Chapter 4: That Second Fateful Day
Welcome to WHITESPACE
You haven't been here in a long time.
Sunny opened his eyes and he was back to the familiar white void place in his mind where he used to seclude himself. He looked towards the 'center' of this endless room, there he saw the monochrome clone of himself, Omori, and his best imaginary friend Abbi, both looking at him with shock. And he was definitely looking at them the same way.
With a click of his fingers, a screen appeared next to him where his last vision before fainting was displayed: his dead sister back from the dead, smiling at him.
He pointed at it and with a mind still clouded in confusion and chaos he asked.
"Babuh?"
Abbi and Omori answered with a shrug and a shake of the head.
"Bebeh."
"Babeh."
They were as confused as Sunny.
After almost one minute of brain dead discussion of 'babah' and 'bibuh', the three of them managed to calm down and start talking normally again.
"So can we agree that this was real? Not a hallucination?" Abbi asked.
"Yes… She touched me, hugged me and… it was her voice. Mari… really is back. But how?!" Sunny answered and asked back.
"I don't know! I'm wise, not a genius with all the answers!" Abbi responded.
Omori took this opportunity to jab at his creator.
"You know, just because she's back doesn't mean you're a good person. You're still an awful brother."
Sunny ignored the brat as he was pondering about what he'll do when he wakes up. Said brat clicked his tongue from being ignored again. It's been like this for a year already.
"Are you thinking of how you'll apologize to Mari, don't you, Sunny?" Abbi asked.
"That's right… But I know how I'll do it. In a serious manner. Without too many tears. I have to be level headed there. I can do it." Sunny declared.
The two residents of Whitespace just stared at him with doubt as a response. Sunny frowned at that.
"What? I can do it. I can be cool." he said.
"Ma-a-a-a-riiiii, I'm sho shoooryyyyyy!" Sunny sobbed in the arms of his revived sister.
"There, there, little brother. I forgive you, you know that right?"
She held him tight while caressing his hair, how much did she wish she could cry too. But she was getting a bit embarrassed as she could feel everyone else looking at the siblings with warm smiles. Some even had tears in their eyes.
"Come on Sunny, dry those tears. We have a lot to talk about." she said before leaning towards his ear and whispering, "And clean up your snot, you don't want Aubrey to see how snotty you are right now, no~?" she said with a teasing tone.
Sunny looked up towards Mari and saw in the corner of his eyes a window. And he knew it was just his imagination but he swore he could see in the reflection Omori staring at him and slowly shaking his head with an expression that could be subtitled with one single word: 'pathetic'.
"Fu-u-uck yooooou…" he cursed-sobbed to the window's reflection
"What was that?" Mari asked, baffled and stunned to hear this.
"Nothing."
After the usual explanation on how she was back, and by that we mean that no one had a clue on how that was possible, Kel decided to celebrate the group's complete reunion with pizza. No one was able to refuse or even say what flavor they wanted before he dashed out of the house. Aubrey let out an annoyed grumble before she asked around the flavors so she could send a message to the tall dumbass. But when she wondered how Kel would pay for so many pizzas, she noticed that her wallet was gone.
Holding back numerous profanities in front of a toddler and her parents, she glanced at Sunny and her anger subsided.
The raven haired young man was holding onto his big sister like a koala, in a similar way Hero was doing half an hour ago. Mari let out a joke about having her boys back, which earned a poke to the side from each 'boy'.
But Mari had other plans now that Sunny was here.
She asked everyone if she could talk with her brother in private, and obviously no one opposed it.
She then dragged her little brother upstairs to Kel's room.
Once there, Mari took another good look at her brother.
"I'm impressed, you know?"
"Mari? What do you mean?"
"Look at you… you've grown so much. You look so much healthier, much more expressive and so handsome! Aubrey is a lucky girl for sure!" she listed with a huge smile.
"M-Mari!?" Sunny exclaimed, red as a tomato.
"I'm just glad that you're doing fine, Sunshine." Mari said with a warm, gentle smile as she wrapped her arms around her little brother.
Sunny reciprocated the hug.
"During those six years since… I killed you… the first four were torture for me. I… I…"
"You were locking yourself at home and in your dreams… I know." Mari sighed.
"The other told you?" Sunny asked, clenching his fists.
"Nope. I know." She said, her voice suspiciously amused and teasing.
"What."
"I was there the whooole time! I think you used to refer to me as 'Something'." the zombie girl grinned.
Sunny felt like he was about to faint a second time. He brought a hand to his forehead in disbelief. That shadowy thing was Mari? The real Mari? Not just a fiction of his imagination? She has been watching him the whole time, in both the real world and Headspa-
"Oh no." he said, face filled with dread.
