Hero isn’t sure exactly what time it is, only that it is late. It hadn’t been even thirty minutes past that he and Kel bid farewell to their parents to walk home someone Hero honestly wasn’t entirely sure he’d ever see again: their next door neighbor and old childhood friend, Sunny, who Kel reportedly hadn’t seen outside ever since...
Well. Ever since their friend group broke up.
But disregarding that: Kel popped the idea of staying overnight in the near-barren house, since Sunny was moving away in only a couple of days, and if Hero was being honest, it wasn’t only Kel who wanted to make the most of what could very well be their last chance to relive a piece of their childhood. It isn’t wrong to say that Sunny let them stay; it is wrong to say that Sunny explicitly agreed.
It’s the strangest thing. Hero knows that Sunny wasn’t a chatty person four years ago, and he certainly isn’t a chatty person now, but even for his usual lack of making himself known, Sunny has been uncannily quiet. Something feels wrong about the boy, and Hero isn’t sure he likes what explanations his mind gives him as to what that wrongness could be.
Hero ends up sleeping last of the three in the Suzuki household, but not because it’s hard for him to get to sleep that night. He has the vague suspicion that Kel may have been asleep before he was even fully horizontal in the bed fort, and Sunny was out like a light almost immediately after settling down in bed. It gives Hero a bit of comfort to know that of all the things Sunny is missing out on with his frail frame, sleep isn’t one of them. Depression and insomnia were two unpleasant peas in their unpleasant pod. Hero’s glad that at least Sunny only has to deal with one...
...is what Hero would love to keep thinking, but he wakes up in the middle of the night to a snoring Kel and an empty bed beside their bed fort. The thought that comes after ‘where did Sunny go’ is ‘did he have trouble staying asleep?’
Hero’s still feeling uncomfortable about the health of the poor boy, so he waits five minutes just in case Sunny’s only gone to the bathroom before getting up and out of the bed fort to look for him.
Despite the time that’s passed since he’s last been here, this house is no stranger to him at night. It’s eerie without the furniture, but it’s not like it’s become totally unfamiliar without the occasional table or picture on the wall, and he can make his way around it without light just fine.
He doesn’t hear any sounds of movement in the bathroom when he draws near to the door, and gently trying the knob—as gently as he can, to avoid spooking Sunny if he’s in there—proves that not only is the door unlocked, but the bathroom is dark and empty.
But it’s not silent. He realizes that he can hear a gentle sound echoing throughout the empty household.
To be specific: What he hears is the sound of a piano being played.
That’s bizarre. Uncomfortably bizarre. There hasn’t been a pianist living in this household for four years.
Hero is drawn to investigate.
There’s one obvious location where the sounds of a piano might source from, and the closer he draws to that piano room, the louder the gentle melody being played gets, and the deeper the pit in his stomach grows. He wouldn’t have been able to hear this over Kel’s snoring, especially since by the sound of it, the mystery pianist is very cautious in the way they’re pressing the keys. Either it’s the pianist’s habit to play their instrument quietly, or they know that Kel’s snoring would drown out the soft piano music in the only room people should be in at the moment, and Hero’s very uncomfortable with the thought of the latter being true.
Using just as much caution in opening the door as he did with the bathroom, Hero slowly eases his way inside to get a look at what could very well be an intruder in the empty Suzuki household, and when he finally lays eyes on the figure on the bench, he’s shocked at what he sees.
Raven black hair, delicate frame, swaying ever so slightly as slender fingers dance across white and black keys.
But there’s a sweater vest where Mari’s hair would cover, and even despite his visible malnourishment, his shoulders are too wide to mistake for his sister’s. Hero’s shocked once again when he realizes who the figure in front of him actually is.
“Whoa, Sunny!?”
The pianist freezes, his fingers bunching up into claws from the sudden tension in his body. The song’s auditory caress hangs awkwardly in the air without the rest of the measure following. The look in Sunny’s eyes as he slowly turns his head towards Hero is a look more befitting a child whose parent caught them standing over a broken vase.
“Wow... you scared me there,” Hero comments with a calming smile, more to fill the air and ease Sunny’s distress than anything else. “Sorry for bursting in like that. I could’ve sworn I heard some music.” He pauses. “Guess that was you, huh?”
