“These flowers are called lily of the valley. It’s said that they’re able to ward off evil spirits and help people see a brighter future.”
“…Due to the concentration of cardiac glycosides, lily of the valley are highly poisonous if consumed.”
A story about a girl who kills herself and the people she leaves behind.
Expressing “life” through a story.
Lily of the Valley: 3-1
He goes home.
He woke up to an unfamiliar ceiling. It had a dirty and ragged texture; its white colours stained by mold and dust. He’d seen it hundreds of times before, but he will never get used to it. This place will never feel like a home.
He looked around the one-room apartment he inhabited. His parents wanted to afford him a nicer place, but he protested, and chose the cheapest apartment in the city. The walls were run down and the floor was creaking. A single window shined sunlight into the room. There were bars over it, which made the room feel like a prison cell. Hardly anything could be described as ‘furniture’, except for a miniature fridge and a closet. On the ground was a sleeping bag, a laptop, a notebook, and a tissue box. All things that reminded him of a place he’d been before.
He looked up and saw a lightbulb dangling from the torn-out ceiling. It was turned off, since daylight was illuminating the room for now. Still, he stared at the lightbulb, as if something was going to happen. He couldn’t help but feel all of this feels familiar.
But the colours weren’t right.
He opened his eyes. The clock indicated that it was two hours past afternoon.
He opened the laptop. The only icon of any importance was the email client. He opened the software and saw that there was one new mail, entitled ‘Rehearsal’. There were also dozens of unread mails just in the last week alone, from 3 different senders. He opened the newest one.
“Mr. SUZUKI, this is JOHN. Today is the 25th. There is a rehearsal today. For the concert next month. You didn’t forget, right? Please come by this time. If you don’t do your job right, it’ll be mine on the line. Talent and age aren’t always going to be on your side, you know. Anyway, please reply when you see this.”
He sighed. It was JOHN again; the general manager at the orchestra he performed for. He couldn’t piss JOHN off any further. He was on thin ice as it is. The guy was the only reason he got to play anywhere. JOHN even told him if SUNNY kept going at this rate, with his talent, he could even have a solo career. Nice guy, though strict. SUNNY wasn’t sure what he’d do if he lost this gig. He didn’t want to ask his parents to pay rent for him 3 months in a row.
He remembered how confident he was when he first moved into the city. The offer that he got from JOHN to perform for the biggest orchestra in the state shocked everyone. It had barely been 2 years since he had picked the violin up again. His friends and parents were so proud; he could not let them down. The truth was that they all knew he was struggling, even after 2 years of gigs and studio sessions. Maybe this music thing just won’t work out for him, after all. How could he go back to his hometown after everything, though?
He powered off the laptop without replying. He grumbled and was about to head outside for the venue when he realized something.
The 25th. Today was that day. Everything clicked.
He stood up and grabbed his coat. Now was not the time for this, he muttered to himself. He could figure all this out or have an early midlife crisis later. Right now, it was time to go back home.
It would take 2 hours by bus to get to FARAWAY TOWN from the city. A long ride back home on a shaky, barely populated bus. He leaned back and pulled out his MP3 player.
There was a time when music made him want to die. There was a time when music only reminded him of awful things. His worst mistakes, his worst regrets. There was a time when playing the violin felt like he was stabbing himself. It felt suffocating. There was a time when listening to a waltz triggered panic attacks. Those were bygone days. Look at him now. The violin was literally what kept him alive. It was no longer a reminder of painful memories; he had turned it into a medium which would express that pain.
Sometimes, he wondered whether she’d be proud of him. He remembered the songs she’d sing for him when she locked herself in that piano room. His player was full of music that reminded him of her songs.
He put on his headphones and closed his eyes.
Memories are a medium – a voice inside of him once said. He could only visit his memories in his dreams now.
The day when he left town – the town where his memories came from.
The sun was setting. Orange coloured the streets and their shadows darkened deeper. It was quiet by the bus stop. He sat on the bench by himself while the three of them stood around him. When they could see the bus slowly approaching from the horizon, he stood up as well. He turned around to look at all of them.
“So this is goodbye for now, huh?” AUBREY said.
He nodded.
“Be sure to check your emails, okay? I’m gonna send you so many!” KEL grinned.
“I will.” He replied.
“We’ll miss you.” BASIL said.
“You’re thinking about how you want to go with him, don’t you?” KEL elbowed his shoulder and AUBREY chuckled.
“What? No…” BASIL blushed. “I hope everything works out with your music.”
“Tch, you don’t have to be shy about it.” She rolled her eyes.
He laughed, which made all of them turn their heads to him.
“I’ll miss you too, BASIL.” He told him.
“Wait, what about us?!” KEL yelled.
“I will think about it.”
The bus stopped behind him. The door opened, and he climbed it up one step. He turned his head to look at his friends for the last time. They were waving and BASIL tried to hide his tears. He smiled back at all of them.
SUNNY went inside the bus, and the door closed.
The first place he visited after arriving was the cemetery.
He exited the bus. He felt a sharp pain in his abdomen. He panicked for a moment and wondered if the wound was opening up again. The driver asked if he was okay. As the pain subsided, he assured the driver that he was fine and set foot on the ground.
This was a curse – that was how he liked to call it. This curse in his stomach reminded him of a horrible mistake he made every time it ached again. A mistake that he could never take back. It was his mistake, and he had to live with it; same went for his missing eye. If there is anything he would like to take back, it would be everything that happened after he got the scar.
He soaked in the scenery on his way to the church. Never change, FARAWAY. Never change. He muttered to himself.
It was a Monday, 4 PM, so there weren’t many people at the church. The priest stood atop the podium alone, reading his scriptures. He walked to the backdoor that led to the cemetery, when the priest noticed the man. He recognized the priest, but the priest did not recognize him. He felt sad that he was apparently unrecognizable to the old timer. Was it the eye patch or the longer hair? The man swore he’d been here before, since having to wear the eye patch. The man eventually carried on his way and headed for the cemetery.
The wind shook up the autumn leaves. It was October, so it was getting chilly. The man tugged on his trench coat. He had always thought that for a graveyard, this place seemed more alive than most places in the town. Maybe it was all the trees, or the flowers people left behind. He used to dread having to come to this place. So he locked himself in his room instead. The first time he had to confront that reality, he could only do it because his friend was there for him. Now, visiting her grave almost felt comforting.
Not that he thought about dying. He hadn’t thought about killing himself in a very long time.
He walked up to the grave with the white egret orchids. He examined the engraving on the stone. A never changing set of words were inscribed here.
“ROSEMARIE SUZUKI
1986 – 2002
OUR DEAREST MARI
THE SUN SHINED BRIGHTER WHEN SHE WAS HERE.”
He crouched down and cleaned some leaves off. There was not a lot of dust here. Someone must have been taking well care of this grave. The man had a guess as to who it was and figured he should thank them later. He stood up again and stared down at the dirt.
Today was exactly 7 years since she passed.
He wasn’t sure what to do or say here. He was always more of a listener than a speaker. Every time he came here by himself, he wasn’t sure what he should do. When he used to come here with his friends, he simply listened to what they had to tell her. That was what he did – listen. But what was he supposed to do by himself? He felt like he had so many things to tell her, but none of them really came out. Apologies, asking for forgiveness… He was over all of that. He had never truly moved on, but he had forgiven himself and believed she had forgiven him as well. So was there anything he could say at this point?
So he just stood there. The wind kept blowing by. He read the inscribed phrase over and over again with his one eye. Without a word, he stood in front of that grave for what feels like hours. But this was nothing. He could never get that time with her back. The least he could do was stay by her side for a little bit longer. He kept his post, not moving an inch, and staring down at the headstone. Almost as if he was…
“Waiting for something to happen?”
The man turned around. There was another man with blonde hair walking up to him. He was wearing overalls with an apron on top. It looked like he was working not too long ago. He was holding a watering pot in one hand and a plastic bag in another. He smiled as he approached the man.
“BASIL,” SUNNY muttered.
“You know, if we had known you were coming back, we would’ve prepared a whole party and everything.”
BASIL said, as he walked past SUNNY and stood in front of MARI’s grave.
“That’s why I didn’t call.” SUNNY shrugged.
“How long has it been since you came home – a year? Don’t tell me you were gonna leave without checking up on them.”
“No…” He avoided eye contact with BASIL. “Maybe.”
BASIL sighed. “AUBREY and KEL are always complaining about how you don’t reply to any of their mails.”
“Well, perhaps they should consider that I am just a very shy guy.”
“Yeah, but you read all of mine and call every day?”
“You know that’s different…”
He glanced back at BASIL. He was chuckling. There was a smug look on his face. It made SUNNY hide his face as he blushed.
“It’s still hard to face them.” SUNNY said, as he looked at the grave. “Where are they anyway?”
“They’re at my shop right now. They help me out sometimes.”
“Seriously?” He frowned and looked at BASIL in shock. “AUBREY, I get it, but KEL?”
“That’s the thing, she keeps him in check. They won’t let me pay them anyway. I think she still feels guilty about everything.”
“What about POLLY?”
“Groceries. I couldn’t have her work, I owe her too much.”
BASIL walked past SUNNY and crouched down by the grave. He pulled out some fertilizer from the bag he was holding. He used a spoon to measure the amount with precision and put them in the dirt inside the pot. He cleaned everything else around it, but did not have to do much since SUNNY had done that earlier already.
He rose up and stood next to SUNNY.
“Has it really been 7 years?”
“Yes.” SUNNY nodded.
“Have you ever gotten used to it? Not living without her.”
“Maybe,” he said solemnly. “Maybe never. Maybe I will never get used to it.”
“It’s just not fair. It’s not fair that we’re still here and she isn’t.”
“But we *are* here. We’re alive. We survived.”
“Yeah.” BASIL shook his head. “Sometimes, it’s hard to keep on going, but…”
BASIL turned his head to SUNNY, and he looked at BASIL too.
“I guess I just try to remember what you told me that day.”
The wind blew by. BASIL winced when it flew beside him. The cold was becoming unbearable. BASIL clenched onto his shoulders. SUNNY saw him and turned around.
“Let’s go.” He faced towards the exit.
“Are you done? You can stay with her longer, we’ll meet up later.”
“No. I want to see them.”
“Oh, sure…”
Before BASIL could finish his sentence, SUNNY was already on the move.
“Wait, SUNNY!”
BASIL chased after him. They went into the church. SUNNY didn’t waste any time, and they went back out into the streets. They wandered around town. The thought of letting SUNNY know that this was not the way to his flower shop crossed BASIL’s mind a few times, but he stayed quiet. SUNNY had always been a boy of few words; though BASIL may have been the sole witness to the moment when he spoke the most in his life. They shared that bond together; a connection which made them one another’s reason for living.
That’s why BASIL could tell SUNNY wasn’t lost. Maybe he wanted to go back to that time when they were kids, and just walking around the town felt like a big adventure to be had. BASIL didn’t question it because he was simply happy to walk beside SUNNY; glad to breathe the same air, living in the same time and space as him. After all that they’ve been through, even being alive by each other’s side felt like a privilege.
Lily of the Valley: 3-2
They reunite.
AUBREY sorted through the piles of receipts. She laid them out on the counter next to the cash register and started writing down numbers on a notepad. Beeps came out from the calculator she had beside her as she pushed buttons and wrote the additions and subtractions.
BASIL was never good with numbers. If it wasn’t for her, AUBREY was convinced he would have gone into bankruptcy at this point. That boy was never meant to be an entrepreneur. But who was to tell him no? Technically, BASIL’s shop was only an extension of FIX-IT’s flower section, which was given its own store at OTHERMART, and he was under their employment. When he told them this wild idea to start a flower shop slash cafe, they thought he was joking. A few months later, with some papers signed, he showed them the place. His parents had funded the initial costs.
God, she wished her family was rich too. She was running two part-time jobs at the same time just to pay her college tuition. Not counting this one, of course; she couldn’t take anything from BASIL. Not when she took away so much.
Also, it wasn’t like he was raking in profit. If these numbers indicated anything, at least. AUBREY sighed.
The sounds of beeping and pencil scratches were buried out by crumbles. Initially, she tried to ignore it and continued her calculations. But the crumbles just kept getting louder and louder until it became unbearable. She put down the pencil. She closed her eyes. She tried breathing in and out; just like how MARI taught her how to calm down. In moments of anger, memories of her always proved to provide solace; even though there was once a time when those memories were the source of that anger.
It was too bad that the noise did not stop, and it didn’t become any less obnoxious.
She opened her eyes and looked in the direction where they were coming from. KEL was sitting by a table with a basket on it. He was shuffling stuff on it. He stopped for a moment and put his hand on his chin, contemplating. Then he continued again, and rinse and repeat.
“KEL.”
She said nicely, or as nice as she could muster. He did not respond, and the noise continued. So he left her no choice.
