Sunny felt alone even when there were people in the house.
Even if the house was full to bursting, he'd still feel alone. Ever since that day…he'd been isolated.
The day he almost killed his sister.
When he pushed her out of anger, just wanting her to stop talking, he regretted it immediately. Watching her tumble down the stairs, watching for the moment her neck would break, that she would die…it felt like the longest seconds of his life.
She crashed onto the violin, breaking it even more than it already was, but when he'd heard the crack of her bones, he thought she'd be dead.
She wasn't, but she was close.
The rest of the day became a blur, as Sunny called their parents. He told her she'd fallen, and for those two days that Mari was unconscious…it was the last two days Sunny truly had loving parents.
But once Mari explained what happened…that's when everything crashed.
Sunny's parents, despite the love they'd given Sunny since the day he was born, yelled at him and berated him for doing something so horrible, even if by accident. Looking back…he missed when they yelled at him because at least they acknowledged he was there.
After that…they slowly stopped talking to him a little less every day until it got to the point where he was lucky to get a single sentence in his direction on a given day.
They at least had the decency to leave food for him, but even at dinner, when they ate together, they pretended he didn't exist, feeding him out of obligation rather than a want to.
Mari ended up in a wheelchair for a month, her legs both broken, as well as one of her arms. Her spine had thankfully missed any damage, so she wasn't permanently paralyzed, but even so…Sunny never stopped hurting whenever he saw her. And even when he saw her, tried to talk to her or even lock eyes with her, she just glared at him, her eyes cold, lacking the warmth and love they used to hold whenever she looked at him.
He'd had to corner her in her room while their parents were gone two weeks after the incident to get her to actually talk to him. She was trying to use the crutches she was given, as once she was cleared from the wheelchair, she'd have to use them until her legs healed.
"Mari," he said weakly, startling her and almost making her collapse. She looked up at him, and her face immediately sharpened into anger and betrayal. "Mari…I…I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…I just—"
"No, Sunny," she said, her tone sharp and icy. "I know it was an accident, but…you can't just expect me to forgive you that easily, not when you could've…" She shook her head. "Just give me some time…and some space, alright?" She turned away from him, which was the end of what could barely be called a conversation. It was then that Sunny knew that even if she did ever forgive him, things would never be the same again.
A night that stuck in his mind was an awful one. It was dinner as usual, their mother making spaghetti. It used to be a family favorite, but as dinner time became cold, the meals lost their flavor.
Mari struggled to get into her chair, having moved on to crutches. She couldn't get the chair pulled out properly, and it looked like both of their parents were about to get up, but…Sunny got up first. He stood from the table and had a hand on Mari's chair, intending to pull it out for her when their mother snapped.
"Don't," she said so coldly—a tone he had never heard before—that he froze in place. "She doesn't need your help, so don't touch her or that chair." A moment of silence passed before her voice quieted, but only slightly. "You've done enough."
He slowly retracted his hand, grabbed his plate, and headed back up to his room.
Unable to see the look of pain on Mari's face as she watched him leave.
After that, it got even worse. They stopped making dinner for him, or rather stopped leaving a plate or bowl out for him. If he took the food himself, they didn't acknowledge it or him; they just let him do whatever he wanted. It became as if he didn't exist.
He barely even noticed that Mari stopped glaring daggers at him whenever she saw him, and he didn't notice her reaching out for him even when their parents were talking to her. He simply walked back upstairs and ate in his room while watching TV, which felt lifeless and empty, nothing but moving pictures with no life and no color.
Pointless…just like him.
Occasionally, his friends would stop by, but never for him. They huddled around Mari, doing their best to make her feel better and help her get used to her crutches. He would see that when they went out together, they'd help Mari out of the car, help her to the house, doing everything they could for her, just like best friends should. Several times, he debated coming downstairs to talk to them, but as he peeked from the top step, looking down to see them smiling and laughing and comforting Mari…he just knew they wouldn't forgive him.
Especially since they never asked about him or came to check on him.
The one time his name was mentioned was when he was walking to the bathroom. Mari's bedroom door was cracked open, and Hero was visiting. As Sunny walked past, he heard Hero talking.
"You're so strong, Mari," he said, and then Mari said something he couldn't hear. "I'm serious. It's incredible of you to just keep going, full speed…even after what Sunny did."