"Oh yes. I know everything. While there is some very concerning stuff, I'm very interested about how you came up with the Aubrey School and the Slime Girls, eh~?" she teased with a fiendish grin.
Sunny wanted to crawl down a hole and disappear from this world due to embarrassment. He begged his sister not to utter a word about his Headspace to their friends, which made the zombie sibling laugh out loud.
"But seriously though… What happened after that day at the Hospital? My last memory from this world is after your fight with… Omori… And your confession of the truth to everyone." Mari asked.
The taller sibling sighed and looked her in the eye.
"I… I'll tell you everything important about those last two years." he started.
Two years ago, shortly after Sunny's confession of the Truth
Sunny was all alone in the hospital room except for Basil who was still sleeping in his hospital bed. Everyone else left after he told the truth. There were surprisingly no insults, death threats or physical violence as he expected. But he would never forget the looks of disbelief, anger, disgust, betrayal, sadness and hatred from his friends.
Hero didn't say a word nor looked at him as he walked out of the room.
Aubrey had her hands twitching, she was definitely hesitating between punching him, slapping him or pushing him on the floor. In the end she did neither and just followed Hero outside the room, only whispering something he couldn't hear.
Kel was frozen in place, processing what he just learned and once his brother and friend left the room he followed them outside with a worried look and tears in his eyes. He glanced at Sunny before leaving, trying to say something but in the end didn't.
Sunny teared up again after replaying this scene over and over again in his then heard some movement from the bed in front of him. Basil was waking up.
He dried up his eyes and walked to his probably last remaining friend.
"S-Sunny… Your eye… I'm so sorry-" he said as soon as he saw his friend with his bandaged head.
"It's alright. I told them. Everything. I'm sorry you've suffered for so long." Sunny cut him.
Basil teared up, and finally smiled genuinely for the first time in four years. As if the demon of guilt and fear that was eating him up just vanished. Seeing his friend smile, Sunny allowed one to also adorn his face, feeling the presence of Something behind him fade away.
"It's finally over. How did the-"
"It's not over." Sunny cut him again to correct him, "And it probably will never be… but I know what I must do now." He added with determination.
Basil was now feeling a bit scared at what he was insinuating.
"Sunny what are you-"
"Just rest. I'll take care of everything now." The raven haired boy cut once again his friend as he walked towards the door.
"S-Stop cutting me! Wait!" Basil tried to move but his body was still too exhausted.
When Sunny was about to open the door, ignoring his friend's protests, he could hear the voices of his might-still-be-but-probably-not friends on the other side.
"How the fuck can you forgive that- that- murderer!?" Aubrey yelled at Kel, not holding back the venom in her words.
"First of all, he's not a murderer! That would mean he meant for this to happen, it's clear from what he told us that it was an accident!"
"What if he's lying again…"
"There's no reason for him to lie now! And second of all, I never said anything about forgiving him! I'm just as shocked as you are! I think we need to press for more information, I… I believe there's more to the story." Kel said with a sad sigh.
"...yeah right…" the delinquent replied in a dry tone.
"And what about you uh? How could you be such a- a- a hippocamp-rite! »
"I think you mean hypocrite." Aubrey corrected him.
"Yeah that! You're a hypocrite! You were in the exact same situation a few days ago! But you were lucky because Hero arrived just in time! But Sunny had no one!" Kel exclaimed.
Aubrey had nothing to say back. He was right after all. She was lucky. If Hero didn't come in time, both Sunny and Basil would have drowned and she would be put in the same situation.
She looked to the side to where Hero was standing motionless, head against the wall like a pathetic grounded child, for him to say something but nothing.
She fought back a tear from pouring out as she was about to talk about Basil's involvement.
As soon as Sunny heard Basil's name, he opened the door, silencing the two arguing friends. He then tried his best to ignore them, not wanting to see their face and see how they were looking at him, and walked towards the staircase, going up.
He hear a panicked Kel shout something about him going to commit suicide on the roof before hearing the heratics footsteps from the trio.
… In all honesty, jumping off the roof after confessing was his first idea, especially after seeing their reactions. But he knew that this would just be burdening them even more. He couldn't allow himself to be such a bigger failure as a human being.
Plus he knew that Mari would be very disappointed in the afterlife if he did that.
No. He had something more important to do.
He reached the next floor and saw a nurse, perfect.
Sunny heard Kel and the others stop dead in their tracks when they saw him talking to a nurse and not going up the stairs towards the rooftops.
He did his best again to ignore them as he asked the nurse for a phone. She gently pointed at a public phone down a corridor.
With a 'thanks' and a polite nod, he walked towards it.
Now curious, the trio followed behind him.
He grabbed the phone, dialed a number that everyone in Faraway knows and after a couple of rings, someone was on the other side.