“KEL!”
She banged her fist on the counter. The impact produced a large bump sound and shook some of the receipts away. That got KEL’s attention, and he looked her way, awkwardly grinning.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m sorting out the sugar packets.”
She stared at him, dumbfounded. KEL shrugged.
“You are doing what?”
“Yeah, cause this stuff is a mess. There’s sugar, coffee, tea, they’re all different colours too.” He shuffled through them with his fingers.
“Since when were you the organized type?”
“Well, I’m not, which is why it’s still like this.”
She stood up to look at the contents of the basket. They were completely disorganized, and nothing had been done to clean it. It almost seemed like he had made it worse by just moving certain packets randomly to the other side.
AUBREY groaned. “Maybe you should go grab a mop and do something more productive.”
“Whaaat?” KEL whined. “But that sounds boring!”
“Would it be any more boring than sorting out sugar packets?” She seethed through her voice.
“Good point.”
KEL got up from his seat and walked past AUBREY behind the counter. He grabbed the broom, which was leaning against a wall, and went back to the main area. He began humming a tune as he swept the floor.
AUBREY sighed and sat down again. The counter was missing some receipts and the pencil. She found the pencil on the floor and reached down to grab it.
“Oh, yeah.” KEL stopped sweeping and looked at AUBREY. “AUBREY, you done with the history assignment yet?”
“What?” She set the pencil down. “Yeah, I got that done a week ago.”
“Show me later then.”
“WHAT?” She yelled this time. “That’s due this Friday, you’re still not done?”
“Not my fault the basketball club needed some help this week.”
“You should have told them no!”
“And NOT show them my hoops??? I barely get to be on the court nowadays!”
“Professor Beaufort is going to rain down thunder on you.”
“Pleeeease, AUBREY?” KEL clasped his hands together. “Help me out?”
It was her fault that she couldn’t stop him from going to the same college as her. It was her fault that she decided to be a teacher. She saw SUNNY chase after his passion and watched BASIL pursue his dream life. High school was nearing its end, and she had no idea what she wanted to do with her life. That was when she realized she didn’t have a dream like them. The only thing she cared about was her friends, and making sure nothing like what happened in the past happened again.
That made her think about her school life. It sucked, honestly. The teachers she ran into never cared about her home situation. When she couldn’t get to school early because the bruises from the night before hurt so much in the morning, they didn’t even ask her anything and reprimanded her. When they called her family, that piece of shit that they called her father assured them nothing was wrong. When she was hurting from MARI’s death, that was when they finally cared; but all they did was ask careless questions, which pissed her off.
It made her realize she would want nothing more than a world where another child like her wouldn’t have to go through the same thing. It wasn’t like she had much to lose in life anyway. What was so wrong with a reckless dream like that? It was a stupid dream suited for a life as absurd as AUBREY’s.
When she told this to her friends, KEL decided on the spot that he would do the same. He hadn’t really considered his future either, so when AUBREY talked about being a teacher, that seemed like a good idea to him. He figured he could be a Phys Ed teacher. And despite protests from both AUBREY and BASIL, KEL did not falter. And she had to give him credit; he wasn’t kidding when he said he wanted to go to the same school as her. He studied seriously for the entrance exam. That was the first time AUBREY saw him study for anything. She considered it inspiring, even. KEL seemed fitting for her; an asinine partner in crime for her asinine dream.
But it seemed like that was a fluke, because she had not seen him study once since then. She had to wonder if a guy who did not study could even get anyone else to study.
AUBREY put her hand over her face and sighed. After groaning into her hand one last time, she faced KEL. Her fierce glare scared him into submission, and he cowered.
“Fine.” She said. “But you owe me a GINO’s pizza.”
KEL’s face lit up. “Thanks, AUBREY!”
KEL excitedly started sweeping the floor again. AUBREY chuckled and sighed again. She stretched her arm. She laid her head on the counter and tried to catch a nap for a minute. Her head was hurting from all that had just transpired.
The front door opened, and the bell rang. AUBREY woke up from her daze. She recited a memorized phrase before she could even see who had come in.
“Welcome. Sorry, BASIL isn’t h-”
When she saw the person standing by the doorway, her jaw dropped. KEL had already rushed toward him. It took another moment and KEL yelling in joy until she realized who it really was. She stood up and walked past the counter.
—
SUNNY finally found BASIL’s flower shop. It was in the very corner of OTHERMART. An unfortunate spot, but he also found it fitting. The sign read “ORCHID”. There was an “OPEN” sign hung on the door. In the front, there was an assortment of flora that was arranged next to the door. Tulips, orchids, lilies, gladiolus, and – And cactus? He snickered. It was very much like BASIL to pick these flowers for exhibition.
While SUNNY was looking at the flowers, BASIL opened the door and went inside ahead of him. He expected to see AUBREY at the counter and KEL doing something dumb. Maybe she would be in the middle of a scolding.
But what he found were AUBREY and KEL standing in the middle of the shop, smiles on their faces and surrounding another man. As the bell rang and BASIL entered, the man turned around and greeted him.
“Oh, hey, BASIL.”
“H-HERO?” BASIL said.
“Dude, look at who we found!” KEL said eagerly.
“We didn’t find him, KEL. He came here.” AUBREY said.
“Haha… You guys are the same, huh.” HERO laughed.
“HERO, aren’t you busy with your residency?” BASIL asked.
“Yeah, but I had an excuse to visit somewhere near here. So I might have sneaked out just for today…”
“Wow, HERO! I am proud of you, bro!” KEL held HERO’s shoulder.
“Thanks.”
“Well, look at who *I* found…”
SUNNY had been listening to everything from behind. When BASIL gave him a cue and turned around, he stepped into the shop. He heard multiple gasps.
“SUNNY?!” AUBREY was the first one to shout.
“SUNNY!”
KEL went in for a hug. SUNNY swiftly dodged and slid next to BASIl, also closing the door in the process. KEL ran face first into the door. But he barely reacted and went in for another hold. This time, BASIL was blocking his way, so SUNNY had no way out. KEL tackled him into an inescapable hug. BASIL watched as he giggled.
“Dude, it’s been so long since we last saw you!”
“I saw you last month, KEL.” SUNNY groaned. “When you barged into my apartment uninvited.”
“What? You did that?” AUBREY said. BASIL could not hold his laughter.
“Yeah, I just asked his mom for the address.” KEL looked at AUBREY as he held SUNNY tighter.
It was true. One day, KEL simply showed up at the door of SUNNY’s room. SUNNY was flabbergasted, as none of his friends visited him before. They would occasionally meet up somewhere in the city that was closer to FARAWAY. He didn’t want to cram them into his awful one-room apartment. However, KEL asserted himself into the place before SUNNY could even process everything.
When asked how he got there, KEL simply answered, “I took the bus.”
KEL came there because he felt this terrible deja vu all that morning. It was very much like the weight that he once felt 2 years ago. He knew SUNNY was fine. He wouldn’t kill himself. Probably.
But he realized he couldn’t take chances with ‘probably’. That was why they almost lost both of them that day. HERO once told him after all of that happened; “We can’t make the same mistake twice.” KEL agreed. That’s why even though SUNNY didn’t live with them anymore, they remained in contact with each other. They would never stop being friends.
But sometimes, you just want to see an old friend’s face even if you know he’s doing fine. Mails and phone calls just didn’t satiate it. KEL was never a sentimental guy, but on that day, on an impulse, he decided he wanted to see SUNNY. As soon as college classes were over, he told AUBREY to go on ahead (They always took the bus back home together) and he called SUNNY’s mother. While on the phone, he started heading to the bus stop that led to the city.
“Get off of him, will you!”
AUBREY finally wrestled him away from SUNNY. KEL let out a yelp, but he did not dare resist AUBREY. SUNNY tried to regain his breath after having been suffocated by KEL’s grasp. BASIL put a hand on his back.
HERO found all of this amusing and laughed. His laughter made SUNNY take notice of him. They stared at each other in silence. It was a brief but uncomfortable moment for everyone.
“Hey, SUNNY.” HERO spoke up.
“Hi, HERO.”
“…Yeah.”
HERO scratched his head. AUBREY noticed the awkward air and elbowed KEL. He cried out in pain, “what for?!”. SUNNY chuckled at that, while BASIL tried to hide his smile. KEL’s arm hurt, but he was laughing too. It was amazing how a little violence could resolve a situation so effectively.
All four of them glanced at each other.
“I can’t believe all of us are here again.” KEL said. “What was the last time when we were all in one place like this?”
“It was 2 years ago – the last time I visited town before SUNNY left.” HERO answered.
“Wow…” KEL couldn’t even process that information properly. “So SUNNY, what’s the occasion?”
“KEL…” BASIL looked at him worriedly.
“Dude, are you fucking kidding me?” AUBREY frowned at him. She sounded genuinely mad.
“Wha-” KEL looked at HERO. Even he had a look of disappointment in him. Once KEL stared at his face long enough, he figured it out.
“Ohhh…” He said. “Damn, I’m so freaking sorry, SUNNY…”
“It’s fine.” SUNNY replied. “Last year, I was too busy. I was too busy today too, actually. I missed a rehearsal…”
“Is that fine?” AUBREY asked.
“I don’t care. I dropped everything in my schedule when I realized which day it was today. Lately, it’s like the days have been going by and I can’t even tell the passage of time anymore.”
HERO nodded in empathy. KEL noticed him nodding along. The pieces were finally coming together.
“So, HERO, that means…” KEL said.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “I wanted to see Mom and Dad and you guys too, of course, but she…” He paused for a moment. “I had to come see her.”
“We were just there now.” BASIL said. “Did you want to go now?”
“Did you want to do anything else, SUNNY?” HERO looked at him.
“I…” SUNNY looked out the window. “I want to go home.”
“Oh.” HERO seemed surprised.
“Are your parents in town?” BASIL asked.
“At this time of day, I doubt it. I bet Dad followed Mom to one of those bargain sales. I know where the key is, though.”
“Hey, I wanted to go see MARI too…” AUBREY said.
“Hmm.” HERO leaned against a wall and contemplated. “How about this?”
“You can go to your house, SUNNY. We’ll go see MARI, drop by our place, and meet up with you there later in the day.”
“I’ll go with him.” BASIL said.
“Will the shop be fine, BASIL?”
“I can close it for the day. It’s not every day that we’re all in town.”
“Sounds good.” AUBREY said.
They all stepped outside of the shop. BASIL locked the door and flipped the ‘OPEN’ sign to ‘CLOSED’. They went out of OTHERMART. HERO wanted to get some stuff for his parents back at the mart. The three of them stayed behind as SUNNY and BASIL stepped forward into the streets.
“See you later, SUNNY!” KEL waved.
SUNNY smiled as he waved back. He turned around to BASIL. SUNNY extended a hand out to him. BASIL was surprised at first, but he soon smiled again and took SUNNY’s hand. They held each other’s hands and started walking. This time, both of them knew their exact path.
Lily of the Valley: 3-3
She was playing piano.
The house looked the same as ever. SUNNY walked up to the beige tinted front door. He crouched down and put his hand under the rug in front of it. He chuckled when he found a key in the same spot he remembered. He unlocked the door and the two of them stepped inside.
The lights were off. But since it was daytime, they had no problem seeing anything. SUNNY and BASIL looked around the living room. SUNNY felt a tranquil nostalgia seeping in. His parents left the arrangement of furniture exactly the same as 2 years ago. The same flowers still grew in the same pots. But the couch looked slightly worn down since last time. The fireplace was left extinguished. And their family picture remained hung next to the glass door to the backyard.
Their picture, containing his parents, himself, and MARI. She smiled back at him from the photo. He could clearly make her out, even with only dim sunlight.
He opened the door to the yard. BASIL followed. They walked across the yard until SUNNY stopped his tracks beside the tree. The gigantic tree stood as large as ever, though it seemed like its leaves withered amidst the winter. Still, it was bountiful enough that each gust of wind scattered many of them about.
The only sign of inorganic growth was one of the branches, which was cut off. He stared into the small stump left in the body. It was like a tumor was removed. He turned around to see BASIL. BASIL looked like he was about to cry. He also stared into the tree, and subsequently, the stump; this must have been his first time seeing it for himself. He turned his head and met eyes with SUNNY.
SUNNY walked up to BASIL. Before he could break into tears, BASIL stepped closer and buried his face in SUNNY’s chest. SUNNY held the back of his head. BASIL quietly sniffled into his chest.
They climbed up to the treehouse. SUNNY had been here 4 years before. But BASIL, again, hadn’t seen it for 7 years. He walked to the middle of the room and sat down, cross-legged. He looked around the interiors, smiling and starry-eyed, like he was a kid again. It was run down, hadn’t been maintained in almost a decade, covered in vines and populated by dust; and yet, it didn’t seize to amaze BASIL. SUNNY had been through this a few years ago already, so he simply leaned his back against the wall and watched.
