Ataxia [OMORI]

[Anosognosia]

Sunny and Basil sat in the rather calm café, right across from Polly. One of them visibly nervous, and the other calm and smiling. Polly seemed to be a combination of the two.

"So... er... Basil, how much do you remember?" Polly asked awkwardly.

That was honestly a pretty stupid question, but nerves make you ask some dumb things. "I mean, I'm not sure. Oh! Recently, I remembered that Sunny has a sister!" Basil replied, trying his best to answer the difficult query.

He glanced over at Sunny a few times after he mentioned it, seemingly worried about his reaction. It almost made Sunny want to correct Basil with "had," but he resisted.

There was no point turning the conversation into Basil throwing Sunny a pity party. "That's great to hear, Basil! Do you remember anything about me..?"

Basil sadly shook his head, "No, not yet... I don't really remember much recent stuff, apparently... actually, that reminds me, Sunny, you never told me what happened to cause my amnesia... you just said it was complicated."

"I mean, I just feel it'd put you through a lot of stress, and it'd make your ataxia worse," Sunny said quietly. He couldn't look Basil nor Polly in the eyes.

"I can take it, Sunny," Basil said with a confident look. He couldn't take it right now. Sunny couldn't take it right now.

Sunny just shook his head and laid his chin down on his crossed arms on the table. Basil frowned but looked back at Polly, "So, er... Basil... what have you and Sunny been up to?" Polly asked as he did.

"Oh, lots of stuff! His mom is never around until dinner, usually, so we get to play video games and stuff all day!" Basil said with a smile, forgetting about Sunny's cryptic explanation.

Polly looked concerned, which made sense. Not having an adult around while he was amnestic would normally be quite a bad idea. Being ataxic on top of that, even more so.

However, Sunny cared far too much about Basil to let anything bad happen. He was the "responsible" adult in this case. Barely an adult, and not exactly responsible, but still, he had to admit to himself, he did a pretty decent job caring for Basil.

Now that he was getting better, and the amnesia was beginning to show signs of healing... Sunny kind of wished he was a worse caretaker. Maybe then his memories wouldn't come back.

Sunny wanted to hit himself for thinking like that, but it was true. He zoned out and felt his intrusive thoughts begin to repeat after coming up with the idea of being a bad caretaker for Basil.

It was mostly the thoughts of things you hear about in abusive nursing homes... not the stuff about bedbound people being neglected, but the more verbal and physical abuses.

Sunny hated his mind. It always made everything worse when things were going bad. That's why Mari died. That's why she was hanged. That's why he's a depressed failure.

Pulling him out of his self hatred fueled daydream was the utterance of the word "grandma."

"Did grandma tell you when she's coming back? I haven't been able to talk to her for a while, especially since I forgot her cellphone number..." Basil sheepishly asked his caretaker.

"Well... about your grandma, Basil..." Polly began. Sunny felt a cold feeling fall over his whole body.

"Hey, Basil, I think we need to go home, actually," Sunny stood up, preparing to leave, "Thank you for inviting us to–"

Basil cut him off. "Sunny, please, just a bit longer, I haven't gotten to talk to her long enough! I need to know my grandma's phone number, at least! Can you write it down?" Basil asked Polly at the end of his request to Sunny.