Chapter Text
A mellow tune drifted through the empty house as the Suzuki siblings practiced for their recital.
Sunny made a slightly off-pitch note from his violin and the piano abruptly stopped. This marked the fourth time he messed up this part. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t play it.
Mari held her head in frustration. No matter how many times she went through this part with him, Sunny couldn’t grasp what he was doing wrong. The recital was in four hours and he still showed no sign of improvement. “What the hell, Sunny?” she glared at his timid form. “Why can’t you play a single note right? Are you even trying to put in any effort for our recital?” Mari didn’t have the patience to deal with him. She needed Sunny to realize that he needed to get his act together and practice seriously if he wanted the recital to be perfect.
Sunny looked to the side, trying to silently bear his sister’s berating. He hated this. He never liked playing the violin. Despite that, he still played the violin without voicing any of his complaints, just so he could spend more time with his sister. He played even when his fingers bled. He played even though his fingers formed blisters. He played until he started losing feelings in his fingers. He gave it his all at practicing the violin, just so he wouldn’t let Mari down. But he couldn’t endure it anymore.
Sunny looked up from the floor towards Mari, fidgeting slightly under her uncomfortable glare “... Take a break?” he sheepishly asked. He hated this. He wanted to talk with Aubrey on the swings. He wanted to listen to Basil’s stories. He wanted to spend time with his friends. He wanted Mari to go back to being his caring, loving sister.
Mari looked annoyed. “Fine.” she groaned. Mari left the room and went to the upstairs bathroom. She turned on the faucet and washed her face, before glaring angrily at the sink. ‘Why did I even ask him to perform with me? He is nowhere near ready. He isn’t even taking any of this seriously!’ She had gotten tired of Sunny’s attitude. He just didn’t get how much the recital meant to her.
*Crash!*
A loud crashing sound ripped Mari out of her thoughts. She rushed out of the bathroom, only to see Sunny at the top of the stairs and Sunny’s violin broken, at the bottom of the stairs. Mari felt rage bubble up within her.
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!” Mari shouted at him. “DO YOU KNOW HOW EXPENSIVE THAT VIOLIN WAS?! EVERYONE SAVED UP FOR IT FOR SO LONG! HOW DO YOU THINK YOU’LL PLAY TONIGHT?!”
Sunny, stressed, managed to choke out “Hated it. Never wanted to play.” Mari, caught off guard by his answer, shouted back, “THEN WHY THE HELL DIDN’T YOU SAY ANYTHING?! WHY DID YOU HIDE IT?!”
Sunny’s head began to throb with pain. He said something to Mari but he couldn’t even realize what words came out of his mouth.
“YOU’VE RUINED EVERYTHING!” Mari’s voice sounded so far away, even though she was screaming right in front of him. His vision began to darken as his head felt like it was being split open. He needed to get out of here. Now.
He moved to run down the stairs, but Mari grabbed his arm. “*** ***** ***** ******” Sunny couldn’t make out what his sister was saying. It all sounded like random screeching noises, and it made his headache worse. His vision was completely engulfed in darkness now.
He couldn’t feel the ground or his sister’s presence anymore. He couldn’t even feel his body anymore. He felt like he was floating in the air. Then suddenly, a sharp pain coursed through his entire body. He tried to let out a scream but no sounds came out of his mouth. He tried saying something but to no avail. He thought he heard someone call out his name but the ringing in his ear reduced it to meaningless noise. His eyelids felt heavy and his consciousness wavered like a ship at sea.
Sunny opened his eyes, though it didn’t feel like he opened them at all. It was dark, too dark. Endless darkness stretched in every direction.
Sunny couldn’t see.
Sunny couldn’t feel.
Sunny couldn’t move.
Sunny couldn’t even breathe.
In fact, it didn’t even feel as if he had a body.
He was just a ball of consciousness trapped in this inky darkness.
As Sunny stared into the vast emptiness, he was wracked with great despair. An unexplainable, alienating feeling of impending doom, akin to sensing death crawling up your back.
But Sunny didn’t mind it. He had already grown tired of everything.
He felt his soul begin to crumble into oblivion. His thoughts began to dissolve as his consciousness started to erode and scatter into the void.
But before he faded into the darkness everlasting, he heard a sound, muffled and indistinct.
Soon the sound began to grow in volume.
“-ny”
It was a voice.
“Sunny”
Someone was calling out his name.
“I- plea- -me”
He felt whatever remained of his consciousness begin to move towards that voice.
“I can- lose yo-”
The voice resonated from every direction of the void. Even so, Sunny knew he was getting closer to the voice.
He needed to reach the source of the voice; the voice of the person who seemed to be the only one wanting his presence in this cold, endless nothingness.
“Pleas- don- leave-”
Sunny kept crawling through the void, inch by tantalizing inch, searching for them. It wasn't even a conscious idea, as he had lost the ability to form any thoughts. It was an instinctive reaction.
“- come bac-”
At last, he found the source of the voice. However, as soon as he did, a pallid light began to engulf the void.
“Sunny, I love you.” he heard the voice speak to him.
And then his entire world went white.