He turned his head to the drawers. THe didn’t closely inspec what was there that day, because they aot too busy with the photo album. He skimmed through the stuff that was on it. The toaster, the pillow, the bat, the photo – The photo? He didn’t remember seeing that.
The picture was on top of the drawers. Dust was covering it up, so it must have been practically glued here for a long time. He picked it up and scattered the dust away. It was a picture all of them after they had completed the treehouse. It was the final photo for the album that they never found.
The album was back at SUNNY’s apartment in the city. So unfortunately, they wouldn’t be able to complete it. But SUNNY was glad they had found it at last, though it still perplexed him why they could not find this on that day. Nevertheless, SUNNY intended to carry this with him so that he could complete the album back at his place. Before he put it in his pocket, he flipped the photo around with little thought.
A chill went down his spine. A key was taped on the back, along with a message written in her handwriting.
DON’T FORGET IT’S IN THE TOYBOX.
“What’s wrong, SUNNY?” BASIL asked, still sitting.
“…BASIL, come look at this.”
BASIL was confused, but he stood up and went to SUNNY’s side. SUNNY showed him the photo.
“Oh, it’s us… A photo that I took? Gosh, how long ago was this…” BASIL muttered to himself. He smiled, still soaked in nostalgia.
“Look.” SUNNY flipped the photo around.
“Wait, what?” He saw the key and the message. “But I didn’t…”
“She wrote this.”
These three words struck a sense of dread into both of them. They stared at each other, both of their faces mixed with fear and realization. They turned their heads to the photo at the same time.
“This key…” BASIL said, his voice carrying weight on them. “The toybox, where is that?”
“…”
The toybox – there could only be one toybox she could mean. SUNNY stared at the message as his mind raced. Where was it now? The last time he saw it, he must’ve been 12. Perhaps it was the day before the recital, when everyone was at the house together. Had it really been that long?
This was no time to think. One good habit he’d picked up on was acting before thinking. He carried the photo and climbed down from the treehouse. BASIL called out his name as he followed.
As he walked across the yard, he realized that there were only two places it could be in. The piano room or the storage room. He wanted to save going to the piano room for last. Once he was back inside the house, he immediately walked to the storage room.
The door opened with ease. This room was completely dark, as it had no windows and the lights were off. But he could not find the switch. He opened the door completely so that he could make out the objects in the room. There were mostly boxes sealed with tapes, tattered books and busted up machinery. However, in the room’s corner, he found the toybox, locked tight with a lock.
He crouched down and pulled out the photo. He ripped the key off from the back. Then he unlocked the toybox and opened the chest. In this part of the room, the light was barely reaching there at all. A bright light appeared and illuminated the inside of the box. SUNNY looked behind. BASIL was shining his phone at the toybox.
Inside the toybox, he could not find a single toy inside it. Instead, it contained a variety of objects that he could only assume belonged to MARI. The most noticeable thing was all the audio tapes. There must have been dozens of them; he guessed the quantity was close to 50. It was like the box couldn’t even contain them all. He got some of them out just so he could see the deeper parts of the box. Each tape had a label to them; most of them a simple number, like ‘72’ or ‘45’. While most of them were simply scattered around the box, 10 specific tapes were all arranged neatly. He left those as is.
There were also papers. These papers contained sheet music with words written on them as well. But none of them seemed to be full tracks, and they seemed more like scratches and notes than fully notated pieces. Everything was handwritten.
As he got the tapes out, he also found keyboards buried deeper inside. He remembered how she used to play him songs on these before the arrival of OMORI – her piano. He didn’t know they had kept these. He pulled them out of the box, and some tapes that were on top of them fell down. He could finally see the bottom. It was like everything was trying to conceal this last object.
It was his violin, broken and in pieces. Every shard and teared off string lied at the bottom of the toybox. He picked the body up. The neck was completely separated. It was most likely beyond repair.
He put it back down. He just stared at it aimlessly for a few seconds. With each passing moment, it hurt more to look. Why hadn’t he wondered about where this went to all this time? He felt incredibly dumb that he asked no one about it. But maybe it was more like he didn’t want to think about it. His impulsive decision that night was the same decision which started the downward spiral that led to all of this in his life. It all started with this violin. Perhaps he subconsciously concluded that not thinking about it was the best way to let it go; however, that proved to be difficult with this current situation. He had no choice but to face it.
He put the tapes and instruments back in the box again. He lifted the toybox as he rose. BASIL turned off the light and helped him carry it. SUNNY led the way, and they came out from the room. They carried the box to the piano room. SUNNY asked BASIL to open the door. He held the box by himself as BASIL opened it. Then they carried the box into the room together.
They sat the toybox down in the middle. The piano room was exactly the same as it was 4 years ago, when he was in here with HERO. It was dustier and even had spider webs on the corners now, but the arrangement of boxes and papers remained the same. And most important of all, OMORI stood in its perpetual state in the middle, beckoning to the two of them.
The lights turned on. BASIL had found the switch. They looked around the room together. With the lights on, it didn’t take long for them to find a box with a tape player on top of it. He opened the toybox. The tapes had become disarranged while being carried over there. He skimmed through all the tapes until he found one that wasn’t simply labelled with a number. This one had the word ‘Rosemarie’ underlined on it.
SUNNY opened the player, inserted the tape and closed it. He pressed the play button and sound began to fill the desolate room.
A song started playing. Piano. A voice joined.
They listened to the music.
[S] Lily of the Valley: Rosemarie
Cover up everything
Cover up every single thing
Hide every record of you ever knowing me at all
Confiscate all that’s sharp
Anything that could break your heart
Hide all the evidence
The proof of my crimes
Stains of my fall
Brother, would you help me out?
Is there anything allowed
Can I keep a memory
Or that song you played for me
You burn a memory
Extinguish it and there’s nothing left
You wanted to die through all the pain
If no one will ever say it again
‘ROSEMARIE’ is just another corpse
Hang me up in the yard
My thoughts will follow you into your dreams
Sunshine, would you help me out?
I swear I can show you how
I promise I’ll be kinder now
Can I even say sorry now
Music reverberated through these walls for the first time in nearly a decade. The hollowing noise of her last moments lingered on. Even when the song was done and only echoes remained, he could not move nor speak.
BASIL slowly turned around to face SUNNY. He seemed just as shook.
“SUNNY, that was…”
SUNNY looked down and saw all the tapes. He looked back at BASIL and said.
“We need to call them here.”
Lily of the Valley: 3-4
Gravediggers.
It was at KEL and HERO’s house. The three of them were in the brothers’ room. AUBREY and KEL were engaging in a fierce duel while playing a racing game. HERO was sitting on his bed, reading a book.
AUBREY flailed her body around as she made bold drifts to secure her victory. Her hair fluttered as she mimicked the moves of her vehicle in the game. AUBREY’s hair was back to being dark, but traces of pink were left on the edges of her hair. KEL stayed rigid while sitting cross-legged. His eyes were completely fixed on the screen as he focused all of his brain muscles on beating his opponent. He was sweating like hell, despite not moving at all.
HERO observed the two of them and chuckled. He tried to play a round before, but he had no idea how to use this new controller. It looked like a TV remote and he couldn’t figure it out at all. Video games have sure come far, he thought. He remembered playing Super Mario 64 when he was 10. It was a life-changing experience. Games had gone from looking like cartoon animations to being third dimensional, like real life. KEL would watch him play with star-struck eyes. Of course, HERO would let him play too. It was all so simple back then.
His phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket. The bell was drowned out by the sound of AUBREY yelling; he guessed that she lost. HERO opened the phone. It was from BASIL – were they done already? He answered it.
“Hello?”
“Oh, HERO, hey…” There was a tremor in BASIL’s voice.
“What’s up, BASIL?”
“You guys need to come here. Right now.”
“Hmm?”
“To SUNNY’s parents’ house. We found something.”
“Found what?”
“You just have to hear it.”
‘Hear’ it? Not see? HERO was confused.
“Please, bring the other two as well.”
“Alright…” HERO said. “See you there, then.”
“Yeah.”
HERO closed the phone. He looked at KEL and AUBREY. She was rearing for another round; she probably wouldn’t settle down until she got to win at least once. KEL was giggling, confident he could win again.
He stood up and got their attention. He told them he got a call from BASIL, and that they had to go to SUNNY’s house. The two of them was just as confused as HERO. But AUBREY did not want to leave BASIL waiting, so she stood up and started packing. KEL turned off the console.
Because SUNNY didn’t live there anymore, they had little reason to go over to their house anymore. Of course, KEL and HERO’s family remained good friends with his family. But the last time they’d gone inside the house was 2 years ago.
They stood in front of the door. They weren’t sure if it’d be alright to go in. HERO seemed to find the house daunting, while KEL stared at the door. AUBREY wasn’t amused. She put her hand on her hip.
“Maybe we should ring the bell?” KEL asked, turning his face to her.
AUBREY sighed. She walked past him and started banging on the door loudly. HERO jumped at that. KEL couldn’t really say anything because he didn’t have a better idea. AUBREY stopped ‘knocking’ (which was more like property damage) and waited for a few seconds. When she raised her hand to do it again, the door finally opened.
BASIL opened the door. AUBREY cleared the frown off of her face and greeted him with a smile. KEL waved from behind. BASIL’s face seemed much darker than how it was earlier in the day. He led them inside the house.
The lights were off. The day was getting darker, and it was hard to make out the way. HERO, in particular, was growing pale. His heart was pumping faster.
“So what’s this about, BASIL?” KEL said on the way.
“Um… I’m not sure how to explain.”
“Where’s SUNNY?” AUBREY asked.
“Oh, that’s where we’re going.”
As he finished saying this, they arrived at the piano room. The door was open, and music was coming out from it. At first, they thought someone must’ve been playing the piano. But when they peeked beyond the door, they saw SUNNY, standing in front of a tape player. In his hands were dozens of tapes. He stopped the music, pulled a tape out, put another one in, and started playing a new one.
“He’s been doing this for the last hour.”
BASIL stepped inside the piano room, and the others followed him in. He stood beside the toybox on the floor, and everyone stared at it. BASIL began explaining.
“We found a key in the treehouse. It was for this box in the storage room – you guys all remember this, right? SUNNY used to put all his toys here. We used to pull them out to play together. Well, it had all this stuff on it. The tapes…”
The music stopped again. They turned around to SUNNY. He had finally taken notice of them. He put the tapes down and approached them.
“You came.”
SUNNY crouched down and started pulling tapes out from it again.
“SUNNY, what is all this?” HERO finally asked what was on everyone’s minds.
“I think it’ll be easier if you just listen.”
SUNNY put the tapes down on a box next to the one that had the tape recorder on top. He neatly arranged them in order; all 10 of them. Each of them had a label on it, prefaced by a number.
1. Rosemarie
2. The Park
3. The Valley
4. Love
5. Sister
6. Hero
7. The Midnight
8. Omori
9. Letters
10. Sunny
He picked up the tape labelled ‘Rosemarie’ and put it in the player. He glanced back at the four of them briefly, as if to signal that they should prepare themselves, and then pressed the play button.
So they listened.
40 minutes passed. They heard all 10 songs. None of them said a single word during the process.
AUBREY was crying and trying not to show it.
HERO looked like he was about to throw up.
KEL was dumbfounded. He could only glance at the others’ reactions to know what he should be feeling.
BASIL felt like something was pulling him down. He sat down on the floor.
SUNNY remained expressionless.
“So… What was that?” KEL broke the silence.
“MARI…” HERO clenched his chest. “That was her.”
“She must’ve recorded these in this room.” BASIL said. “Before she… passed away.”
“She didn’t come out of this room for a year, right?” AUBREY asked, wiping the tears off of her eyes.
“Yeah.”
“This is the last trace of her life left in this world.” HERO mumbled to himself.
AUBREY sniffed. KEL, for whatever reason, had a tissue and handed it to her, but she refused. SUNNY stood in front of the piano, staring off into the silent tape player. HERO stood still, his face dark and ill. He hunched down.
“HERO, what’s wrong?” KEL asked him.
“I feel sick.” HERO leaned his back against the wall. “She was crying out for help. These songs, they have her anguish, her pain in them. Like she distilled it into music. They *sound* like death.”
“That’s a bit dramatic, but I have to agree.” AUBREY crossed her arms, trying to pretend she didn’t cry just now. “It creeped me out, honestly.”
“I thought they were beautiful.” BASIL said.
“She was such a talented singer!” Now that he processed what he just heard, KEL became excited. “I never knew she sang.”
“And the songs… She was only 16, yet aren’t these incredibly written?” BASIL stared down at a paper containing sheet music on the floor.
“Yeah. The piano playing is perfect too.” AUBREY nodded.
BASIL glanced around at everyone, then looked away. He repeated this a few times, like he was trying to figure out the right time to say something. AUBREY noticed him.