Sunny finally breaks his prey-like stare to get off the bench and look down in shame, and it’s him looking down that makes Sunny’s lack of communication stark to Hero. While it was true that Sunny was a creature of few words, Hero had his suspicions that that fact was only because Sunny found it hard to speak them aloud. He had plenty of ways to communicate without needing to use his voice, and the fact that his friends knew him so well only gave him the chance to develop more ways to let others know what he was thinking.
But as far as communication goes—any communication, not just that with forms of grammar—Sunny had barely even tried for nearly the entire time Hero’s seen him today. He’s pretty sure he saw Sunny’s eyes widen as though to say ‘wow...’ when Hero spotted him the money for the flowers for Hero’s mom, but aside from then and just now when he averted his gaze, he’s not sure he’s seen him actually express himself. Even Hero and Kel staying over was mostly decided between the brothers, with the only approval Sunny had given being his silence and the assumption that if he did have any complaints, he’d field them. Hero finds himself suddenly dubious over Sunny’s consent to them staying over.
Well, it’s a bit late for that now. As far as the present is concerned, Sunny is still unsettled, and Hero’s pretty sure his presence is the reason for that. He isn’t entirely comfortable with leaving Sunny be at the moment, though, considering the warning signs Hero’s constantly been picking up since he dove into the lake. Besides, there are other ways he could calm him down. He knows Sunny likes it when people talk to him. Whether it was the attention or the content of the words that he liked more isn’t clear to Hero, but that doesn’t change the fact that talking could help soothe Sunny right now.
There’s a hint of a hope in Hero’s breast that maybe talking to the boy would get him to communicate back. With words, with gestures, with body language. Anything. He’s used to Sunny being quiet, but he’s not used to him being silent.
Sunny, at the piano. Something’s bugging Hero.
“Haha. You must miss Mari a lot,” Hero begins. “Did you pick up the piano in her memory?”
Sunny looks back at him with a blank stare. Calling his stare shameless implies there’s something bold in it. His stare is not bold; it is empty, just like every other time he’s looked at Hero over the course of the evening. (Well. That wasn’t him looking back in anxiety when Hero came in just now.) Hero at least expected him to continue to look away in shame, or perhaps nod an affirmative.
“It’s been hard for me too. ... I still think about her every day.” Sunny doesn’t respond. Hero tries a casual smile on. “I think she’d be happy to know you’ve been taking care of her piano.”
That did it. The little light he remembers in Sunny’s eyes comes back to them, and he squints ever-so-slightly; if Hero had to write a dictionary of other people expressing themselves compared to Sunny, he’d put down his little squints as his own homemade brand of Sunny smile.
That’s it, Hero. You can do this.
“Yeah, I thought so,” Hero replies with warmth in his voice as he comes closer to look at his own reflection on the piano’s black surface, hands going into his pockets out of habit. “She was always so particular about it. I remember I smudged it once after she had just finished cleaning it, and she banned me from even getting close to it for the rest of the day.”
Hero pauses. His wistful smile falters.
“... I still don’t understand why she chose to leave us like that. I’ve thought a lot about...”
Hero stops talking when his gaze wanders to Sunny and he’s met with that exact blank expression of pure nothing like before. The way his eyes stare, it’s as though he’s not even parsing the words being spoken to him.
“... Well.” Abort, abort. “I know that she’d want us all to be happy, no matter what. Even if it was without her. Right?”
Sunny nods, with that little light in his eyes again, and then he does something that sends a chill down Hero’s spine.
It’s funny. What he does wouldn’t have been out of place four years ago—in fact, if he did it four years ago, Hero wouldn’t have thought anything of it at all. It was like Sunny. It was just like him.
Sunny raises his hands and signs for the first time since he’s seen him again.
Sunny signs, [I wonder when Mari’s coming back.]
Hero remembers his ethics classes, the ones that weren’t yet mandatory for students like him, studying to take care of the sick, but that he elected to take early regardless. He recalls one of the situations his class had been asked to think about, about a nurse bringing a patient with dementia to her lover’s grave when she’d ask where he went. How she’d mourn all over again, forget, ask, and then mourn all over again.
He remembers how a classmate of his said she knew what to do there. How the answer was to ask, ‘where do you think they went?’ and agree with whatever they decided their loved one went. Then distract. ‘Yes, that sounds right; your husband is probably at the store right now. He’ll be back later, I’m sure. Do you want to help me cook dinner?’