He heard Mari reply with something that sounded harsh, but Sunny had already moved on, tears filling his eyes as he felt the darkness overwhelming him, surrounding him, crushing him. He choked on it as he scrambled into the bathroom and slammed the door. He went to the mirror and looked at himself. His cheeks were sunken and eyes dark, looking paler than ever before. He was a shell of his former self, and he was positive he'd never be able to fix it. He could never, ever fix the things he'd broken.
Even if part of him, some stubborn part, still wanted to try.
Days started to pass by in a blur of nothings, yet also somehow felt painfully slow. Sunny stayed in his room more and more with nothing but the hum of the TV to keep him company. He wrote stuff down, mostly things that happened in his dreams.
His dreams had become his escape, a place where things were still normal, where his friends and Mari still loved him. They went on adventures around this other world, fighting creatures, saving people, and doing whatever they wanted. Soon enough, he'd had so many adventures that he filled an entire journal with them, a glimpse into another life, another…him.
But then…he started to hear him.
Omori, his other self was called.
At first, there were only little whispers, which he could only hear when the house was silent. But it steadily became louder and louder. He tried to spend more time in the treehouse, hoping the noise of the birds and wind would keep it at bay, but that only made things worse. Not only would he hear Omori's voice getting louder with every passing day, but seeing the photographs and old keepsakes in the treehouse holding so many memories…it would leave him feeling worse than before.
It finally happened when he found himself staring at a photo of Mari taped to the wall. It was a beautiful photo of her and Sunny hugging, Sunny practically burying his face in her chest, enjoying the warm embrace. Something he'd never get to feel again.
"I…I'm sorry…I didn't mean to…push you. To hurt you…" he said softly as he ran his fingers across the photo.
"You destroyed her."
It was then that he finally heard Omori, loud and clear, straight out of his dreams.
"You broke her, and they'll never forgive you this way, you know this."
Sunny yanked the photo off the wall and began to sob uncontrollably as he clutched it to his chest as if he could pull the warmth from the memory to feel his sister's hug again.
"You cannot fix this."
"Shut up…" Sunny said weakly, and surprisingly, Omori stopped.
But only for a while.
He began to speak to him more and more, his voice getting clearer, his tone sharper, yet more soothing, as if he was an old friend. He told Sunny all the thoughts he'd been having, confirmed his inadequacy, and reaffirmed how the others hated him for what he'd done.
"They hate you, Sunny. They'll always hate you. But you can change that. You can make them see how much you care."
"N-No…I can't…" Sunny said, wanting to ignore the voice of his other self, ignore the twisted ideas flowing into his mind and playing out in his imagination. "They'll forgive me, they just need time."
"That's not good enough. You need to make them see, make them realize how they must forgive you. Waiting is not an option. This is the only way."
The more Omori talked, the more Sunny wavered.
"They won't forgive you unless you make them. You must take matters into your own hands. Show them who you are. Make them see."
Sunny wanted to prove him wrong, prove that he knew what he was doing, prove that his friends could still forgive him if he just explained himself. So that's exactly what he set out to do.
On a chilly autumn day, he walked downstairs and grabbed his jacket, the first time he'd needed it in two months. Nobody spoke to him as he left the house, and he wondered if they were hoping he was just leaving for good. He knew his parents were a lost cause, but maybe his friendships could be salvaged.
He bundled the jacket close to his small, frail body as the wind gave him a chill. Aubrey didn't live that far away, thankfully, so it didn't take him long to arrive at her doorstep. He steadied himself, hearing Omori at the back of his mind. Surprisingly, he was…quiet, back to only whispers. Taking that as a good sign, Omori swallowed the lump in his throat, raised his hand, and knocked.
As he waited, memories floated to the front of his mind: the time he and Aubrey nearly broke the treehouse to pieces with hammers trying to "fix" a loose board; the time they almost crushed Mari's fingers in the piano and got a rightful scolding by the girl; the time they wanted to see how much ice cream they could eat in a day and ended up with not only brain freezes by the truckload, but massive stomachaches as well. The memories brought a smile to his face, something he hadn't had in ages, something he honestly couldn't even remember the last time he'd had.