“BASIL, I feel like you have something you want to say.” AUBREY said.
“It’s because you won’t like it.” BASIL didn’t meet her eyes.
“It’s alright, dude. We’re with you.” KEL said.
“Yeah.” AUBREY smiled when BASIL finally glanced back at her.
BASIL took a deep breath. He stood up on his feet.
“Okay… I think people should hear these songs.”
“…What?” AUBREY’s smile faded away.
“I don’t know how. Maybe it can be an album. Or something, I don’t know. We just can’t let her efforts go wasted.”
“…You…”
“I agree!” KEL seemed excited. “I’m sure MARI would’ve wanted people to hear her sing too.”
“Wait, stop!”
AUBREY yelled. The two of them stared back at her. HERO kept avoiding their eyes and SUNNY didn’t even look at any of them. AUBREY furrowed her brow.
“We’re not doing that.”
“Huh?” KEL wasn’t sure why she was acting this way.
“MARI is dead. She’s not here to make that call. How could anyone decide that for themselves?”
“But wouldn’t she have wanted that anyway?”
“And how do you know that?”
“She loved being in the spotlight! She could be world famous with these songs.”
“Oh, after she hanged herself, that is?” AUBREY shrugged sarcastically. “What good is that for?”
“That’s a little…” BASIL tried to interject.
“You’re so naive, KEL. I guess you were always like that, though.”
“Wha-” KEL gasped. “Why are you so mean, AUBREY! HERO, tell her something!”
“…KEL.”
HERO raised his face. He finally made eye contact with the three of them. His face was dark and tired. He looked at BASIL.
“We can’t do this. It’s not right.”
“HERO…” BASIL said.
“These songs, aren’t they addressed to someone?”
“Yes…” BASIL nodded. “They are all addressed to SUNNY.”
“These songs were meant for him. We have no right to decide what happens to them.”
“Then, SUNNY… What do you think?”
“…”
SUNNY turned his head towards them but lowered it so he still wasn’t facing them. He remained silent.
“Oh, okay. It’s alright if you need more time to think.”
“I don’t care what SUNNY thinks, frankly.” AUBREY said. “Even if he wants to, I am against it.”
BASIL frowned. “AUBREY, I’m sorry, but that’s so selfish.”
“It’s like we’re digging up her grave! Gravediggers, all of us…”
“Even if SUNNY wants it, would it be right? I think that’s a good question.” HERO said.
“HERO, I thought you were the one who said SUNNY should get to decide?” KEL tilted his head in confusion.
“Yeah, and I’ll respect his decision in the end. But I do think these songs… They’re too personal. She even talks about us, not to mention SUNNY. What if people find out who we are?”
“You mean she talks about *you*.” AUBREY mumbled. HERO didn’t respond.
“But MARI put her everything into these songs… People will hear that, I’m sure.”
“You might think that, BASIL, but I think it’s abhorrent. These should’ve stayed buried inside that toybox. They were never meant to be heard.”
“MARI wanted us to find it.” KEL said. “Why would she have left that key?”
“Again, you don’t know that.” AUBREY argued. “Maybe she just wanted SUNNY to hear them.”
“I…” He couldn’t refute that.
“Would she put so much heart into them if he was the only one they were meant for? What about us?” BASIL said.
“Well, we heard them now.”
“I think it would be disrespectful to MARI if we threw these away.”
“It’d be disrespectful to the dead girl?!” AUBREY shouted. “You know, I think I get what’s going on.”
“Huh?”
“You still feel guilty about it, don’t you?”
“W-what?” BASIL was shaking. “No, I’m fine now.”
“You feel guilty and you think doing this will help you repay for what you did. Even though it wasn’t your fault at all.”
“That’s… That’s absurd, AUBREY!”
“Can you deny it though?”
“Let’s calm down, everyone.” HERO sighed. “We’re not kids anymore. Let’s talk through this without insulting each other.”
“Insul-” She stopped herself before she said anything worse. “Ugh, forget it.”
AUBREY stormed off to the exit.
“Where do you think you’re going?!” KEL yelled at her.
“None of your business.”
And like that, AUBREY was out of the piano room. KEL groaned. He hadn’t been this mad at AUBREY in years. He looked at BASIL in case he was crying or something. BASIL was shaking. He was staring at the opened door.
“I’m sorry, guys.”
BASIL chased after AUBREY. This time, KEL didn’t even have time to call out his name. He sighed. It was probably better that they talk to each other alone; KEL was too mad at her right now, anyway.
KEL turned around to HERO. They met eyes; KEL gave him an awkward grin. He turned further without much thought when he noticed that SUNNY was still here. He was staring at both of them.
“Uh, hey, SUNNY?” KEL asked.
“KEL. HERO.”
“Yeah?”
“Could you two please leave the room for a moment? I need to be alone.”
“Oh, alright.”
KEL glanced at HERO. He nodded and began walking. KEL followed as well. They went out of the room.
The door closed with a thump, and SUNNY was left alone. He walked over to the tape player. He once again picked the tape containing ‘Rosemarie.’ He put it in the player and started playing the album all over again. He pulled over one box and used it as a makeshift chair. He sat down and heard the music, contemplating.
Lily of the Valley: 3-5
He remembers.
BASIL ran out of the room. He searched for AUBREY, but she was nowhere in sight. He walked into the living room. It was nighttime already, so it was completely dark. He caught his breath and walked across the room.
He looked around; there was light coming through the glass door leading to the yard. The door was open. He went through it. The moonlight greeted him from the night sky. He looked up at the stars. They glistened through the dark, yet some of them fizzled out, soon to be replaced by another light.
They reminded him of her songs. “You burn a memory / Extinguish it and there’s nothing left.” He remembered some of the words.
He went across the yard. Approaching the tree, he saw a figure standing there, leaning against it.
It was AUBREY.
She didn’t notice BASIL. She pulled something out of her skirt pocket. She held the small object in her hand and kept fiddling with it. It started producing small bursts of light. She put the lighter closer to her mouth and –
“Wait, AUBREY!”
BASIL ran up to her in shock. AUBREY was surprised, and she dropped the cigarette into the ground. She cursed under her breath.
“You can’t do that, it’s bad for you!”
She snickered. “Lots of things are bad for me, but that never stopped me from trying.”
“Give me that!” He reached his arm out, but she dodged with ease.
“Come on, I’m a freaking adult, alright?”
She reached her arm up to the sky and held the lighter up. BASIL extended his arm towards it but it was no use; he was simply too short. He even stood on tiptoes and he couldn’t get it. His face went red, and he gave up. He frowned at AUBREY with a blushed face and she laughed.
She pulled a carton from her pocket as she giggled and grabbed another cigarette. She held it in her mouth and tried to light it again. BASIL watched her as the cigarette lit up and, by extension, AUBREY’s face as well. She took a pull on the cigarette and exhaled smoke. She didn’t look that satisfied. When she inhaled again, it was almost like she was doing so begrudgingly.
“Why do you do that?” BASIL asked.
“Hmm…” She watched the smoke fade away. “Maybe it makes me feel better.”
“…Does it?”
“Nah. More like it makes you feel like nothing.”
She inhaled and exhaled smoke again.
“When you breathe it out, it feels like your heart is burning up. Though, I guess it’d actually be your lungs. Then it feels like it’s empty inside. Helps when I’m feeling angry.”
BASIL stared at her as she smoked. It became awkward. She stopped for a moment and glared at him back. He stepped closer to her.
“Give me one.”
“Wh…”
His face didn’t seem like he was joking. She took the carton out again and handed him a cigarette. He held it with two hands, like he was holding a dangerous weapon. Once he held it in his mouth, she held the lighter up to light it up for him. He started sweating when the fire got so close to him. He closed his eyes; he only opened them when she told him it was lit.
It was burning, but he was still too scared to do anything. AUBREY stared at him, unamused. He closed his eyes again and thought to himself, “fuck it.” He inhaled the cigarette and immediately began coughing. His throat felt like it was burning. He dropped the cigarette on the grass. AUBREY’s eyes widened at the sight. She ran and stomped on the cigarette. Once she confirmed the fire was out, she sighed in relief.
BASIL had to cough in pain for a dozen seconds until it settled down. AUBREY looked at him with pity. Once he was done, he caught his breath. He raised his body. The two met eyes at that moment. BASIL’s eyes had some tears left over from the coughing, and he wiped it away. AUBREY turned away and BASIL did too. They both looked at the ground. They took a breath.
“Look -”
Both of them said the same thing at once. They turned to each other again.
“You go first.” AUBREY said.
“No, you say it, AUBREY…”
“Okay, let’s do it at the same time.”
“What?”
“At the count of three.”
“Wait -”
“3, 2, 1.”
“I’m sorry!”
They said the same thing again. BASIL closed his eyes before saying it and AUBREY even lowered her head in a bow. He opened his eyes and she raised her body. They looked at each other in confusion.
“Wait, what do YOU have to be sorry about?” She frowned, despite just having apologized.
“Well, the thing back there…”
“*I* was the asshole there!”
“But I still, you know, made you angry and stuff…”
“Oh my god.” She rolled her eyes. “What will it take for you to just accept an apology without feeling sorry about it in return?!”
“Probably… Well, nothing could do that.” He softly laughed.
She groaned and stomped on the ground in anger. Then she faced him directly. Her somber expression made the smile on BASIL’s face fade away.
“I’m sorry.” She said. “I did it again. I let my anger get the better of me and I hurt you. I told myself I would never do it again, but I did. HERO is wrong; I’m still just a kid.”
“Please, AUBREY…”
“No. I’m really sorry.”
“It’s not like you were wrong.”
“The guilt thing? I just said that because I couldn’t come up with anything.”
“But it’s true. I still feel guilty about it. No, I’m sure I’m still partially guilty – for why she did it.”
“BASIL, stop.”
“But you’re the same, right?”
BASIL’s words made AUBREY pause.
“You still haven’t forgiven yourself for what you did to me. I did, a long time ago.”
“I…” AUBREY took a step forward. “It’s not the same. It’s not the same at all! I did hurt you, I hurt you so many times. You wanted to die because of me.”
“It wasn’t because of you.”
“Can you really say I had nothing to do with it?”
“…But it’s fine now.” BASIL put on a bittersweet smile. “You’re a good person, AUBREY. I know that, and that is why I can forgive you.”
“You shouldn’t. Why can’t you just hate me? I don’t get it.”
“Then now do you get why I can’t forgive myself?”
BASIL’s eyes bore into AUBREY’s sight. The moonlight made his turquoise eyes shine in the night.
“…I can’t accept that. I bullied you. That’s never gonna change.” She chuckled. “But I guess you’re right about one thing. We’re both just kids fucked up by guilt.”
“If you put it like that…”
AUBREY walked up to BASIL. He took a step back. His back hit the tree. She leaned in closer to him. He was too flustered that he froze in place. She leaned on his shoulder. BASIL stared at her black hair, dark like the night. The tree blocked the moonlight and they could not see each other. His eyes still shined in the dark.
“BASIL…”
AUBREY wept.
“What will it take for us to be forgiven?”
KEL sat on the couch. The couch in SUNNY’s home always felt nice. It might’ve just been because this was the only other couch he got to sit on beside the one his family had. There was something about it, though.
But he couldn’t really enjoy the comfiness inside the dark and dreary room. He would turn the TV on if he could find the remote.
He saw HERO trying to turn on the lights. Looks like he didn’t remember where they were. It wasn’t like they could call SUNNY; they could hear the music from all the way over here. HERO eventually gave up, and he leaned his back against a drawer.
He sighed. “Hell of a day.”
“True.” KEL said. “It’s been so long since we’ve been here.”
“Yeah. That sleepover feels like yesterday.”
“When you visited town for a bit, right? Before… You know.”
“We used to sleep over here like that all the time.”
“Right! Sometimes in their bedroom, or sometimes here.”
“It was a little weird when it was in the bedroom, so eventually, we only slept together here.”
“Everyone used to fight for whoever got to sleep on the couch.”
“Well, you and AUBREY would.”
KEL laughed. “Man, this place used to be like a second home.”
“Mhmm.”
“The six of us. Inseparable.”
HERO stared at the window above the TV. It was the only place where light was coming through. Moonlight reached all the way across the couch, where KEL was sitting. HERO watched KEL as he reminisced with a smile on his face. But his vision was getting blurry. HERO noticed his eyes were feeling hot.
He was crying.
KEL, in the middle of his ramble, noticed HERO. He saw that tears were coming out from HERO’s eyes. HERO had a confused look on his face, like he didn’t even know why. He couldn’t control them. KEL stood up.
“Bro, what’s wrong?”
“I’m… I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright, dude. What’s up?”
“I’m just wondering… Where did we go wrong?”
KEL went next to him. He put his hand on HERO’s shoulder. HERO tried to wipe his eyes with his arms. It didn’t even feel like he was crying; his eyes were just uncontrollably shedding tears.
