Forward: After Omori [DISCONTINUED]

Broken Past, Shattered Future

Friendships were supposed to last forever. At least, that's what all the children's Saturday morning cartoons promised. They also promised that as long as you told the truth, nothing can go wrong.

Sunny was beginning to realize all that was bull.

He stared at the ground as his friends stared at him in shocked silence. He had told them the truth behind Mari's death, and while he knew that was the right thing to do, it was obvious that the truth didn't protect anyone from squat, and the chance of this friendship surviving was close to zero.

"I'm sorry," Sunny whispered. 

A swift moment of silence, then Hero muttered, "No. That can't be true. This has to be a joke."

"It's not."

Hero turned to Kel and Aubrey, desperation in his eyes. "He has to be joking, right? There's no way he could've ..." He trailed off, noticing the hopelessness on their faces. "You mean, Mari didn't ... You ..."

"It was an accident. I didn't mean to ..." Sunny swallowed, a lump the size of a golfball in his throat. Memories of that day flashed in the back of his mind. The violin smashing into pieces at the bottom of the stair, bits of wood scattering like glass. Mari's face, shocked and hurt, as she fell. The chill of her skin, and the realization that she was never going to wake up again.

"How do you ... on accident?" Aubrey muttered, her hand over her mouth. She didn't wait for anyone to answer her half-asked question, instead running out of the room before any tears can fall down her face. Kel looked at the door as if he was going to chase after her, but then looked at Sunny and Hero and stayed.

"Come on, this is Sunny we're talking about." Kel looked to his brother. "He loved Mari, he wouldn't kill her on purpose." 

Hero didn't respond, instead glaring at Sunny hard enough to burn a hole through a steel wall. "All this time, wondering why she did it. I spent so many sleepless nights wondering what I could've done differently, what I could've done to save her ..."

"Hero," Kel said, stepping towards him, his voice a mixture of sympathy and warning.

"And all this time," Hero continued, his voice getting louder with each word, "she was dead because you pushed her?"

Sunny flinched. "I'm sorry ..."

"Sorry? Sorry?! You think that being 'sorry' is going to fix everything?"

"Hero!" Kel yelled. Hero jumped slightly, looking at Kel as if just realizing his was there. "That's enough. It was an accident."

"You really don't believe that, do you? There's no way that was an accident."

"But-"

"Kel," Hero said steadily. "There's no point. He's not who we thought he was."

"Wait-" Sunny started, but stopped as Hero put his hand up.

Hero grabbed Kel's hand and pulled him towards the door. "Let's go. I can't stand to be here another second." He half-led, half-dragged Kel out of the room, ignoring his younger brother's protests.

Sunny watched them go, his heart as heavy as a bowling ball, then sank to the ground and covered his face with his hands. He wondered briefly if it had really been a good idea to tell them the truth.

Yes, it had. They deserved to know.

But it still hurt to know that the friendship they have only just mended was now more broken than ever. He had no idea how to fix it, and the more he thought about it, the more hopeless it seemed. 

"It wasn't your fault," a voice from behind him said. Sunny turned to see Basil, who was awake and setting himself in a sitting position on the hospital bed, which, considering Basil's current physical state, couldn't have been an easy feat.