their date nights, the boys decided to watch all of the CAPT. SPACEBOY movies in chronological order. They were up to the part where Sweetheart and Capt. Spaceboy started dating.
They were halfway through the movie when a scene came up that showed Capt. Spaceboy and Sweetheart kissing, causing Kel to gag.
"Gross! Do you think that Hero and Mari are doing that right now?"
Sunny shrugged.
It wasn't because he didn't know his big sister was kissing her boyfriend, it was because it was an image that he didn't want to see playing in his head.
"Man, this is boring. Do you wanna sneak out and go to Hobbeez?"
Sunny thought about it for a few seconds before shaking his head. He would like to sneak out and read the latest CAPT. SPACEBOY comic or play PET ROCKS, but he had to go somewhere early in the morning and he didn't want to be late.
Kel looked a little disappointed but shrugged it off.
"That's fine, we could do it some other day. So how's practice going?"
"G-Good. W-We're j-j-just ironing some s-s-stuff out."
"That's great! I can't wait to hear you guys play!"
Kel gave Sunny a bright smile which Sunny tried his best to return but knew he couldn't.
Him and Mari weren't even close to ironing out small mistakes. They were too busy focusing on his big mistakes that they couldn't work on playing through the whole song smoothly. He knew he was not only going to disappoint Mari and his parents but his friends as well. They bought him the violin and he couldn't even play it perfectly.
Just thinking about disappointing his friends brought his mood down.
"S-So how's b-b-basketball?"
Maybe listening to Kel talk about his interests will make him feel better and seeing how the energetic boy reacted to his question, he knew he would.
"Oh man, it's AWESOME! I'm for sure going to make the team this year!"
Sunny awoke, quietly rolled out of bed, and quickly got dressed before sneaking out of his room. Mari didn't get home until super late and he didn't want to wake her so early in the morning. He carefully made his way down the steps, trying his best to avoid any squeaky floorboards, before reaching the bottom.
He crept his way into the kitchen, towards the fridge, and pulled out the pizza from the night before. He contemplated heating up the food in the microwave before deciding against it, as to make the least amount of noise possible.
Sunny put on his shoes and slipped out the front door.
The cool morning air sent a chill up his spine. The cool air and the leaves changing color were a huge indication that Autumn has arrived. The sun was peeking its head over the trees, creating a beautiful landscape that Sunny knew his best friend Basil would love to take a picture of.
Sunny headed down the sidewalk with one destination in mind, the park.
There's someone there that's waiting for him. Someone who always makes his heart flutter and causes his ears to turn red.
He reached the park and felt his ears turn red when he saw her sitting on the swings, not only one of his best and dearest friends but also his girlfriend, Aubrey. Even though he is shy, it would surprise you to learn that he confessed his feelings for her first… kinda.
He accidentally left his sketchbook out when she came to visit one day and she caught sight of it. She sneakily went through it and saw all of his pictures of him and his friends going on adventures. He wrote a little summary of each picture on each page and he might've written about his crush on her on one or two, or maybe seven pages with a drawing of her.
Instead of being disgusted and creeped out as most people would, she loved it. She swallowed him up in a hug and told him that she had a crush on him as well. They've been dating since that day.
Sunny snuck up behind her and gave her a quick peck on the cheek.
"Someone's a little bold today."
Sunny kept his head down to hide his red face and avoid the teasing smirk on Aubrey's face. He handed her the pizza and took his spot on the swings next to her.
"S-Sorry I couldn't h-heat i-it up for y-y-y-you."
"Don't worry about it. Cold pizza is better than what I have at home anyway."
Sunny knew that her home life wasn't good from the stories that she told him. Stories about how her parents argue daily and ignore her, that her mother spends almost all of their money on alcohol and cigarettes, and that she rarely eats because they have little to no food in their house. Sunny felt his heart ache knowing that he couldn't do much to help her outside of letting her confide in him or bring her leftovers that he knew no one in his family would eat.
He looked over at her and watched her eat. He wondered how someone so kind and sweet had to live with horrible people that she calls parents. It's just so unfair that he gets to go home to a loving mother and sister while she has to stay up late listening to her parents scream at each other.
Aubrey noticed him staring and gave him a toothy grin.
"What are you thinking about?"
Sunny started to panic and said the first thing that came to his mind.
"T-That I-I'm lucky to have y-you!"
Sunny felt his face explode but luckily Aubrey ate it up.