“I mean, I know,” he said. “Things are great. SUNNY and BASIL, they’re not gonna kill themselves. I’m so lucky to be doing what I do, and I’m so proud of you and AUBREY. But sometimes I still feel it. This empty feeling… She’s like a hole that never got refilled.”
KEL patted his back. HERO gave up trying to wipe his tears and just let them drip down his cheeks.
“The six of us. It should be the six of us. She should be with us right now. She should have seen her brother play at his first concert. She should have seen you guys pass the entrance exam. She should have seen BASIL open his shop. She should be with us, singing those songs to us herself, and not like this.”
HERO fell down and sat on the floor. KEL tried to help him up but HERO refused. He wept silently until he eventually ran out of tears.
“I’m sorry, KEL.” He sighed deeply. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
“Nah.” KEL sat down on the floor next to him. “You were holding it in back there.”
“Those songs just made me feel so…” His throat hurt. He cleared it. “Sick isn’t the right word anymore; Discomfort? Unease, I guess. I’ve thought about it, and I don’t think what I said back there was entirely true. it wasn’t just cause she sounded like she was in pain in those songs. It was because they reminded me I could have done more to help her.”
“Dude, it wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t help her.”
“But what if I have? Maybe then it’d be the six of us.”
KEL stared into HERO’s face in the dark. He saw little bits of red around the eyes.
“…You know, you remember that one song?” KEL said.
“That one song…?”
“It was hard for me to make out the words for most of them, since I’m dumb.”
“You’re not dumb, KEL.” HERO frowned, as if *he* was the one who took insult to that.
KEL continued without replying. “…But there was one song where it was really obvious.”
KEL and HERO’s faces met.
‘“I wanted to tell him I loved him.’ She was telling *you* that, man. She loved you.”
HERO faced away. Before the tears could come out again, he preemptively wiped his eyes.
“And she did tell me. But I couldn’t, before she went away. I can never do that now.”
HERO stood up. KEL looked at his back from behind.
“This is something I’ll have to carry with me for the rest of my life. I promised to myself I would never make the same mistake ever again. I won’t ever abandon all of you like I did all those years ago. That’s why no matter what SUNNY says, I’ll stay with him. We’ll keep going.”
“…Yeah.”
KEL could not see HERO’s face. But perhaps that was better. In this moment, KEL felt as if he had truly gotten his old brother back. It was like looking up at a genuine hero. Of course, that couldn’t be true. He will never have the HERO from before MARI’s death back. It changed him forever. KEL will never have his old HERO again. But this new HERO seemed like a hero in his own right as well.
They have to keep going. Just keep going.
From the glass door that led to the backyard, BASIL and AUBREY emerged. Judging by how close they were sticking together, KEL and HERO figured that they had made up.
“What the hell happened to you, HERO?” AUBREY asked.
“Nothing.”
HERO blushed and turned around to cover his face; not that AUBREY could notice he was crying in the dark, anyway.
“AUBREY, did you cry?” KEL asked – it was easier to see her face because of the light coming from the backyard.
“N-no! Shut up, KEL.” AUBREY stomped her feet.
“Did you apologize to BASIL?” He crossed his arms and puffed his cheeks.
“Yeah…” AUBREY put her hand on her neck. “I did. And I’m sorry to you guys, too. I got carried away.”
“…It’s fine.” KEL looked away.
BASIL looked at them. “Let’s go check up on SUNNY, you guys.”
HERO nodded and led the way. They made their way to the piano room. BASIL opened the door and the four of them went inside.
SUNNY was still listening to the music.
What was music to him?
It was a time for connection. Listening to those pop records with her, and hearing her play them with colourful keyboard tones; he enjoyed listening to the music, sure, but most of all, he loved being with her. Music was not what he cared about.
It was a chance for approval. Finally, he had a way to bond with her through music. They would stand on a stage – together. She would be perfect and he would be, too. He would not let everyone down.
It was a source of anguish. Those countless hours of practice wore him down; it killed his soul. Yes, he spent more time with her than ever, but he realized that wasn’t what he wanted. They were not there as siblings, but rather as performers. He couldn’t understand her, and neither could she understand him.
It was a reminder of a mistake. It rang across their house and echoed through every wall. Her voice leaked out from the piano room which he could hear every night. His mistake was unforgettable.
It was a repression of trauma. Music struck terror into OMORI, the being he designated to protect himself from his memories. Music was the sole bond connecting him to his past; to her. However, in the end, he could use that to defeat OMORI. He confronted what he once loved and hated about music.
Music was a medium of expression.
Why did he start playing violin again? Even his parents were hesitant to buy him a new one. It might not have been something that important, now that he thought about it. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want BASIL to die. He could continue living for him and everyone else, but it still would be helpful to have something to do. He spent 3 years doing absolutely nothing with his life. The idea of picking a skill up was so daunting. So he might as well go back to something his muscles still remembered.
It was much easier to get the hang of it than he expected. He was playing recitals only 6 months after beginning practice again. Practicing with a tutor was awkward and terrible. Not nearly as stressful as before – though, perhaps he had just developed a thicker skin for that – but utterly boring. Once he got good enough to perform on stage by himself, he stopped seeing them.
The first solo recital he ever had was an unforgettable experience. All of his friends were there. They joked about wearing the same outfits they were going to wear for *that* recital, but they didn’t fit anymore, of course. Still, they got the closest matches. HERO bought a new tuxedo. But SUNNY had barely grown. He wore the suit that she had picked out for him.
He nailed it. It was a perfect performance. It wasn’t that song they were going to play, but in the back of his mind, he still thought; would she be proud of him?
After around a year of performing at local level recitals and competition, JOHN contacted him. Then he left town to pursue what he thought was his ‘dream’.
But music wasn’t his dream. That was hers. He was just blindly chasing after the remnants of her dream because he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with his life. She died before she got to live out her dream. So he wanted to live out her dream for her sake.
And all of that brought him back to here. He was listening to her dream right now. She got to live it. Then she proceeded to leave it all behind. She left them behind for him. These songs were the culmination of her hopes and dreams; her pain and sorrow, her life and death. She condensed all of it down to 10 songs and 40 minutes of sound and words.
Even before BASIL suggested it, he was thinking about how to take these tapes and turn them into a complete work. What was in the tapes were like demos; she only had one year and limited equipment, after all. He was getting *excited* as he listened to the songs over and over again. Different arrangements and instrumentation came to his mind. He hadn’t felt this kind of excitement for music since his childhood, when she would play him those pop records on vinyl. He read through all the notes and sheet music she wrote down. They were arrangements for instruments or recording equipment she had no hope of attaining.
Perhaps AUBREY and HERO were right. It might not be right to take her songs like this. But h
e wanted her to live on, in some way. Not just in but in the world. That became his dream; to help make her dream come true.
The door opened and the four of them came in. He was aware, but he let the music play out for a little longer because it was almost at the end, anyway. They stood there and listened to the last minute.
He had heard this song many times by this point, but this was always a hard part. Because it ended with *that* song.
With the sound gone, SUNNY spoke up.
“I want to complete her album.” He said. “And I think that means I will need help. And if I can find a place to invest in this, they’ll want to release it… To sell it, I mean. I’m fine with that.”
He turned around to the four of them.
“Can you help?”
He looked at AUBREY. She crossed her arms and sighed.
“I’m still not okay with it – it’s just… fucked up. But I shouldn’t get to decide, anyway. I trust you – all of you mean everything to me.”
SUNNY smiled for her. She let out a ‘hmph’, but she was blushing.
He turned to HERO next. HERO looked down at the floor for a few seconds until he started speaking.
“I’m not good at lying. So I still have to say that those songs… They make me feel terrible. But if you believe in her, SUNNY, then I will too. I’m with you.”
HERO tried to put on a faint smile, but it had none of the glory his charming smiles used to have. Still, SUNNY didn’t find it to be fake; it seemed more heartfelt than ever.
It was getting late. The rest of them decided to head back to their respective homes for the night, while SUNNY would stay here and talk to his parents when they came back. They exchanged goodbyes by the front door. The door shut, and SUNNY was left alone.
He told them he’d go to sleep soon too, but there was no way he could sleep. He went back to the piano room. He began cleaning the place by picking up all the papers and tapes scattered on the floor. He laid all of them on top of boxes.
The piano came into his vision. He stared at the lid. Dust had piled up incessantly. He put his hand on it. It formed a handprint on top of the dust. His palm was now covered in dust. He brushed them off. He opened the lid. Unlike the cover, the keys had been preserved in a pristine state. He sat down.
He learned how to play a bit of piano ever since starting to perform with an orchestra. He would never be as good as her, and he would never be perfect; but he didn’t have to think about that anymore. He would just follow her lead.
He grabbed one of the sheet music that was around the floor. He put it in front of him. His hands did the rest of the work. The rhythm was shaky; the notes, not steady. It didn’t sound as good as what he heard on those tapes. But he continued. The house filled up with music once more. Echoes penetrated through walls, and memories long forgotten were put into a spotlight once more to be lit again.
Lily of the Valley: 3-6
The final duet.
“Hello?”
A gruff sounding voice of a man came through the phone speaker.
“JOHN.”
“Ah, Mr. SUZUKI.”
The tone of his voice changed to that of insidiousness. He had been expecting this call.
“Surely, you have come with an apology?”
“Yes. I’m sorry for missing the rehearsal.”
“So you will understand if I decide to exclude you from the performance coming up? If you continue to be so unreliable, we’ll have no choice.”
“Actually, that is what I’ve called for.”
“What?”
SUNNY could tell he caught JOHN by surprise, judging from his voice.
“So you’ll resign?”
“No, but I can’t play.”
A brief silence. Then JOHN returned to his calm demeanor.
“Alright, that can be done. I’m glad that you’re being honest for once…”
“Also, I need to ask you for something.”
“Yes?”
“I need a record deal.”
The silence was longer this time. JOHN simply could not process those words properly. When he spoke again, he sounded slightly annoyed.
“Is this a joke?”
“You told me I could get one. You even promised.”
“Yes, but I meant once you have plenty of name recognition. I said you had the potential.”
“Well, now is the time.”
“What’s with the rush? You’re still young. As long as you straighten your behaviour -”
“It’s not for me.”
“Wait, so you’re asking me to get a friend of yours a record deal?” He let out a chuckling breath. “You’re surely joking.”
“Not my friend.”
“Then who?”
“I just… need you to hear this.”
SUNNY put the phone away from his ear. JOHN was still speaking, but he stopped once he realized SUNNY wasn’t on the other side. SUNNY hoped he’d be fast enough before JOHN hung up. He held the phone up to the tape player.
He played a recording of ‘The Park’.
Once the song was over, only silence followed. It was JOHN who finally spoke up, with a grave tone.
“Who was that?”
“My sister.”
“You’ve never brought up a sister before.”
“Because she is dead.”
“Oh.”
“She killed herself 7 years ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
JOHN sounded sincere; SUNNY could tell. He was going to use this to his advantage.
“If you’re sorry, you’re gonna help me put this on a record.”
“With all due respect, Mr. SUZUKI, you must realize how ridiculous that is. You can’t expect me to do this.”
“I do, because I *will* resign if you don’t help me, and you can’t have that.”
“And how confident are you in that?”
“Quite so, because I’m the best talent you’ve found in years – your words.”
“Maybe I just say that to everyone.”
“Not according to ‘everyone’. I’m not being conceited. You might think I’m a child, but I’m not.”
He heard JOHN audibly sigh over the phone. He heard a chair creak.
“Jesus, alright. We can’t have this conversation over the phone. How about we talk this over tea?”
“Coffee.”
“…Coffee it is.”
“Thank you.”
“I do know someone who can get you in touch. But that is the furthest I can go for you – whether they will go along with your whims is not up to me.”
“That’s fine.”
“…So is tomorrow good?”
SUNNY smirked.
SUNNY walked into a cafe. It was an hour away from FARAWAY, on the outskirts of the city. They weren’t that many people, so it should’ve been perfect. He looked around; in the corner, there was JOHN and a woman he hadn’t seen before sitting on the opposite end. He made his way to both of them.
JOHN was a bulky guy who was putting on some weight, wearing a buttoned up collar shirt. (In the winter.) The other person was a black woman wearing dark glasses. She had a beige sweater on.
SUNNY sat down next to JOHN.
“Hi,” the woman said. “It’s…”
“SUZUKI.” He replied. “I’m SUNNY SUZUKI.”
“Mr. SUZUKI, yes – I’m GRACE!” She offered a hand. “I’m from FIRE RECORDS.”
“Hello.” They shook hands.
“GRACE and I go way back,” JOHN added.
“Yes, and I’ve known about your body of work for quite some time now, Mr. SUZUKI.”
SUNNY did a double take. “What?”