Sunny woke up with a start, wincing in pain as he banged his head against something. As he rubbed the bump forming on his head, Sunny immediately became aware of a few things.
The first thing he recognized was the weird position his body was forcibly held in. His arms and legs were bent in an unnatural position. He was lying on his back, halfway between curling into a ball.
The next thing he realized was the searing pain overwhelming his entire body.
His legs felt as if they had been ground into dust. His arms felt as though they had been torn to shreds. His head throbbed with pain as if it had been split open with a hammer.
The last thing that made itself known was the air around him was extremely dusty and damp for some reason.
He opened his eyes to see where he was, but all he was met with was pitch black darkness. He couldn’t even see his nose in front of his face. It was dead silent too, the only sound he could hear being the erratic thumping of his heart.
He ignored the mild pain in his head as he tried to recall the event of last night, to maybe realize where he was or how he ended up here.
He could remember Mari angrily ended their night practice, saying we needed enough sleep for the morning practice. He remebered tiredly crawling into bed, as the exhaustion from the day long practice made him fall asleep instantly.
‘What’s going on?! Where’s Mari?!’ He didn’t like seeing Mari being angry at him but this darkness and silence felt so oppressive, he would prefer his sister’s wrath over this.
He tried to move his hands around, only for them to hit some kind of wooden wall. Sunny tried to grope around in the darkness and found what seemed like his violin’s bow. He tried to move around his legs but they were stuffed together and he couldn’t move them. He couldn’t turn around either.
He realized that he was inside some kind of a… wooden box?
‘Where am I?!’ Sunny began to panic. His breathing turned erratic, making it hard to breathe. He didn’t know how he ended up here but he needed to get out of here fast. He picked up the bow. Gripping onto it tightly, he began to hit the top of the box with the bow and his free arm.
The blisters on his arms that began to bleed didn’t stop him from pounding. He pounded at the top with all of his strength.
*Smash!*
The top of the box broke open and dirt began to fall through it like sand. This sent Sunny into a panicked frenzy, as he started to break the top with even more strength and try to move the dirt away from his face. Suddenly the dirt stopped and light started to stream through the crack. The crack was wide enough for Sunny to squirm through it to the outside.
The bright light of the sun outside left him dazed. Sunny closed his eyes and laid on the ground, taking in deep, hungry gulps of fresh air. Soon his heartbeat slowed down and his breathing stabilized.
He squinted his eyes as he quickly raised his hands to shield them from the harsh rays of the sun. With his eyes slowly adjusting, he looked around to observe his surroundings, only to see that he was at a familiar place.
The secret hangout spot.
He had somehow crawled out of the ground, near their picnic blanket.
Though something about it seemed… off. Sunny couldn’t figure out what though. It looked almost the same, yet so different. Trying to halt his growing discomfort, Sunny looked around a bit more intently.
The picnic blanket was blue instead of Mari’s usual red blanket. The water in the lake was more murky. Some leaves and bugs were sitting in it.
There were a lot more random items littering the ground.
Sunny tried to get up, but his legs began to wobble due to pain and he fell to his knees. The exhaustion and pain caught up to him, causing all his pent up feelings to explode into a raging maelstrom.
Frustration.
Desperation.
Anger.
At some point, tears started streaming down Sunny’s face. He tried to wipe them away, but couldn’t stop the tears from leaking out.
Panic.
Stress.
Betrayal.
Soon he began to sob. He laid on his side and began to bawl his eyes out.
Regret.
Anguish.
Hopelessness.
He didn’t understand why he felt this way. He just let out his sorrow through the tears.
Sunny didn’t know how long he had been crying for. A few seconds? Minutes? Hours? He felt as if he had been crying on the ground for days.
“You alright, kiddo?” A voice asked him, taking him out of the endless misery.
Wiping his eyes with his sleeve, Sunny looked up to see three strangers looking at him. A boy and two girls. One of the girls seemed more like a mountain due to her height. Sunny somehow knew that he had seen them somewhere, but he couldn’t pinpoint where…
“If you are going to cry, then go do it somewhere else. Grumble, grumble.” The shorter girl said, an annoyed expression on her face.
“Don’t be like that, Kim. Let’s help the kid get back home.” the boy said.
“Do what you want, Vance.” Kim grumbled, looking away. Vance sighed, before helping him to his feet.
“We are gonna be meeting up with our friend soon. She should be here any moment now. Then we can help you get back home.” Vance said, giving Sunny a small smile.
Barely a minute later, a girl entered the hangout spot and Kim waved at her.
“Yo Aubrey! We are helping this kid get home. You wanna tag along.”
Sunny’s train of thoughts came to a halt upon hearing her name. Aubrey? Looking closer, he realized it was indeed Aubrey. ‘What was she doing here?’ Aubrey didn’t tell Sunny about any friends that she made. What truly caught Sunny’s eyes though, was how much taller and older Aubrey looked.
As soon as Aubrey saw Sunny, her shocked eyes stared at him and her feet froze to the ground. She kept staring at him, not believing her eyes. It felt as if the hands of time itself had stopped turning. After what seemed like an eternity, Aubrey finally managed to murmur out, her voice barely above a whisper in the wind.
“Sunny?”