How useless it was for them to mourn. How important it was to not make them mourn.
But Sunny wasn’t suffering dementia, he was in denial at most—he’s sixteen! He forgot his own sister’s suicide! Hero of all people knows he’s not supposed to put a timeline on trauma, and he’s well aware that Sunny was one of the very first people to see his sister’s body, but it’s been four years! Has he not processed in four years?
It strikes Hero suddenly that he’s returning Sunny’s blank stare with one of his own.
That blank stare.
That blank stare.
Reinforce reality. Sunny is experiencing a delusion. When dealing with a patient experiencing a delusion, reinforce reality.
“H-haha...” he tries dryly. Bad. No. You’re acting unnaturally, Hero. “Are you... taking care of the piano because Mari’s...” Dead? “...not here to do it herself?”
Sunny nods, letting his hands fall limply to his sides, and continues staring at him.
Come on, Hero. Therapeutic response, Hero. Act how you were taught to, Hero. Therapeutic response, Hero!!
Do not engage with the delusion, do not reinforce the delusion. Understand that the patient may need the delusion, understand where it’s coming from...
He already understands.
He understands where the delusion is coming from. He understands in his bones, in his skin, in his empty hand at his side when he walks.
All Hero ever wanted to do was live his life with Mari, and he will never understand why Mari didn’t want the same.
Sure, it would have been awful if they had broken up, if Mari decided it was so reprehensible to live with Hero that she just couldn’t do it anymore. He’s sure he’d have been devastated, but for maybe a week or two at most—certainly not a full year, which could have potentially been longer if he hadn’t blown up at Kel. Definitely not as devastated as her suicide had made him. He could handle a breakup, if that was what Mari was really worried about. He’d have gladly handled a breakup if it meant that everyone didn’t have to go through this! Hero (logically) knows that if he were the only problem, though, she wouldn’t have jumped to such a severe conclusion so quickly.
He thinks.
Hero realizes for the umpteenth time in four years that maybe he doesn’t know as much of Mari’s true character as he thinks he does.
He wants to believe in her, to believe in that spark of light who was at his side through thick and thin. He never thought she’d ever even think of leaving them all like that, nevermind the fact that she actually did. It made no sense, and hadn’t made sense ever since he got the news. Oh, what he would give to live in a world that made sense again.
That must be the world Sunny’s made for himself—one in which his sister didn’t leave them permanently... just for a while. A world in which Mari would come back to him; one in which she’d one day come through that door into this very room, give the piano her customary thorough inspection, and wonder loudly to Sunny just who the little gentleman was who took such good care of her precious instrument, fully aware that she was speaking to the very person responsible for the mirror sheen. Perhaps Sunny would respond by shuffling his feet, not exactly smiling—Sunny rarely smiles, of course—but radiating his shy happiness in every other way. Or perhaps Sunny wouldn’t be able to wait to show her how he took care of her piano to the utmost. Maybe he’d tell her to look carefully at the surface and give her a little smile that she’d be able to see in their reflection. Maybe he’d tell her to listen carefully and play a little ditty to show her his skills at playing. Maybe he hoped that Mari would tell him to scooch over, and they’d kick off Mari’s return to Sunny’s life with a duet piece, two siblings on one piano they both loved.
Hero could see his reflection in it just as perfectly as he had been able to so many years ago. Sunny’s work, no doubt. Sunny.
It’s not a good impulse that suddenly grips its fingers into Hero’s ribcage. It’s the impulse to do exactly as he was taught not to do and reinforce Sunny’s delusion, to give the boy the world Hero wishes he could live in, for as long as Sunny wants. After all... imagine: a world in which Mari never left! Where she could still poke fun at Hero as he cooks for the group in the Suzukis’ full, lively kitchen! Where she could still crawl into Sunny’s bed to hum lullabies to him when he had a nightmare and was too scared to sleep! A world where things... still... made sense.
But Hero knows he can’t.