“I’m honestly quite excited to sign you right now, having heard of your performances over these months…”
“Wait.” He opened his palm. “I’m not here to get my record deal.”
“Hmm?” She titled her head.
JOHN sighed. “Hear him out, GRACE.”
“I want to sign a record deal for these songs.”
He pulled out his MP3 player. These contained rips of the tapes containing MARI’s music. He offered her an earbud. GRACE was utterly confused, but she went along with it. There wasn’t any contempt in her face; she seemed genuinely curious, more than anything. She put her bud in her ears.
SUNNY played 3 songs for them. These were “The Park”, “The Valley”, and “Sister” in order. Around 10 minutes passed. She listened to the songs with little reaction, and without a single word. When the 10 minutes up, she finally opened her mouth, looking directly at SUNNY.
“I’ll sign her.” She said. “Who is she?”
“She was…” SUNNY looked down. “My sister, MARI. She killed herself 7 years ago.”
“Oh my god.” She couldn’t close her mouth. “Then…”
“These are songs we found recently, from recordings that belonged to her.”
“I see.” She nodded. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“We all decided we would like to see these released. Her remaining family, which would be me and my parents, gives their permission. There wouldn’t be an issue there, right?” SUNNY looked at her.
“No, there wouldn’t be. There just hasn’t been a case like that in… well, ever. Not that I can think of. Posthumous releases by any artist are rare, let alone by an unknown one.”
“But you can’t pass up on these songs, right?”
They stared at each other for a moment. GRACE crossed her arms and glanced at JOHN. He shrugged. She sighed.
“Yes, of course, I can’t. I’ll have to at least talk to my boss about it, before I can tell you anything conclusive. You might have to be there, too.”
“Thank you, GRACE.” SUNNY smiled in relief.
“Music industry is tough,” JOHN grumbled. “That’s why I didn’t go that way.”
“I know,” she laughed.
“I have a few conditions, if we ever get to that point.”
“Oh…?” She looked back at him. “I don’t think you’re really in the position who gets to make conditions, but let’s hear them. It’ll be good to know before you bring it up to my boss.”
“No, I just wanted the album to be attributed anonymously. I don’t want a mention of her passing either.”
“Hmm.” GRACE thought for a second. “That sounds reasonable. Again, we’ll have to take it up with the higher ups, but I think you would be stupid not to think these song are…”
GRACE noticed the time. She took out her phone. She stood up.
“I’m sorry, this is all the time I had for today.” She turned around. “I will call you back. I look forward to working with you, Mr. SUZUKI!”
“Thanks.”
He said that, but she left before she could even hear him saying it. He watched as GRACE hurriedly paid her bill and exited the cafe.
“Coffee?” JOHN asked.
“Yeah.” SUNNY sighed. “You’ll pay, right?”
“Nope.”
SUNNY was in the deepest center area of the city now. The sprawling skyscrapers and busy traffic made his head feel dizzy. He walked through the streets in confusion, holding a map in his hand.
“Mr. SUZUKI, here!”
He turned around in relief when he heard a familiar voice. It was GRACE, who was waving at him. He went up to her across the street and greeted her back. After exchanging some formalities, she began leading him to their destination: the office building of FIRE RECORDS.
It was only a block away. SUNNY expected the building to be a huge skyscraper that you entered through a spinning glass door or something; but it was actually a small two-floor building. You’d think it’d have a law firm or something instead.
Their office was on the second floor, so they took the stairs. She opened the door and led him inside the office. There were a bunch of people on their desktops. Some of them were on their phones. They went across the room and went inside another room. These rooms looked much wider than they seemed from outside.
A man was sitting in the middle in front of his desk. A lanky middle-aged man. He greeted the both of them.
“Mister SUNNY SUZUKI, I presume?”
“Yes.” He replied.
“Thanks, GRACE. Have a seat, you two.” The man smiled at her.
They sat on the sofa by the wall.
“I’m MARVIN, Mr. SUZUKI. I manage this branch of FIRE RECORDS. I’ve heard your music.”
“Thank you, but it’s not my music…”
“Ah, yes. I’ve also heard the necessary information from GRACE. I think we can arrange a deal here.”
“Really?” His eye lit up.
“You know, these songs, they could be a hit.” MARVIN went on. “This sappy piano pop girl stuff, kids are gonna buy it.”
“…Alright.” That light went away quickly.
“So as long as we clean them up, this is record material.”
“You need to clean it up?”
“Yes, of course, I mean… Those demos, they sounded horrible.” He looked through a paper. “I’ll give you a list of producers you can work with.”
“We don’t need… Producers.”
“You’ll need to if you want to sell this record.”
SUNNY fidgeted around in his seat, frustrated. He couldn’t say anything, though. MARVIN went through his papers again; those were probably his notes.
“Alright, I also noticed these six, seven minute songs of just piano. Can’t have that – is it trying to be Kate Bush or something? We don’t need another Kate Bush, we need a Taylor Swift.”
“I can’t cut any songs from the record.”
“Then you make them shorter. Down by half at the minimum.”
“Okay.”
MARVIN took a sip from a cup on his desk. Then he nonchalantly said this.
“Also, we need a girl.”
“What?” SUNNY frowned.
“Yes, to do press releases and all. Be on radio, interviews… The lyrics have to seem authentic, since that is what this audience will care about. The emo kids will, at least.”
“She’s…” SUNNY stuttered; he hadn’t in a long time. “She’s dead, I thought you knew.”
“Yes, and that doesn’t matter.” MARVIN looked directly at SUNNY; possibly the first time he did so. “There needs to be a face we can attach the music to. You realize that’s more important to selling the record than the music itself, yes?”
“That’s…”
“If you don’t have anyone in mind, we’ll make one up. The prettier the face is, the easier it’ll be, too.”
SUNNY stood up. He walked to the door. GRACE stood up too; but she wasn’t sure if she should stop him or not.
“I’m sorry, I’m leaving.” SUNNY said.
MARVIN sighed. “I knew this would happen…”
That made SUNNY turn his head. MARVIN pulled his chair so SUNNY could see him better. He took another sip and met eyes with SUNNY.
“Look, kid. You think I’m some evil record company man trying to ruin your sister’s music? You came to me with a record. I’m offering you to help sell it. The world’s not as easy as you think it is, and I’m not doing this cause I’m a bad person, either. Your record here, it could make thousands. There are hundreds of suicidal teen girls who want to listen to this stuff and feel good. It’s great music too. Your sister was talented. But I don’t enjoy seeing good potential go to waste. I just have to do my job as well, unfortunately.”
MARVIN leaned back into his chair. SUNNY glared at him.
“So you either grow up, learn to compromise and let us sell this record, or your sister’s music gets buried with her.”
“…” He turned around and opened the door. “I’ll find a way.”
SUNNY stormed out of the room. He went across and exited the office. He went down the stairs in a hurry and bolted out of the building.
In MARVIN’s office, MARVIN was shaking his head. He muttered, “Kids never change.”
GRACE went out of the room too. She ran and followed SUNNY, but she couldn’t see him. When she went outside of the building, she saw him walk away to the other side of the street. She ran at full speed and yelled.
“Wait, Mr. SUZUKI!”
SUNNY turned behind him to see GRACE run up to him. She eventually caught up.
“Oh, Miss GRACE…” SUNNY said. “I’m sorry. You must’ve gotten in trouble for what I just did back there.”
“No, that’s fine…” GRACE laughed as she caught her breath. “Look, I know a guy who runs this indie label. He might hear you out.”
“…Really?” SUNNY couldn’t believe her. She handed him a business card.
“Yeah. Obviously, not as big as us, but he’s legit.”
“Why are you helping me so much?”
“Hmm…”
GRACE put her hand on her chin and contemplated for a few seconds before answering.
“I’ve been doing this job for almost a decade now and I’ve never seen someone just walk away like that while a deal was right in front of them. Not many bands even get to talk to MARVIN. I guess I found that a little inspiring, is all.”
“Because I told your boss to go screw himself?’
“Yeah, kinda.” She giggled. “He’s not a bad guy, he’s just a professional.”
GRACE turned around. She looked back at SUNNY before leaving.
“Also, your sister made good songs, but I still like your violin more. I’ll be back to sign your record one day in the future!”
And then she ran off again. SUNNY smiled at her as she took off. He wasn’t sure if he could keep that promise. For now, he was given a lead, and he was willing to do anything at this point.
The address on the business card was in the residential district on the outer suburbs. Specifically, it was literally someone’s house. It was one of many identical looking houses; he could only properly identify the correct one by the nameplate hung by the door, which read ‘PARK’.
He rang the bell.
“Who is it?” He heard a man’s voice through the speaker.
“It’s SUNNY SUZUKI – I called you this morning.”
He heard nothing from the speaker for a while, but he heard rustling beyond the door. After that, the door opened, and a middle-aged Asian man greeted SUNNY. He had a t-shirt and short cargo pants on.
“Come in.” He held the door open. “I’m sorry for not being in my work dress.”
They walked through the hallway and reached the living room. There were lots of clothes scattered around the floor, but besides that, it wasn’t bad to traverse. However, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing when they got to the ‘work office.’
It was a small room that had its walls surrounded by shelves of vinyl records and CDs. There was a long desk on the opposite side, and in front of it was the only chair in the room. It had a computer on the leftmost side, and on its screen was an image editing software. To the right, there were scissors, tapes, and other tools for wrapping records. There were also tons of unburned CDs.
“Sorry, I don’t have people over often.” Mr. PARK said. “You can sit over there on the floor.”
SUNNY sat down in the only spot that didn’t have something.
“You run this record label by yourself?” He asked.
“Ah, yup.” Mr. PARK went through his tools to organize them.
“Tried to run a band when I was young, that didn’t go anywhere. So just trying to help out the local scene now that I’m too old to play shows.”
He stared into one shelf for a moment with a smile on his face, reminiscing. Then he turned to SUNNY, who was staring at him from the floor.
“Well, you’re gonna let me hear your album or not?”
“Oh.”
SUNNY took out the MP3 player. He offered the earbud but Mr. PARK shook his head. So he took it out. He played the same songs that he played to GRACE. Mr. PARK sat down on the chair.
The song were done. MR. PARK looked at SUNNY.
“Alright.” He said. “So that was you?”
“No.” SUNNY felt like laughing, but he didn’t. “That was my sister.”
“She’s good.”
“Thank you. But she’s not with us anymore. She killed herself 7 years ago.”
“Oh, I’m sorry for your loss.”
“It’s fine. But can you help me? I want to create an album of her songs.”
“Well,” Mr. PARK “It’s winter, so there aren’t a lot of bands putting out records. I do have a few scheduled for Christmas, though. I have time to help you make this album, but only if you can complete it before December.”
“So…” SUNNY tried to process all of that. “Wait, so you’ll help me, just like that?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“You’re not gonna ask about why I want to put out music made by my dead sister or anything…?”
“Well, they’re wonderful songs, so that seems self explanatory.” Mr. PARK shrugged. “Can’t say I’ve ever done something like this before, but you learn to go along with things as you get older.”
“Okay.”
SUNNY couldn’t believe how easy this was.
“Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“No problem, SUNNY.” Mr. PARK smiled. “Now, the most I can do for you is burn 100 or so CDs. For someone like you with zero following, that is the highest I can go, I’m afraid – maybe 150. The local radio stations and record stores will get copies too, but I have limited reach. I heard you went to GRACE first – she’s a sweet girl – but I’m sorry if it’s not what you expect from somewhere like FIRE RECORDS.”
“No, no…” SUNNY was astonished. “That would be amazing. People will hear her music?”
“Yup. I mean, you probably won’t sell every CD, but that’s just something you gotta live with.”
“That’s fine. I just want people to hear her songs.”
“Well, it’ll all depend on how many people will like them. Word of mouth is how most of these small releases get sold. All of that will depend on the music, the packaging, the art – we can work out details like that.”
“Do I get to have a say in everything?”
“I’ll be pretty hands off, so they’ll really be up on you to decide. What did you have in mind?”
“I wanted nothing about her or her life to be known…” He said. “Just her name. I want the songs to speak for themselves – for her to speak for herself.”
“Are you her only remaining family?”
“Me, and our parents. They’ve entrusted me to set all this up.”
Mr. PARK chuckled at that. “Good for nothing parents, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, you’ll have to do all of that. Jacket design, cover art… I can’t help you with any of these. Oh, of course, I can give you financial support for the album production.”
“Thank you. Again, thank you so much.”
SUNNY stood up. He offered a hand to Mr. PARK. They shook hands and SUNNY smiled. He finally felt like his heart could be at ease. Everything was going to be okay. That was what he wanted to believe.
“SUNNY, where do I put this?”
KEL held a speaker in his arms by himself. It was almost half as tall as him.
“Put it over there.”
SUNNY pointed, and KEL followed his directions. He put it down in front of a wall.