"Aww!"
Since they were sitting far apart the best that she could do was give him a loving pat on his shoulder. She then slid her hand down his arm toward his hand. Sunny instinctively pulled his arm away causing Aubrey to frown.
"Show me your hand."
"I-It's f-fine."
"Sunny…"
"P-Please."
Aubrey quickly grabbed his wrist and brought his hand toward her. She frowned even more when she saw the blisters on his hand.
"Sunny…"
He felt the disappointment in her voice ring throughout his heart. He looked away in shame, not able to look into her worried eyes.
"I-It's fine."
"No, it's not! She's hurting you and you're just letting it happen!"
"I-It's f-fine."
"Sunny, look at me."
He slowly looked at her and saw the worried expression on her face, making his heart ache. Ever since she got him to open up about their practices, she's been begging him to tell Mari to ease up with their practices, but he couldn't do it.
"You need to tell Mari that she's hurting you. I'm sure she'll listen, and if you can't do it then I'll gladly do it for yo–!"
"No! It has to be perfect, not just for her but for all of you guys too!"
"We would all care less about some dumb song sounding perfect when you're getting hurt, Sunny!"
Sunny and Aubrey stared at each other with furrowed brows. The topic of his and Mari's practices was the only thing they ever argued about. The recital was extremely important to his sister and he was dragging her down with his poor play. He needed the practices to be rough so he could catch up to his sister.
He wished that she could see that.
Aubrey was the first to break away from their staring contest and sighed.
"Sunny, I love that you care about us, but you need to be selfish every once in a while. It's ok to worry more about what you want than what other people want."
"I-I know…"
Sunny felt tears start to swell up in his eyes. Aubrey got off the swing and kissed his cheek before pulling him into a comforting hug.
"It's ok, Sunny. I know it's hard for you but could you please try, for me?"
Sunny nodded and Aubrey kissed his cheek again.
"Thank you, Sunny. Do you want to hear how the tournament went?"
Sunny nodded again, glad that she was changing the topic. Aubrey sat down on the swing with a massive smile on her face and began her story.
"So, first off, my team won the whole thing and I had the game-winning hit…"
"Again."
Sunny made another mistake. After returning from the park, Mari dragged him into the music room to practice. He never got the chance to eat breakfast and after hours of practice, the hunger pains were getting to him. He was having a hard time standing up straight as he felt his stomach digest itself.
"M-Mari…"
"Hmm?"
She didn't even look at him and he couldn't blame her. Who would waste their energy looking at a failure?
"Can w-we t-take a b-break? I-I'm r-really h-h-hungry."
"Fine, but you have five minutes."
Sunny quickly placed his violin in its case and rushed to the door. He paused at the door frame and looked at his sister. He thought about what Aubrey said and knew that this would be the perfect time to tell her, but he couldn't. He watched her play and heard how perfect it sounded, he couldn't ask her to take it easy on him after seeing how much work she was putting into it.
After wasting enough time, Sunny rushed to the kitchen. Even if he didn't waste any time he wouldn't have enough time to make anything, so he decided on eating jam and bread. It isn't the most filling meal he'll ever have but it does its job.
"Meow."
Sunny looked down and saw a small black cat patting its empty food bowl. Sunny gave the cat a small smile and scratched behind her ears.
"I guess you're hungry too, Mewo."
Sunny reached into the cat food and poured one scoop into Mewo's dish. He scratched her while she ate, enjoying the small moment of peace. He checked the time and knew he had about two minutes until he had to return and practice, but he also realized that it was around the time he left yesterday.
He thought about Omar's offer.
He really did have fun practicing with him and JJ. He enjoyed the skating and the praise they gave him for doing a good job. It was a lot better than practicing with Mari.
But, he hated being scolded by Mari when he got home. He hated the non-stop practicing and how his fingers bled when it ended. He hated that his sister didn't love him like she used to.
Aubrey's words rang throughout his head. Would he go back into the music room and be miserable while he disappoints Mari or will he be selfish and go out and do something that he enjoys? He only had a minute to decide.
He took a couple of deep breaths and made his decision.
He quickly ran upstairs, and grabbed his sweatshirt and money, before rushing back down and out the door while trying to put his shoes on. Once he had them on, he ran as fast as he could, knowing that his sister would never catch up to him because of her injury.
He decided that he was going to be selfish and he wasn't gonna look back.