There must be some inkling of the truth still somewhere in Sunny if he looks as frail as he does. While the Suzuki family isn’t a very tall family as far as their physical stature is concerned, there’s still no good reason for Sunny to be so small as to be mistakable for a girl a year younger than him. Sunny’s old enough to take care of himself—even at twelve years old, he stuck by and helped Hero and Mari cook far too often to not at least be capable of making something from a box for calories, even if it wasn’t strictly otherwise nutritious. Even if he hadn’t been making food for himself, he had his mother who Hero’s sure must be at least trying to feed him, if Sunny hasn’t died of starvation yet.
(Hero wonders where she is, actually.)
Sunny is alone—he’s been alone for four years, and if he’s not helped, he’s going to end up alone for many more. It’s not even that he wasn’t being reached out to; Kel’s mentioned in phone calls trying to knock on the Suzukis’ door ever since the ‘for sale’ sign went up, and knowing him, he’s probably been trying for far longer and simply didn’t think to mention it. Sunny’s starving himself, Hero thinks, of both food and affection, and there’s a high chance that that’s not all.
And here Hero presumed that maybe Sunny just needed space. Hell, space was all he wanted during that first year.
Sunny definitely didn’t—doesn’t—need space. He needs people, perhaps more than any of them did back then, and definitely more than any of them do now.
The more Hero sees out of him, the more Hero wonders if he was wrong about needing space for himself back then, too.
Hero realizes that yet again he’s staring, and yet again Sunny’s staring back with that same unconcerned look. He smiles to himself despite the situation. Sunny was never the most interpersonally adept back then, and based on the fact that he looks completely unbothered by the extended silence brought on by Hero’s internal argument with himself, it looks like the boy’s not changed in that regard either. Social inadequacy, thy name is Sunny...
Hero’s pretty sure that trying to confront Sunny with the truth is just going to hurt him worse, but he also isn’t about to make him lose further touch with reality, either. So the correct method of handling the current situation was to distract.
“It must be pretty lonely without your mom around. Come to think of it, where is she, anyway?”
Sunny raises his hands to sign again. [New apartment.]
“She’s out at your new place?” Hero echoes. “You never liked being alone.”
Hm. Is this a bad comment? He’s going to make it anyway. “Man, I feel kind of bad for you.”
Then he gives Sunny a friendly grin—not his winning smile that charmed his elders when he was young and his peers nowadays, but instead something more natural. Something more honest, something Sunny would prefer. “Tell you what. Tomorrow morning, I’m going to make a big ol’ Hero-style breakfast for you and Kel. We’ll be missing a few people from the table, sure, but it’ll be a bit like old days, right?”
The light returns to Sunny’s eyes, and Hero feels a bit proud that this time it wasn’t the topic of Mari that brought it back to them. He’s about to mentally comment about Sunny’s happy squinting again, and then Sunny slowly blinks his eyes closed and open, and whatever comment that was going to be gives way to an internal, fond, really, Sunny? He’d never say it aloud to him since he knows Sunny’s a little sensitive to teasing, but... gosh, Sunny. Slow-blinking is for Mewo.
Okay, maybe Sunny can slow-blink a little if he wants to.
“As for tonight, I know you can be particular about your bed, but if you’d like, I’d be happy to give you my spot in the bed fort Kel and I made. You’re gonna have to wake him up to ask him, and I should warn you too that Kel can be a bit of a hugger if you’re unfortunate enough to be in range when he’s asleep, but that honestly might do you some good, don’t you think?”
Sunny looks up at Hero with a look that reminds Hero yet again of Mewo, this time of the look in the kitten’s eyes whenever they gave her those squeeze treats Sunny always called ‘cat yo-gos’, after that portable yogurt tube stuff that was marketed towards kids. There’s a soft little feeling in Hero’s heart as he reminisces. Sunny wasn’t wrong when he called those cat treats that. He’s going to have to double-check that Sunny wasn’t actually Mewo’s little brother instead sometime.
“Haha, that’s what I like to see. You go upstairs and ask Kel, alright? I’ll join you in a bit.”
Sunny nods, moving to leave the room, and as Hero sees the boy’s back once again, the comparison he made just a minute ago seems to solidify into something unsettlingly real. When he sees someone else in this room now, it’s not because of a mere trick of the light or his expectations. It’s because of how sorely he’s reminded of the past.
