Phytoremediation

One more or one less, nobody's worried

Basil woke up in his bed, and promptly got changed. He had many things to do today. He needed to water all his plants again, and he had to call Mikhael. Then, possibly go visit Sunny.

Maybe we could finally read that book together...

Basil shook his head, clearing his mind of daydreams. He left his room, only to instantly recieve a phone call.

He picked it up, not bothering to check who was calling while he walked downstairs.

"Hello?"

"Is this... The Synthesizer..?" Mikhael's voice cautiously asked from the phone speaker.

Basil sighed, and sat on the couch. "Yeah, it's me. You feeling okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, who was that hot lady in your house yesterday?" Mikhael quickly whispered, "Y'know the one with the big-"

"That's my caretaker, dude. Like, my mom, sort of." Basil said, cutting him off. He didn't really care to hear Mikhael saying weird things about Polly.

"Ohhh, ohhh, gotcha. I was worried it was your girlfriend or something." Mikhael sounded a bit too relieved.

"I'm gay, Mikhael." Basil replied, a bit grossed out at the idea of him being with a girl.

"Ah, cool, cool... so, do you know if she's single?"

Basil hung up the phone, and entered the kitchen. Polly was washing her hands in the sink.

"Ah! Hi, Basil! I just cleaned a spill I made. What would you like for breakfast?" Polly asked cheerfully.

"I dunno, peanut butter and jam sandwich is fine. Thanks, Polly."

Basil sat down at the kitchen table, staring off into space before Polly set the sandwich in front of him.

"Thinking about something, Basil?" Polly inquired.

"Yeah, just have to do some stuff today. Thanks for breakfast, Polly." Basil finished the sandwich faster than usual, and stood up to go to the door.

"Might be gone for a while, see you later!" He waved at Polly, and ran to the door. Basil quickly put on his shoes, velcro-ing the sides.

He opened the door, and ran outside. The street had a few cars going past when he came up. He waited for another one to pass, then ran across the street. He continued to walk until the next street, which had a few more cars, before he ran across again.

There was Sunny's house. Basil remembered he was supposed to water his plants before this, but whatever, Sunny is more important.

Basil knocked on the door, and a somewhat dazed Sunny answered.

"Hi, Sunny!" Basil cheerfully said, seemingly snapping Sunny out of his dazed state.

"Oh, hi Basil." He said in his usual monotone voice.

The small smile that crossed Sunny's lips made Basil's heart melt. Silently, of course. He didn't want to let Sunny notice that he liked him.

"H-Hey, I was w-wondering if we could read ifyouwantedto..."

Smooth, Basil. Real smooth.

Sunny smiled again, "Sure, I'd love to."

Basil felt his face warming up, but he just tried to silently calm down, and walked inside.

"Hello, Basil! How are you? I saw ambulances next door, did something happen?" Magnolia asked with concern.

"Yeah, Mikhael was attacked by the weird murderer from the news. He ended up coming to my house." Basil responded.

Still don't know why he chose to come all the way to my house, instead of like, a neighbour or something.

Sunny's eyes widened a bit, but quickly returned to their usual unexpressive position.

"Wow... that must've been scary. That was only a few blocks away too, oh goodness..." Magnolia seemed a bit disturbed by this information.

"Alright mom, me and Basil are gonna hang out in my room." Sunny interjected, as he held Basil's hand, and began to walk towards the stairs.

"It's 'Basil and I,' hun!" Magnolia called out after Sunny.

Sunny rolled his eyes. Basil felt his blushing grow as Sunny held his hand while walking upstairs with him.

They arrived in Sunny's room, and Sunny turned around to address Basil.

"Alright, so-" Sunny noticed he was still holding Basil's hand, and blushed as he continued, "Alright, so I'm going to grab the book, one second."

Basil listened to him muttering as he left the room "...and this time no random..." Basil couldn't hear the last thing Sunny whispered to himself as he left.

Basil looked around the room as he waited. A bottle of skin lotion, likely why his hands were so soft. Multiple small unopened bottles of hand sanitizer were next to it.

The lamp on his desk was the same one he always had. An orange-ish light that always made Basil want to hug Sunny. It always made Sunny's face look prettier, and made his sheets look more comfortable.

That was the light that was on when I accidentally kissed Sunny back when I was 10... whoops...

Basil shook his head. Now wasn't the time to think of that, or else Basil's face would just look red, no matter the light.

Sunny returned to his room, his face red with embarrassment. "Uh... the book is in here..."

Sunny grabbed a book from the shelf, Overcast, just like before. He handed the book to Basil and gave a brief smile.

He sat down on the bed expectantly, and Basil nervously sat down next to him. Obviously Sunny wouldn't see anything strange about being on his bed with another boy, but of course, Basil couldn't help but feel flustered.

It's like when you sleep in the same bed as someone, and then they say you "slept together."

"A-Alright, Overcast, let's start!" Basil awkwardly exclaimed, trying to stop thinking about what was going on.

"Introduction" was the first page.

"Do you mind if I read this so I can... get used to reading aloud again?" Basil asked cautiously.

"Sure." Sunny affirmed.

"I created this book after my daughter had a concussion and was diagnosed with prosopagnosia. I felt so many emotions and ideas clashing. I needed to write. This book is a relic. I do not know what it meant, or what I was trying to communicate anymore, but if someone, somewhere can read this, and feel anything, I succeeded as an author." Basil paused.

"Maybe... um... maybe I should just read the book itself..." Basil nervously smiled.

Sunny laid on his back, and began to listen to Basil's soft voice.