The piano room had gone through a renewal. They cleaned up the whole place and put away all the boxes. Now, it was populated by speakers, keyboards, audio hardware, and lots and lots of wire. There was a desk which had SUNNY’s laptop. He brought from his apartment. He’d been living back home for a week at this point.
Of course, the piano remained in the center, as always.
BASIL was sitting in front of the desk. He was setting up all the music software that SUNNY would need. Something BASIL learned over these years; SUNNY was technologically illiterate. Didn’t he spend 3 years stuck in his room with only his computer? Some things still baffled BASIL about him.
“SUNNY, I’m done here.” He called out to SUNNY.
SUNNY was about to head over there, when the door opened and AUBREY came into the room with a plastic bag.
“Here.” She held it up. “I can’t believe you asked me to go buy even *more* wires. Even FIX-IT guy was confused.”
“I’ve never seen this many wires in my whole life…” KEL said in agreement.
SUNNY took the bag. “Thanks, AUBREY.”
He walked over to where BASIL was and put the bag down on the desk.
“This place is looking totally different now.” AUBREY looked around the newly revamped piano room.
“It’s like those music studios you see on documentaries.” KEL said.
“Yeah,” she chuckled. “We have FARAWAY’s first ever music producer, after all.”
“Woo, mister music producer! Way to go, SUNNY.” He cheered.
BASIL laughed awkwardly to match his tune. “You guys are being loud, you know…”
SUNNY clicked through the folders on the screen. There were dozens of them, all disorganized. They contained hundreds of audio files. He opened GarageBand. Once he confirmed that BASIL configured the MIDI keyboard properly, he went through the bag and pulled the wires out.
ATRICIA – SUNNY’s mother – came into the room with a tray in her hand.
“Children, have some snacks before you go.”
KEL jumped. He held the tray for her.
“Thank you, Miss SUZUKI!” He said.
“We’re not children, mom…” SUNNY told her.
“Come on, nerd.” She took a glass of milk from the tray. “Just eat the damn cookies.”
“AUBREY, language…” BASIL whispered.
“Oh my god.” She groaned; SUNNY’s mom had already left the room.
They gathered around the desk. KEL put the tray of cookies and milk on it. As they ate and talked to each other, SUNNY sat in front of the laptop, continuing to browse through audio files. Even in that moment, he could hear her songs in his head.
KEL tapped on the bass drum with his finger.
“So I just hit this really hard?”
“Yup.” SUNNY nodded.
“I don’t even need to hear the song?”
“No, because it’ll be a single hit. I can sync it up on the mixer track.”
“OK, I dunno what any of that means, but I’ll give it a go.”
He picked up the stick. He raised his arm up to the sky. After taking in a quick breath and letting it out, he hit the bass drum as hard as he could. A brief boom resonated from the drum. KEL was right in front of it, so he felt the vibration to his bones.
SUNNY checked back the recording on his earbud.
“Alright, hit the snare next, KEL.” He said.
“Do I do the same thing?”
“No, you should lead it up a bit.”
“Uh… Like…”
“Do 2 short hits, then a big one at the end.”
“It’s two plus one, KEL.” AUBREY said. She was on the other side of the room, watching.
“Hey!” KEL yelled.
SUNNY tapped on his desk. A burst of quiet hits leading up to a bigger impact.
“Like that.” He said.
“Alright… Wait, why can’t you just do it?!”
“I want you to do it. It’s important.”
“This is clearly the easiest thing he can tell someone to do.” AUBREY laughed.
“Ugh…” KEL grumbled.
KEL did as SUNNY told him to do. He banged on the snare twice and then once again with the stick.
“Too slow, KEL.”
“Uh… OK.”
“Get the other stick too, do it with both.”
“Oh… Like a marching band.”
He grabbed a second drum stick from the floor. He remembered how those marching bands on TV would bang on their drums. He didn’t start at full volume; he lightly tapped twice, then he used his right hand for the third strike to hit it hard.
SUNNY heard it on his computer. He gave a thumbs up. KEL sighed and put the sticks down.
BASIL stared at the two drums. “So… Who’s gonna go put this where we borrowed it from?”
“Oh my god, I am not doing it again.” AUBREY shivered. “Go and take that bus again for another hour in that freezing cold?! You guys handle it.”
“I have to stay.” That’s all SUNNY said, as he put on the ear buds again.
That led to KEL and BASIL staring each other down.
“Well, KEL…”
“Well, BASIL.”
KEL kept up his smile as sweat rolled down his cheeks. BASIL nervously tried to avert his gaze.
AUBREY cracked her knuckles behind KEL.
A quiet yet steady tone of a bass guitar thumped in the piano room. The sequence of notes played a do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do progression, then went in reverse after that.
“AUBREY, you’re good!” BASIL clapped his hands.
“I just played a scale…” She blushed. “Just something I’m learning with college friends.”
“I didn’t know you played an instrument.” KEL puffed his cheeks. She ignored him.
“This is perfect, though.” SUNNY said, as he set up the mic.
SUNNY tested the microphone by making various noises with his mouth and hands. (Like clicking his tongue, snapping his finger, etc.) BASIL was next to him, manning the laptop, adjusting the mic input as the sounds came in. They didn’t even have to look at each other to coordinate; it’s like they were two bodies with one soul.
KEL and AUBREY stared at them, slightly dumbfounded.
“I’m jealous.” She grumbled.
“Yeah. They’re such great friends, aren’t they!”
“KEL…?” AUBREY looked at him in pure horror. “Are you…”
“No! It was a joke!” He frowned. “I know they’re dating, jeez.”
“AUBREY, are you ready?” SUNNY came up to them. KEL flinched.
“Yeah,” she replied. “Though, I don’t get why you suddenly asked me for this out of nowhere.”
“I just need help.”
SUNNY handed AUBREY a piece of paper. She took it, confused. She was even more confused when she realized it was sheet music for the part she was supposed to play. She was slightly embarrassed, but she decided to be honest. She handed the paper back to SUNNY.
“Sorry, I can’t read sheet music…”
“Oh.” SUNNY said.
“Do you have tabs?”
“What are… Tabs?”
AUBREY pinched her nose. She looked at BASIL for any kind of smart idea, but he just silently shook his head with his eyes close.
“I can tell you the notes.” SUNNY said.
“…Alright, that will do.” She prepared her fingers.
“They’re D, A, G flat, and E.”
“D, A, G…” AUBREY repeated them.
“Wait, I’ll write them down for you!” BASIL said.
He got an empty piece of paper and wrote down the notes for her. Then he put it on the floor where she could look down and see. He also gave her earbuds so she could hear the track. She plugged them on.
in her ears
SUNNY stood in front of the laptop. He and AUBREY exchanged glances. She nodded to show she was ready. He began the track, which was “Sister”.
AUBREY’s part was for the chorus, and it was just those four notes played in quarter notes, along to a straightforward rhythm. She stomped along to the backing track. The tone of the bass guitar she borrowed from her college friend was clean and crisp, and its boomy texture shook everyone.
It was two weeks into November when SUNNY began to understand how MARI felt in this room. For convenience, he slept and ate here. He spent all day listening to her tapes, recording new synthesizer and piano parts, as well as assembling old ones according to old notations she left behind. It became a daily routine for him.
His friends visited him less and less, now that SUNNY was engrossed in the album production process. They also became busy with late semester assignments. It had been days since they came over. Without their presence, SUNNY was losing track of time. Days got mixed up in his head, and he could not tell if it was day or night half of the time. The only reason he had not gone mad already was the goal he had in his head: to finish this record.
This must have been how she felt, he thought to himself.
He was staring into the laptop. It had an image editor on the screen, but the canvass was white. He stared off into the blankness. Its monotone nature reminded him of a place he’d been before; a place he would visit at times like this, when he lost grips with reality. He wanted to stay awake, but he couldn’t help but feel more and more tired.
He was about to close his eye when something touched his shoulder. He jumped and turned around. It was BASIL.
“Were you sleeping? Sorry I woke you up.” He said.
“No.”
SUNNY got out of his chair. He sat on the floor instead. BASIL sat next to him. He didn’t like sitting on the only chair when the others were around, unless he was working on the album. It made him feel like he was looking down on them.
“Thanks for coming by.” SUNNY said. “Where are the others?”
“Oh, you know. School stuff. College must be tough on them.” BASIL chuckled. “Makes me glad I didn’t go.”
“What about your place?”
“It’s not like I get many people at this hour.” BASIL looked at him. “And I was worried about you.”
SUNNY blushed and looked away. BASIL saw that and scooted up closer to him so he could not hide his face. Eventually SUNNY gave in and rested his head on BASIL’s shoulder. They both leaned against a wall.
“It’s really weird how close we’ve been these past few weeks, huh.” BASIL said.
“Mhmm.”
“I just got used to only hearing your voice. But sometimes I couldn’t tell if you were real.” This time, BASIL got flustered. “Oh no, is that bad? Did I creep you out?”
“Stop worrying.” SUNNY closed his eyes on BASIL’s shoulder. “I felt the same too.”
“Oh.” BASIL let out a chuckle.
“Sometimes, when I’m holed up in this room, listening to her songs over and over…” SUNNY said. “It’s hard to tell if any of this is real or not.”
“Are you feeling fine now?”
“Thanks to you, yeah.”
They laughed. As much as SUNNY didn’t like to admit, it felt nice to feel BASIL’s warmth. Maybe that’s what love was about? He hadn’t said that word in 4 years, ever since that moment on the hospital rooftop. They didn’t need to do that.
BASIL saw the laptop up on the desk.
“What were you doing?” He asked.
SUNNY sat up straight. “I have to decide on the cover art. But she never left behind anything about that. I have no idea.”
“You need one?”
“It’s a CD, so yeah…”
BASIL titled his head and thought about something for a moment.
“Didn’t you used to draw, SUNNY?”
“…That was a long time ago.”
“Maybe it’ll help you find some inspiration, though.”
SUNNY stared off into a wall for a few seconds. He stood up and told BASIL to wait here. SUNNY went out the door and BASIL sat there, waiting. After a few minutes, SUNNY came back with a notebook. He sat down in front of BASIL and opened it.
They flipped through the pages. The first few dozen had crude sketches depicting SUNNY and his friends. For example, one page contained a drawing of a smiling boy in green outline, with his hair being yellow. He had a flower drawn on his hair. There was an arrow pointing to him, with “BASIL” written next to him. To his right was another boy in black outline, with an arrow pointing to him that read “ME.”
“I remember this one.” BASIL said, smiling, like in the drawing.
They kept flipping through. Eventually, there was a stark change in the tone of the drawings. They became more detailed and started looking less like children’s drawings; but they still maintained that crude, sketchy look. There were less images of SUNNY with his friends and more abstract, morbid imagery. Valleys of blood, bathtubs filled with tar, severed limbs; compared to the colourful markers used in the previous drawings, only black and red could be seen here.
The only drawings of people only depicted two people: MARI, and a character named OMORI. OMORI resembled SUNNY from the earlier drawings, if not identical. These images mostly contained them having picnics or sitting by the grass. One thing of note was how while the drawings of OMORI remained stagnant in their presentation, MARI became more and more detailed as each page went by. Eventually, OMORI eventually stopped being drawn entirely. And the drawings of MARI contained so much detail that it was hard to believe a 14 year old drew them.
“…I don’t even remember any of this.” SUNNY mumbled.
They arrived at the last page. BASIL gasped, and SUNNY felt his heart sink too. It was an illustration of MARI with her eyes closed, surrounded by lilies of the valley. It was ambiguous where she was, but it was clear to the both of them what exactly this depicted.
It was a drawing of her corpse, laying inside the casket they saw at her funeral. It was a near photorealistic replication of their memory of her. It was drawn with a pencil and there were a lot of messy black blots, which indicated he had erased it and drawn it again over and over.
They put the sketchbook down on the floor. Both of them turned their heads to look at each other.
“You have to use it.” BASIL said.
SUNNY looked back at the picture. He had vague memories of when he drew these pictures. When he couldn’t sleep, he drew images of her. It felt like he was keeping her alive. This memory of her corpse haunted him until he put it down on a page.
Now, it had come back to haunt him in a new way. The drawing contained within this sketchbook seemed to creep around him. Even if he tried to dispose of it, surely it wouldn’t leave him. This image was a ‘recording’. Memories are like a recording, and this was a replication of a memory. In a sense, recordings had the ability to revive the dead. It was as if inside this illustration of her corpse, MARI could live on in that space.
This was good then, he thought. Or – as she would put it – it was perfect.
“I told you guys, I can’t do it if you’re here.”
“Come on, SUNNY.” KEL said. “We want to hear it at least once while you’re in town.”
“Yeah. We can’t have you experiencing stage fright now.” AUBREY grinned.
“God…”
SUNNY ignored the two of them. KEL and AUBREY began seeing SUNNY more since BASIL told them about what he told him the other day. SUNNY regretted telling him about that now. But he hadn’t doubted reality in a week now.