When Hero first got the news of Mari’s death, he reacted with denial at first. As reality set in, he grew more and more despondent until finally, he simply decided that denial was better on his heart, got into the pajamas he’d always wear to sleepovers at the Suzuki household, got into bed, and resolved to never get out again. After all, getting up meant continuing to live a reality Mari was no longer in. What was the worth in that?
The resolution was short-lived, of course—Hero wasn’t so far as to be willing to starve himself, and he really rathered succumb to bereavement in clean sheets if he could help it, so he had to get up every so often to head to the kitchen or the bathroom. But the thought was there.
Sunny, Hero thinks as he watches the boy step out of the piano room and close the door with a quiet click of the handle, had likely come to a similar conclusion—that is, reality without Mari wasn’t worth living in—but rather than his resolution being focused on denying himself living, he had focused on denying himself reality, instead. All the signs of the young man in the blue striped pajamas were there in Sunny—the starvation, the isolation, down to the refusal of Kel’s proferred hand again and again—but there were a few noteworthy exceptions in Sunny’s situation that Hero hadn’t had the luxury of, that ended with Hero coming back to the world of the living.
Firstly: there was someone in Hero’s household willing to give him a reality check. It had been unwelcome at the time, certainly, and Hero is forever going to regret the things he yelled at Kel in the moment, but it was still the impetus he needed to get out of bed. Sunny didn’t have that. If his mother was letting him starve himself, there was a snowball’s chance in hell that she was going to try to coax him back into having a healthy grip on reality again.
Secondly: Hero had far less access to Mari than Sunny did, and that meant that Hero was far less reliant on Mari than Sunny was. Mari was the love of Hero’s life, and it’s not whatsoever like his grief is meaningless in comparison, but Hero could calm himself down without needing Mari there. He always ran through his morning routine without Mari by his side. When Hero couldn’t picture life without Mari, it wasn’t because he had no other frame of reference.
Sunny was different.
Hero lets his smile fall from his face, his expression turning something much more serious, as he looks back at himself in the reflection on the piano. (His reflection looked back at him perfectly. There are no smudges to mar the mirror-like surface.) Kel was always more emotionally mature than Hero was, in some ways. Sure, he didn’t always have the best grasp over social cues, but if either of them were going to make a mistake regarding someone’s feelings, it was more often than not Hero. And in this case, it was most definitely, definitely Hero who made a mistake.
He’s not going to make that same mistake twice.
Whether that mistake be leaving Sunny to mourn, or whether it be repeating whatever the mistake was that led Mari to the end of her... wit. (Hero cringes...)
...
He hears the bedroom door click shut.
Sunny’s gone. Hero’s alone in the room.
Time to confirm what was bugging him.
Hero goes to stand right behind the bench, leaning over it to place his fingers on the keys. He plays a chord, straining his ears to listen as carefully as he can.
Perfectly in-tune.
Sunny was known to the group as the quirkier of the two Suzuki siblings, but it wasn’t as though Mari was without her quirks—it was only that she made hers look more natural than Sunny made his. Hero, however, had both the eye and the wit to notice what was strange in a way that wasn’t mere personality trait. She’d never sleep well whenever everyone was over at the Suzukis’ for the night because she always got up several times during it just to check that all the windows were closed. She’d chime into a conversation with a topic that seemed totally divorced from what was currently being discussed, even though she explained it to him several times how the seemingly-unrelated topic was only (“only”) about a dozen degrees of separation away. (She insisted that it made sense to her, but unlike when Sunny or Kel did it, she at least seemed to comprehend that other people didn’t normally make such jumps of logic.) More than either of these: Mari had her interests, but music was special. She once went on a long, long lecture about the intricacies of the piano and wouldn’t be interrupted for anything, even when Hero had to push her into the kitchen to get water because she had been talking for an hour and a half at that point. It should be said, of course, that she had continued to talk for another hour and a half before she finally ran out of steam. Not that Hero minded listening to her. He learned a lot.
One of the things he learned was about tuning a piano. It hadn’t occurred to him beforehand that pianos actually needed to be tuned, but according to the once-resident piano fanatic, pianos should be tuned about twice a year if it wasn’t in a concert hall (those needed tunings about four times a year due to the variable humidity making the strings stretch and relax, losing their pitch in the process). Tuning a piano was a bit of an affair and it took a cautious hand to do it, so most people got professionals to handle it for them. Mari, however, was so fixated on that piano that not only had she learned how to clean it to her exact and particular specifications, but she also learned how to tune it herself.
