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Sunny likes happy endings.
Who can blame him? Tragedies are so sixteenth-century. Sunny prefers it when things are modern and happy, when families stay together, and when friends forgive each other.
This month’s Spaceboy issue had a bad ending. It would’ve been fine if it hadn’t gone on hiatus, leaving Sunny alone in the dark. Kel’s been debating him on it, insisting, “No, Sunny, you don’t understand, Spaceboy needed to leave!”
Sunny doesn’t get that. Why does anyone need to leave? Why can’t people just stick together? If you like someone and they like you, that should be the end of the conversation. You fight whatever you need to fight to stay by each other’s sides.
Kel says Spaceboy needed to grow. Aubrey, stupidly, agrees with him. She said that sometimes things happen, and sometimes people need to go their own way. But the Space Pirates are Spaceboy’s whole family! They’ve sworn with blood and sweat that they would tough it out.
Sunny hoped Mari or Hero would have some sense in them, but they’re tainted with the melancholy of being older. Mari and Hero are following each other to the ends of the earth if that’s where one of them goes. Yet they solemnly nodded and said this issue made sense, and Spaceboy couldn’t have controlled it.
It’s insane. This whole town seems to think that Spaceboy should be alone. Sunny’s going to the only person he can apparently trust in this world.
One fist is clenched around the Spaceboy issue, and his other fist knocks on the door. Sunny counts under his breath, one, two, three, and makes it to forty-three before it opens.
Basil smiles when he sees who’s at the door. “You wanna guess who I just got off the phone with?”
Sunny narrows his eyes and walks inside. Basil’s grandma must be upstairs, leaving the whole floor ready for Sunny’s ranting.“Kel’s playing dirty,” Sunny scoffs. “He’s calling you to try and taint your opinion.”
“He told me you would say that,” Basil giggles. They walk to the couch and flop down, side by side, shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee. “Wanna guess what I said?”
“It better be that Kel’s a cheater and his evil ways are never going to win.”
Sunny should’ve known something was off by Basil’s smile. Usually, when Basil sees Sunny, his smile gets a little toothier. It’s just like a bunny: his front teeth peek out, and Sunny’s always wondered what they would feel like to trace.
This time, Basil’s smile stretched, but it did not gap. Something’s pulling that heavenly smile down to earth, and Sunny should’ve known that the sickness wouldn’t spare even Basil—the sickness of being so utterly wrong.
Sunny’s helpless when Basil says, “I think the ending made sense.”
Throwing his hands up, Sunny groans. “Not even you! I can’t even trust you!”
As though he didn’t just betray Sunny, Basil’s all laughter and calming hands. He reaches for the issue and flips it open to the last panel. “Just look.”
“I have looked at it.”
“Not with your eyes.” Basil rolls his eyes and scoots a little closer to Sunny. It’s a good distance, but it could still be better. “You’re looking at it from Sunny’s eyes. Look at it through Spaceboy’s.”
Basil points to the panel of Spaceboy looking down at his ship’s panel, with glowing buttons that seem to blur together. “Imagine you led the fleet right to your planet. And imagine you messed up your only chance to save it. Imagine you hurt it instead. Imagine that piece you hurt is the only bit that survives. Imagine that all you have is a reminder of the hurt you caused.”
“But he didn’t mean to.” Sunny shakes his head and points to the next panel. Spaceboy is looking up at that small piece left of his planet. “It’s not his fault.”
“Does it matter? It happened because of him anyway.” Basil points to the next panels: Spaceboy looks down at the control panels before grabbing onto them. “So, you’re Spaceboy, and you’re in this situation. You don’t have a lot of choices.
“I know you want to find another home, but Spaceboy has to atone. Whether he wants to or not, he either keeps running from it or he finally faces it.” Basil points to the last panel: Spaceboy flying the ship away from his crew, into the deep, dark nothingness of space. “Do you want to keep running?”
“Going home isn’t running.”
Sunny looks up. Basil smiles, gently, like he’s breaking some bad news to Sunny. “Oh, Sunny. His home is gone. He has to make another.”
Basil closes the issue. It’s not the last, and the writers promise the next arc will be even more action-packed, but it still leaves a strange taste settled in Sunny’s stomach. It tastes final and bitter.
When Sunny thinks back on this moment, he’ll realize that he’s confused what Basil said with what the voices in his head have been gently guiding him towards. Back then, Basil agreed with Sunny and said that Spaceboy deserves a happy ending.
When Sunny thinks back on this moment, he’ll realize that change is not a bad ending. He’ll realize that giving up is. And by Captain Spaceboy facing the void and being brave enough to say, I can face you, that’s the best ending he could ever have. Because he gets to start again.
When Sunny thinks back on this moment, he’ll realize that he was scared of being alone. And he always has been. Seeing Spaceboy alone terrified him. It made the loneliness prick at his skin and threaten to pull him under. Sunny would do anything to stop being alone or lonely.
Sunny will realize all of this, but most of all, Sunny will realize that it’s okay to be scared. That it’s okay to look at the void and be terrified. Because at least you looked. At least you tried.
And years, years down the line, when Sunny and Basil are in their thirties, planning a wedding, and scaping enough money to buy their dream house, they’re going to find this issue of Captain Spaceboy. They’re going to pull it out of the dusty box of Sunny’s comics, and Sunny will light up. They will sit there on the dirty floor and read it together, laughing at the corny writing they used to take as gospel.
Then they’re going to look at that last panel. This comic will have been released decades ago now and will have had subsequent issues already released. Spaceboy will have discovered some truth about himself and reunited with his crew on good terms. He will have faced the void and come back kinder for it.
Sunny will remember how he hated this ending. But he won’t feel that same resentment. Sunny will look up at Basil and see that he’s faced his own void.
This will all happen in its due time. There will be years of hardships and trials leading up to this; there will be years of repairing broken trust with his friends; there will be years of studying and catching up; there will be years of trying and trying and trying, before this moment comes.
But make no mistake—this moment will come.
Right now, though, Sunny doesn’t know this. Sunny does not know what will happen before the recital; he does not know what he and Basil will do, and he does not know where that will lead.
Right now, what Sunny knows is this: he likes happy endings, Basil, and home.
So Sunny just pouts before standing up. “Let’s go play in the park.”
Basil gives Sunny that toothy smile of his.