Phytoremediation

Could you airbrush my scars?

Sunny sat in his room in silence, staring at the screensaver on his monitor.

"You are the worst, you should just kill yourself so everyone stops having to deal with you." A voice in his head spoke to him. It wasn't Omori, though. It was just himself.

He stood up from his chair and looked at the book on the floor. He only ended up reading a chapter before throwing it. Lolita wasn't as interesting of a read as it was described.

Sunny considered moving to go downstairs and watch TV, but he didn't really want to do that either. He sat back down at his desk and clicked the space bar, making the screensaver dissipate and the computer tower whir to life.

A notification was in his WeChat, making Sunny race to it, in the unlikely chance that it was Basil.

<TheMaverickREAL> Sundy!!! How gid you get out of jail??? I waont report u, don't worry, you're secret safe with m

Sunny felt disappointed, and also a bit of a headache coming on from trying to read the message. He looked into his messages with Basil and began to send various worried messages.

<Sunnny> Basil, please don't hurt yourself.
<Sunnny> Please just calm down, and talk to me tomorrow.
<Sunnny> please

Sunny felt himself start to cry.

He deserves so much better than me. I'm an awful friend. I fucking hate myself so much.

Sunny wallowed in self-pity. He looked at his bed. It looked rather appealing to sleep away his sorrows.

"Fuck it." Sunny mumbled as he got into his bed. He quickly fell asleep, like anybody as experienced with professional sleeping as Sunny would.

--

Sunny woke up to the sunlight beaming into his eye. His other eye hurt a bit, too, but not from the sun.

He rubbed his eyes and put his eyepatch on. He flicked his hand a bit to get the specks of dried blood off his hand.

Sunny rolled out of bed and walked to the computer.

<BasilC> im sorry sunny, ill never be anyones problem

Fear hit Sunny like a freight train. He sprinted out of his house and towards Basil's and began to pound on the door.

"Basil! Basil, are you there? Please!" Sunny shouted with panic while knocking rapidly.

Sunny gave up knocking and swung the door open in a panic.

Basil's body lay on the floor in front of him, with his garden shears stabbed into his stomach.

Sunny fell to his knees in front of Basil's body.

"N-No... no... Basil... Basil, please..." Sunny began to sob, "Why... no... I..." Sunny fell onto Basil corpse while crying.

"I... why did you have to..."

Sunny woke up to his mother yelling up the stairs. "Sunny! Wake up! You need to start waking up earlier for school tomorrow! Get up!"

He felt the sun hurt his eye. He rubbed his eyes and flicked the dried blood from his hand, just like in what apparently was a terrifying and depressing dream.

I will never let that happen to you, Basil.

Sunny checked his PC fearfully of the possibility of a premonitive dream. Nothing from Basil was both saddening and relieving at the same time.

He ran downstairs to his mother. "Hey, mom."

His mother was carrying her purse. "Oh, I was just going out the door now. You woke up faster than usual. Did you need anything?"

Sunny shook his head and anxiously waited for his mother to leave.

"Alright, see you soon, hun!" She smiled and walked out the door.

Sunny watched from the window to make sure she had driven away before he dashed outside and ran to Basil's door.

He glanced at Polly's old car sitting in the driveway before he began to knock. "Basil! Please come and talk to me!" He shouted at the door.

Now I know how Kel feels, I guess.

Unlike Sunny, though, Basil didn't answer. Sunny decided to try and take matters into his own hands. He couldn't let Basil fall through his hands and get hurt by himself.

Sunny tried the doorknob. Locked. Sunny may have been worried about Basil, but he also wasn't about to break in.

Unless maybe the back door...

Thoughts of trespassing were interrupted by a car driving into the driveway of Basil's house.

A man who looked in his mid-20s came out of the car with a bag. "Uh... what are you doing?" The man asked Sunny.

"Oh... I was just- I- um..." Sunny ran to his own house. Say what you want, but running is something he's good at, figuratively and literally.

Out of breath, Sunny burst back into his home and shut the door behind him. He tried to sputter out, "At least he has a new caretaker." But it ended up coming out more like "Ahhvegnergairjaker"

Sunny sat on the couch to process his thoughts. The caretaker looked too attractive for Sunny's liking.

What if he falls in love with him?

Sunny slapped himself for the selfish thoughts. Basil isn't his, he shouldn't be acting jealous about him.

The self confrontation had little effect on his feelings.

I need to tell Basil soon so I can just stop holding onto that false hope he might like me back, and try to get rid of this dumb crush.

A sudden buzzing came from his "phone" and Sunny picked it up quickly.

"Uh... hey mom." Sunny tried to sound casual.

"Hey! Do you think you need a new backpack? Your old one is a bit... y'know..." Sunny's mother queried.

"Maybe, why?"

"Well, there's this sale..." She responded.

"You're gonna buy one regardless then. Make it black, please." Sunny said with an eye roll.

"See you back at home soon, honey!" She said with a giggle.

Sunny closed his emergency phone, and stared at the blank TV screen.