Considering Sunny’s neglect, Hero’s fairly certain his mother wasn’t about to hire a professional to tune the piano, especially since she likely hadn’t paid for one in a while even back when Mari was alive. It’s true that Mari had at one point expressed interest in teaching Sunny how to do it, too, but... she had mentioned wanting to do so after the recital. So it wasn’t likely that Mari taught her little brother how to do this, either.
The only option that remained was that Sunny learned how to do it himself. More than do it himself—Hero plays another chord, different keys this time, perfectly in-tune—he learned how to do it correctly. It’s been four years, and Hero’s willing to bet that Mari had tuned her piano recently to when the recital was coming up, so... since Mari tuned it twice a year, that would be seven tunings total... and yet one undamaged piano.
Of course he wouldn’t damage the piano. Sunny wasn’t as explicit about it and he went about it in different ways, but Hero knows he’s a perfectionist, too. Mari was the sort of perfectionist that would ruthlessly criticize herself for her failings. Sunny is the sort of perfectionist so afraid of his failings he wouldn’t want to try at all.
It’s not heartwarming that he overcame his fear of failure for this.
“Jesus Christ, Sunny...” Hero whispers. The mirror-sheen of the piano, the dustlessness of the keys, the perfect notes that Sunny carefully corrected into the piano’s strings...
...
Hero knows that if he continues this thought process, he’s going to get emotional about it. He turns his head to glare behind him, staring down the door as though it could possibly betray him by telling the others what it might witness. ...
The door doesn’t move.
No one’s here. ...
Hero looks back down, then goes to sit down on the bench and stare at his own reflection in the piano’s surface.
...
Sunny absolutely lost it after Mari’s suicide.
They all had, he supposes. Aubrey’s apparently a delinquent now and set her sights on Basil as her preferred target, and Hero himself had that awful argument with Kel a year after her death. (Argument. Like it wasn’t just Hero punching down.) It’s clear as day in how Kel acts now that he learned something negative from the events of that night—how something will be obviously bothering him, but when pressed, he’ll just wave off the concern and derail.
And what has Hero been doing, this entire time? The first year after Mari’s death, he just shut the world out and ignored everyone who could have used his help. What about afterwards? He just presumed everyone needed space, like perhaps if they hadn’t gotten better a year after a traumatic event then they just needed another year, another year, another year. Hero’s the one who’s supposed to have it together—Hero, the one who’s good at everything. If anything, he could at least have kept the promise he made to Mari, to take care of Sunny just like he took care of Kel.
But... God alive, he did just that, didn’t he? Hero was so mired in his own grief that he didn’t bother thinking about anybody else, and when another person finally crossed his mind and made him get out of bed, he only did so to tower over them and wish to their face that they had been the one to die instead. He ignored that Kel was in mourning and acted however he wanted without regard to that. And as for Sunny - it hurt too much for Hero to even look at the Suzuki household some days, and so he didn’t. Again, placing his own comfort over the well-being of another little brother. Look where Sunny is now.
Sunny’s alone. Sunny’s denying reality. Sunny’s trapped in an empty house. Sunny’s about to lose his support network when he moves in a couple days. To top it all off, it isn’t even like Sunny’s isolation was because nobody tried—he had been actively ignoring Kel’s attempts to reach out to him. Only now that it’s on the eve of being too late did Sunny listen to Kel’s pleas to come outside.
Hero pinches his eyes shut, no longer able to emotionally bear looking at the fruits of Sunny’s labor. He wishes he could understand. What Mari did made no sense. What happened to make her do that?
What did Hero do wrong to make her leave?
Surely he - Hero, Hero, the star student, doctor-to-be, favorite wherever he goes—could have done something to keep Mari with them all! He’s always the one who could do it if anyone can—if anyone could have stopped her, it would have been him! Surely Mari didn’t leave them for no reason?
“Oh... Mari...” He could feel tears brimming in his eyes, threatening to spill, making good on their threat. He can’t continue the sentence he was about to speak because he doesn’t actually know what question he was about to ask—too many are fighting for priority for him to give word to any one of them. Why didn’t he see any signs? Why didn’t he stop her? What made her do it?
Everyone needed her.
So why didn’t she stay?