After getting a good distance away from his house he walked the rest of the way to the center. He arrived in a few short minutes and paid for his rental skates. After storing away his shoes, he made his way over to the rink Omar brought him to yesterday.
He saw the older man and young boy on the ice and when Omar saw him, he waved him over.
"Glad you came back, Sunny. You ready to get started?"
Sunny nodded, causing the older man to smile and pat him on the back. He handed Sunny a stick that was smaller than the one he used yesterday but was the perfect size for him.
"I brought one of JJ's old sticks when I noticed the one I gave you yesterday was too big. It's just a smaller version of the one you used yesterday."
Omar led Sunny toward the goal that JJ was stationed at, already decked out in his goalie gear. Omar dumped a bunch of pucks onto the ice and picked one out with his stick.
"You had a good wrist shot yesterday but there's still room for improvement. So today, I'm gonna show you the old and new wrist shot technique."
Omar took the puck and in one quick sweep he launched the puck at the net and JJ caught it with his glove. Omar got another puck and looked at Sunny.
"That was the old technique. I put the puck on the heel of my blade and snapped it to the toe of the stick. It's how I got the good saucer technique, but it's the old way of doing it. You wanna know why?"
Omar positioned himself in front of Sunny to give him a good view of his example. The puck was at the heel of the blade and Omar slowly moved his stick as if he were shooting in slow motion. Sunny saw the blade of the stick was flat on the ice and heard it scrape across the ice.
"You noticed it, right? The blade of my stick was flat on the surface and if I do the loud quick sweep there will be too much surface contact. That's the old way and now I'll show you the new technique."
Omar took the puck and shot it past JJ and into the net. The stick still scraped across the ice but the puck was much quicker than the first shot when it left Omar's stick. Omar got another puck and positioned himself for his next example.
"So, what I did differently than the first one was I placed the puck on the toe of my stick, keeping my bottom hand under my chin. My heel is lifted and I'm even flexing a little bit of my blade. So, we start off with toe…"
Omar slowly started going through the motion of his shot before stopping to show that the puck moved to the heel of the stick.
"When the puck is in line with my front heel it'll naturally move back to the heel of the stick and then you go back to the toe. So it should be toe, to heel, to toe. You should have a quicker release because of the less resistance and still have the active flex you get on your stick."
Omar once again used the new technique to shoot another puck into the net before passing Sunny a puck.
"Now, the reason why I showed you both is that I want you to do the old technique first before you move on to the new technique because the new one is a little more complicated and you're just starting out. I'll let you know when I want you to switch to the new technique but for right now, try to get as many shots as you can pass JJ."
Sunny played with the puck for a few seconds before placing it on the heel of his stick. He looked up and saw JJ waving his arms as if he were challenging him.
"Don't expect me to make it easy for you, Sunny. Come on, let it rip!"
Sunny took a deep breath and shot the puck at the goal. It didn't leave the ice and JJ easily used his blockers to stop it. Omar passed him another puck with some words of encouragement before he could lambaste himself.
Sunny once again placed the puck on the stick's heel and shot it. Unlike his first shot, the puck left the ice a little bit but JJ easily stopped it.
"Hey, keep at it! You're getting there!"
Omar told Sunny as he passed him another puck. Just like the first two times, Sunny placed the puck on his stick's heel and steadied his breathing. He shot it and the puck left the ice, but he got too much of his stick under it causing the puck to fly over the net and into the protective glass.
Sunny felt himself getting frustrated. He was struggling with something so simple. He didn't expect to get anything past JJ but he at least thought he would've put up more of a challenge. Maybe he wasn't supposed to be good at anything and only disappoint the people around him.
Sunny then felt a hand on his shoulder and saw Omar giving him a supportive smile.
"Take a deep breath, you're doing well for a beginner. I remember when JJ threw fits when he couldn't do something perfectly on his first few tries so I'm gonna tell you what I told him. We all had to crawl before we could walk so don't cry about not being able to sprint on your first try."
Omar saw he confused the young boy so he tried to clarify himself.
"What I'm trying to say is that no one is perfect right off the bat. It takes time and practice to get good at something and that's why we're here, to practice. So don't beat yourself up because you'll eventually get it."
Omar passed Sunny another puck and he set up his shot. He took a deep breath and launched the puck at the net. It left the ice and it was on target but JJ caught it with his glove.
Sunny was a little disappointed but he wasn't frustrated like he was after his first three shots. He took another deep breath and readied himself for his next attempt.