SUNNY face towards the desk. He adjusted the microphone slightly. He played the backing track, which he heard through his earbuds. He closed his eyes and breathed in. And he started singing harmony to her voice.
His voice was shaky. It was in a higher register than MARI’s vocals, so he had to yell it to reach that high. He put his hand on his chest to feel the vibration as he sang. To someone, it might have looked like he was crying.
“SUNNY is good, huh?” KEL noted.
“Yeah.” AUBREY agreed.
SUNNY stopped the track. When he did that, the door to the piano room opened. The three of them turned around; it was BASIL and HERO. HERO was holding a plastic bag.
“Hey, guys.” He held up the bag.
“HERO!” KEL ran up to him.
“And beer!” AUBREY followed.
He handed the bag to the two of them. The bag had beer cans and snacks. It was getting late into the night.
“HERO, I didn’t know you were in town.” SUNNY said.
“Oh, just for today. I guess these guys didn’t tell you?”
“No…” SUNNY sulked.
“I didn’t either, I ran into him on my way here!” BASIL said.
AUBREY and KEL had already begun opening their beer cans. HERO had to admit that it felt a little weird to watch them drink. To him, they might as well still have been children. AUBREY handed BASIL a can too, but he refused.
“HERO, this is actually perfect.” SUNNY told HERO. They stood away from the other three. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yeah?”
“You can play the piano, right?”
“Yes…” HERO wasn’t sure; it had been a long time since he played the piano.
“Could you help me with recording, then?”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that.”
“Please.”
HERO looked into SUNNY’s remaining one eye. It was hard to imagine that this was the same boy that he knew from all those years ago. Just 4 years ago, it would’ve been difficult to imagine SUNNY speaking at all, let alone asking something of him. HERO wasn’t really sure what to do.
“MARI must have played them herself, right?” He came up with an excuse.
“Yes, but I want you on the record.”
“But… why?”
SUNNY turned around to the other three. They were chatting and drinking. AUBREY was already getting drunk; KEL dreaded having to take her home. BASIL nervously laughed as he munched on a snack. He noticed SUNNY was staring at them. Once BASIL turned around to him, the other two also looked at SUNNY and HERO.
“What’s up?” KEL asked.
“I was asking SUNNY why he wanted me to play piano.” HERO said.
“Oh, yeah.” AUBREY said. “He asked me to play bass out of nowhere too, as soon as I mentioned I was learning it.”
“Yeah, and he also told me to hit those drums. That was weird.”
“I wanted all of us to be a part of the album.” SUNNY confessed. “I’m not sure why.”
“Ohhh…” KEL exclaimed. “Makes sense.”
“Couldn’t you have just told us that?” AUBREY sipped on her can again.
“I was…” SUNNY scratched his head. “Embarrassed.”
AUBREY bursted out laughing at that. She began laughing like a maniac between hiccups. KEL didn’t find it that funny, but her laugh made him chuckle too. SUNNY blushed and stared at HERO again, facing away from the rest of them.
HERO looked at the grand piano. This was hers; she used to play for him in this very room. Would he have any right to use it? He remembered what AUBREY said; it felt like gravedigging.
But perhaps this was what he needed to finally put his heart at ease. He couldn’t let her haunt him forever. He couldn’t let the thought of her music terrify him. He was going to have to confront it. SUNNY was standing here in front of him, already having fought his battle; and HERO was playing catch-up with him.
He told himself he would never make the mistake of leaving them behind again. But it was the exact opposite. It was them who was leaving him behind; and he had to chase after them if he wanted to let go.
“Alright, SUNNY.” HERO sighed. “If that’s what you want.”
“Thank you.”
SUNNY walked over to the desk and grabbed some papers. He handed it to HERO. HERO looked through them. They were sheet music, handwritten. There was the initial notation, which seemed to be MARI’s. There were much more added to the arrangement since then, presumably by SUNNY. On the top, the name of the piece was written: Sunny. The piano parts that HERO had to play were highlighted in red.
HERO looked at the ending of the piece, which was among the parts he had to play. He recognized this melody. It was something she used to play for him, right before SUNNY’s attempt; before everything happened.
It was the waltz they were going to play for their recital.
“This song is…”
“I know.” SUNNY said. “Get ready.”
SUNNY went over to the desk and started setting the recording up. HERO sat down by the piano and put the sheet music in front of him. KEL, AUBREY and BASIL saw them get ready and stopped chatting.
SUNNY grabbed something that was on his desk. It was a violin. He put it against his shoulder and readied his bow. The recording had already started. SUNNY looked back at HERO, waiting for him to start. They glanced at each other. HERO turned his head and fixed his eyes on the sheet music.
HERO began to play.
[S] Lily of the Valley: Sunny
No one’s ever lost forever
When I die, I’ll go away
But I will visit you occasionally
Do not be afraid
No one’s ever lost forever
They are caught inside your heart
If you garden them and water them
They make you what you are
“No one’s ever lost forever
When you died, you went away
But you will visit me occasionally
I won’t be afraid
No one’s ever lost forever
Memories are where you reside
I will keep them in a song
That’s how I can stay alive.”
Lily of the Valley: 3-7
Stay alive.
It was a little before midnight. He just woke up from a nap. It was the first time he laid down in his bed in weeks. His friends should still be downstairs. He had something to show them before they went home. He grabbed the CDs from his desk. He opened the door and went outside the bedroom. The house was well lit. He glanced outside the window. It was always hard to see the stars from here. But the moon was clear and bright.
He began walking down the stairs. His friends came out of the living room to search for him. They found him coming down the stairs. KEL waved. AUBREY looked like she partied too hard earlier in the day and wanted to go to bed already. BASIL’s face became brighter when he saw SUNNY. He walked towards the stairs.
When SUNNY reached the floor, he showed them the CDs. There were four of them. He told them the album was done but wanted to save these as a surprise until now. He wasn’t sure why. She wocomplete,have done it like this too, he thought.
He held the CD out, and they looked at it with starry eyes. The front cover art was the illustration of MARI. It wasn’t the same; he drew new line art over the original sketch. It was less messy and more detailed now. He did the line art with a pencil and scanned the paper at the local library.
The back had no images. It only had text written in a simple font over a white background.
LILY OF THE VALLEY
MARI
2009.11.28
PERSONNEL:
MARI: Vocals, piano, composition, lyrics
SUNNY SUZUKI: Producer, violin, cover art
KELSEY COLDWOOD: Percussion (2)
AUBREY JORGENSEN: Bass (2, 5)
HENRY COLDWOOD: Piano (1, 10)
Special thanks to BASIL FOX
Recorded in FARAWAY, California
We miss you every day, MARI.
“Wow,” KEL let out. “It’s so weird seeing our names here.”
“What the fuck…” AUBREY grunted, trying to stop the tears from coming out. “Surreal.”
“I really don’t deserve this.” BASIL faced down. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You’re the only reason this got done in time,” SUNNY said.
SUNNY handed him one of the CDs. BASIL reluctantly took it. SUNNY gave AUBREY one too, and he gave KEL two of them.
“I get two?” KEL was perplexed.
“I’m counting on you to give one to HERO.”
“Oh…” He held both CDs. “Yeah, got it.”
He smiled. He led the three of them to the front door. They stood by the doorway. KEL, AUBREY and BASIL kept looking at the CDs in their hands. SUNNY looked at them and said this.
“Thank you, everyone.”
Inside the record store, a smooth jazz record was playing. Orange tinted incandescent light illuminated the interior. It was a small, cozy building populated by shelves of vinyls and CDs. There was a record player in the middle. The show owner was sitting behind the counter, which was right by the front door. He was an old man in glasses wearing an apron. He sipped coffee from his mug and read a newspaper.
SUNNY went through the ‘indie’ section. These shelves in the deeper corners of the store and the CDs were more densely packed. He found the one he was looking for. He pulled the CD out. The monochrome illustration of MARI greeted him. He stared at it for a moment and put it back again. He looked at the album, lined up with CDs by other bands.
“That’s the last one left, you know.”
The owner had come out from behind the counter. He had a broom in his hand.
“I’m expecting another batch soon. It’s quite the buzz among the hipster kids in the city.”
SUNNY softly chuckled at that.
“They say no one knows who made the music.” The owner said, as he swept the floor.
“I see.” SUNNY replied.
“I know the fellow who runs the label… He wouldn’t tell me either. Not that I was curious.” He looked at SUNNY. “Have you heard it?”
He nodded. “Someone… showed it to me.”
“Hmm.” He continued sweeping. “Pretty voice she has, doesn’t she?”
“Yes.”
The owner sat the broom by one of the shelves. He returned to the counter. He crossed his arms and glared at SUNNY.
“So are you buying it or not?”
“No, I already have one.”
“Ah.” He sat down again and returned to his papers.
SUNNY looked back at the shelf. He wanted someone else to have this. Anyone would do. A girl with similar thoughts to what she had, or someone going through grief like him; it didn’t matter. Just the chance that anyone could hear her music comforted him. Who knows? Perhaps someone will hear it at the right point in their life. It could even save them, like it saved her for a brief time.
However, out of guilt, he grabbed a random CD – also produced by Mr. PARK’s label – and brought it over to the register.
It was a nice December afternoon. Slightly chilly, but much warmer than the season typically was. The sun shined brightly.
This was the last day SUNNY was staying in FARAWAY. He was sitting on a bench with BASIL at the park. There were only a few homeless people and some kids running around. The leaves on the trees were withering away.
“You won’t miss me, right?” SUNNY asked, somewhat jokingly.
BASIL looked back at him and thought for a moment. “I guess I’d be lying if I didn’t say I would, just a little,” he replied. “But it’s just going back to how things were before.”
“And you’re fine with that?”
“Well, I can’t make you stay.”
“I don’t know.” He said. “I guess if you tried to, that’d make me happy.”
BASIL laughed at that. “You know I’m better about that now.”
An icy wind blew past them. BASIL clenched his fist and let out a breath. SUNNY saw him shiver slightly. He held BASIL’s hand with his hand. They glanced at each other. Then they returned to watching the scenery of the park.
SUNNY sighed. “It’s been an exhausting few weeks.”
“Mhmm. I still can’t believe all that’s happened.”
“It all feels like a dream.” SUNNY said. “Not just the album… Sometimes, I wish I could wake up and it was that day again. Before the recital.”
“SUNNY…” BASIL stared at him worriedly.
“But that’s not gonna happen. She’s gone and we’re still here. I know it’s never going to change. I thought I accepted that, but it’s hard to let go completely.”
“It’s not fair.” BASIL looked down. “But maybe we have to live on for her sake.”
“There shouldn’t have to be a reason. We have to live. It’s not up for debate.”
“I know.” BASIL replied. “It’s just hard. Living on like this, left behind by those who left early… It’s hard.”
“It will be alright.” SUNNY looked at BASIL. “As long as we stay alive, things can always get better.”
They smiled at each other. For the first time in years, there was no doubt in BASIL’s mind that everything was going to be okay. SUNNY thought the same thing. It felt like starting now, they could begin to learn how to live in a world without MARI. They may never get used to it, but that would be fine. They’d be alive together, and that was all that mattered.
The weather was getting colder. It felt like something wet and cold were falling down on them. They looked up.
It was snowing.
MARI dove into the lake. There was no hesitation. She saw him sink and her legs moved. Her knees hurt, but she couldn’t care about that. She swam deeper into the water until she saw him. His eyes were closed. He was barely struggling, like he was already dead. Dead – the word flashed by her head. She grabbed onto him and pulled him up.
She pulled him out and laid him down on the grass. He was unresponsive. She heard the others yell, but it was strange – she could barely hear them, like their voices were muffled. She could barely feel anything; not even the cold from the water. She only felt the pumping of her heart.
She realized what was happening. She was panicking. Once that settled in, she began crying. She called out SUNNY’s name as she tried to wake him up, like how she would wake him up when he pretended to be asleep to skip school. Her cries grew louder until she was shouting his name at the top of her lungs. She couldn’t tell whether the water in her face were her tears or if it was from the lake.
SUNNY slowly opened his eyes. He coughed up some water and saw MARI crying. He wanted to tell her to stop doing that, but couldn’t let out a single sound. MARI cried more, but this time with relief. She didn’t even realize that she herself was shivering as well. She tried to wipe her tears away, but it didn’t help, since her arms were wet too.
SUNNY sat up straight. He started tearing up, too. Maybe it was because he had almost died, or maybe it was just because he saw his sister cry. MARI hugged him. He felt some of her body warmth.
MARI held him tight. The siblings cried together in the freezing cold. They felt each other’s heartbeats. The overwhelming fear of death numbed all of their senses. They felt intensely that they were alive. She whispered into his ear.
“Thank you, SUNNY. Thank you for being alive.”
JohnJRenns 