He was still wearing the smile when the door finally opened. When he saw Aubrey's face, for a few brief moments, he thought things might turn out okay after all. Maybe he could really fix things, and maybe…everything would be alright.
Her expression was…hard to read. Her destructed hardened as her newly-dyed pink hair caught the autumn sun's rays and almost looked like it glowed. The door remained only slightly ajar as if Aubrey didn't know whether she wanted to slam it on him or let him in and was caught between the two options.
Several moments passed before she took a deep breath and finally spoke, their eyes meeting. "Sunny, what do you want?" Her tone was sharp and slightly dripping with resentment, but overall, it felt less harsh than he initially expected. He still heard Omori whispering, though, like a phantom in his ear.
"I…wanted to talk to you," he said softly, his voice quiet from disuse. "I…I know I messed up, really, really badly, but I just wanted to say I'm sorry and—"
"Sunny, it's not me you need to say sorry to," she said with narrowing eyes.
"I know. I tried apologizing to Mari, but she…she didn't want to…" He shook his head. "I know I shouldn't just expect easy forgiveness, but—"
"No, you shouldn't," she cut him off. "You pushed your own sister down the stairs. You could've killed her, and for what? A stupid argument about playing the violin?" She was definitely angry now between her tone and her expression. "You basically ruined everything, you know."
"I didn't mean—"
"It doesn't matter!" Aubrey exclaimed. "You broke her! She can't walk because of you! Hell, we don't know if she's ever going to walk properly again! You broke everything, and now we're the ones picking up the pieces of your mess!" Sunny could feel his hope evaporating by the second as he stumbled over his words.
"A-Aubrey, please—!"
"What?! What could you possibly have to say to make up for this?!"
"I-I didn't…mean for this to happen…!"
"Yeah? Well, it did. You did this to her and to all of us," Aubrey went on. "Did you really, really think you could come here and just…pretend it didn't happen? Act like you could fix things with a couple of words?"
"N-No! I just—!"
"Sunny, it's too late! You can't cover up, smooth over what you've done! You…" Her voice broke. "You…you're her brother…you're supposed to support her, not…not hurt her." Sunny wanted to feel empathy; he could see how hurt she was, too. He had pretended not to notice her feelings, pretended not to notice how she felt about him, because he was scared of what it could mean for him and for them, scared that he'd just mess it up. But now…now he saw nothing, and instead of empathy…he only felt the weight of her accusations and the truth they held.
"I…I didn't want to…I was just upset…" Sunny said quietly, unable to meet her eyes any longer.
"And look where it got you," Aubrey said with a shaky breath. "I don't forgive you…and I don't think I ever will."
With that, she finally began to close the door.
"You're not the person I thought you were. Please just…stay away from me, and stay away from Mari."
With that final declaration, the door shut, and Sunny was left standing there as a cold breeze blew by, making him shiver down to his bones as he gripped his arms before realizing that the shivering was coming from something else. Her words echoed through his mind repeatedly, and Omori's voice boomed in his mind.
"I told you. They don't care about you. Maybe they never did."
"N-No…" Sunny, but he could barely hear his own voice. He felt rooted in place by utter despair, a feeling he hadn't felt this badly since the day of the incident. His entire body hurt in a way he couldn't explain, his legs weak. The last of his hope was gone, replaced by a swirling typhoon of sadness and rage inside him.
He wasn't sure how he found the strength, but he eventually turned and walked away, stepping off Aubrey's porch as he shambled like a zombie back toward his home, though it didn't feel like one anymore, and hadn't for some time.
"You have to make them see. You have to show them…with force."
Sunny was finally listening, Omori feeling like the only comfort he had as he made his way to the treehouse and climbed up the ladder. The wood creaked under his footsteps as he slumped against the wall, the one opposite him covered in photos Basil took. None of the others had been back since the incident, so they remained, and as he stared at them, the storm inside grew stronger.
"We…will make them see. We…will make them forgive you."
Sunny took a deep, shaky breath, his fist clenching tightly. Omori was right. It seemed drastic measures would need to be taken. He could—and part of him wanted to—wallow in misery, to sit by and see how long it would take for him to just die by doing nothing. But Omori was right…he would get their forgiveness, even if he had to force it.
He would make things right again.
He would make them see how sorry he was.
He would make them listen.
He would…
He would make them love him again…whatever it took.