"Hello? Faraway Police Department?... Yes, my name is Sunny Suzuki and I want to confess and surrender myself for a homicide from four years ago… No this is not a prank… I'm currently at the hospital. In the room… Please wait a moment." Sunny gathered all of his courage to ask Kel about his room number.
"7-715…" Kel answered.
"Thanks… I'm in room 715… uh-uh… Alright. I'll be waiting and getting ready for your arrival." Sunny said before hanging up.
He turned around and saw everyone looking at him with perplexed faces, eyes open wide as saucers.
"The police will arrive in 15 minutes… So if you want to… I don't know… Beat me up or something… You have that time. I'll be in my room." the wounded boy whispered loud enough for them to hear while looking at the floor, still too soon to dare to look them in the eyes again.
On his way back to his room, he did not hear Kel begging Hero to do something to help Sunny.
And it wouldn't be until after the trial that Sunny learned that it was Hero who got him a good lawyer through his connections.
The trial only lasted a day, and thanks to the great attorney that Hero managed to contact and the prosecution, many things have been exposed: Sunny's father abandonment shortly after the crime, his mother's negligence in the last few months, the four years of self inflicted slow torture, his mental state, his dreams and Omori.
It wouldn't be an exaggeration that this trial itself was torture for the poor child.
Thank goodness it was a private trial with only a few people from Faraway attending it, mostly people close to the Suzuki family.
Thanks to his attorney, Sunny only got sentenced to one year of daily community service in Faraway Town with 5 hours of work a day until he recovers from his injuries then it will be 10. He even got praise from the Jury and Judge about his bravery of coming forward with his confession, something that many adults, twice or more his age, wouldn't do.
Thankfully, Sunny will not get separated from his mother as she was painted under a dark light during the trial but her testimony helped. But that's a story for another time…
Basil, as a minor during the time of the accident, didn't get a sentence for anything. But he still begged the Suzuki to pay for the hospital bill entirely, to pay for Sunny's future therapy sessions and his night classes.
Yeah, he was that rich.
But once the trial was wrapped up, Sunny's friends needed some time to better digest everything they learned on top of his confession.
During that year of community service, Basil and Kel were the first to hang out with him again.
It only took one week for the basketball player and nearly two for Basil after Sunny had to beg daily to his mother to allow the two of them to stay friends.
For Aubrey, it took a couple a month before she approached Sunny again.
As for Hero… it took almost 7 months for him to contact Sunny and Basil again and decide to spend time with them. But there was still some uncomfortable distance between him and the two.
After one year, Sunny moved to the city with his mother and would occasionally come back to Faraway to see his friends.
In the end everything ended up alright.
Back to the present
"And that's pretty much what happened after that day at the hospital. Last year was pretty chill. I got into a new high school, made some buddies and I'm having good grades. Yep." Sunny concluded his story.
He then heard a sob coming from in front of him. He looked up and saw Mari imitating crying by tracing her fingers from her eyes to her chin over and over again.
"Hm…" he didn't know if he should ask if she was messing with him.
"I'm sorry. This body can't cry but I really feel sad about what you told me." she answered before hugging her little brother, "I'm so sorry… All of this because of that stupid recital and my perfectionism that ruined your days…" she kissed the top of his head, "But I'm here now. And I swear that we'll catch up all the time we have lost. Everything will be just fine."
Sunny didn't know what to say so instead he returned the hug.
"Sunny! Mari! Are you guys okay?" they heard Aubrey call out for them from downstairs.
They have been upstairs for quite a while.
They both left the room to tell her that everything was fine, Hero joined the pink haired young adult to see if Mari was doing okay.
Sometimes Hero made the teasing way too easy.
Mari was about to say something but the loud voice of Kel from the front door interrupted her train of thought.
"Ayo! Pizza here!"
"Sweet!" it's been a loooong time since she had pizza, so she might have been rushing down the stairs too fast, fast enough to trip, "Oh shit!"
She fell down the stairs, four by four, hitting every part of her body with loud thuds and yelps.
When she landed on the floor, she quickly got back up and examined her body for any injury or missing limb or some zombie thing.
"I'm alright! I'm in one piece and still un-alive! Guys?"
When she finally looked at where her friends were, Hero, Aubrey and Sunny were passed out on the floor.
"Oops."
Baka's notes: As you might have noticed, this trial result is very inspired by the Ace Attorney x OMORI video by Star Rank here: watch?v=sjtWC0Oi0e0&t=2s
But without some bits like how the friends' quickforgiveness, Sunny's glass eye ball, and the Mother being abscent. some changes to match my Zombi Mari story
In any case, I'll try to not take 5 months to write the next chapter... Next update from me will be for Library of Ruins and Despair!
See you soon