Chapter Text
Sunny stands in front of his new bathroom mirror. Somehow, he's already been in Hometown for a month, and now it's his first day of school. Sunny isn't entirely sure what job opportunities his mother was talking about; this place seems about as small as Faraway, maybe even smaller. He knows that his mother at least signed up to teach at the only school in town, so that's something.
He grabs the hairbrush on the sink and begins to brush through his black hair. He's been trying to keep up on that, now that he has some sort of a fresh start. Nobody here has to know he didn't leave the house for four years. What they probably will realize is the missing eye, but Sunny doesn't entirely care about that. He sets his hairbrush back on the sink, and turns to the cabinet behind him, opening it and searching inside. He decides that the eyepatch with a sun embroidered on it should work fine for his first day. Maybe people will remember his name better?
Sunny doesn't have much more time to think about that, as he hears his mother shouting his name from another room of the apartment. He walks over to where he heard her from, stopping to grab a granola bar in the kitchen, briefly glancing at the flavor. Chocolate chips. Nice.
"Sunny, are you sure you have everything in your bag? It feels a little light," his mother comments, holding up Sunny's light purple backpack.
He shrugs, and takes the backpack, putting it over one shoulder. "Probably."
"Alright," his mom concedes, pushing some hair behind her ear, "but don't say I didn't warn you if you're missing something. Do you want to walk to school, or do you want me to drive you there?"
"Walk," Sunny states simply. As much as he'd rather be driven to school, he vaguely remembers the doctor from the hospital saying that he needs more exercise, which is probably true. Even if he hates it.
Sunny's mom lets out a small hum, heading to the fridge and pulling out a lunch in a brown paper bag, with a simplistic sun drawn next to where she wrote his name. "Here's your lunch, sweetie. I have an interview with the principal at 9, to make sure I'm fit to be a teacher here."
Sunny just takes the lunch and puts it in his backpack, adjusting it so that he's wearing it properly. He gives a nod and a wave as he heads out the door. "Love you," he shouts at his mom out of habit while taking the packaging off the granola bar.
"Love you too, Sunny!" she shouts back, probably also out of habit as Sunny closes the apartment door. He carefully walks down the stairs, making sure to keep one hand on the railing. His depth perception's been off enough lately that he almost needs to hold onto something when walking, with how much he tends to stumble.
Sunny manages to get out of the apartment complex without too much issue. He's... pretty sure he knows where the school is? It's a small enough town that he'll be able to find it, at the very least. He glances at the convenience center at the crossroads, briefly stopping. It looks more like a restaurant than anything else, honestly, and the previous name was seemingly scribbled out.
He'd say it's weird, but everything about this town is weird to him. He takes a turn to his left, glancing both ways before crossing the road. There isn't a crosswalk, so he really just has to hope a car doesn't show up in his blind spot. Hometown feels similar to Faraway, yet so, so different at the same time.
Sunny looks up at the orange leaves, and he realizes that he has no idea what the seasonal weather will be like here. Hopefully he has clothes for whatever weather there might be.
He keeps walking down the sidewalk, until he sees the librarby. ... The what?
Sunny stares at that sign for a few moments. He knows it's meant to be the library. How in the world did nobody catch that spelling error?
...It doesn't matter, Sunny decides. He's close to the school, so he walks a little faster, chewing the last bite of his breakfast and shoving the wrapper in his pocket. Weirdly, there's only one car in the driveway, and only one parking spot.
Carefully, he opens the front doors, looking left and right. He thinks that the left classroom is his. There's a locker with a piece of paper on it that says "Welcome, Sunny!" which he can only assume means that it's his locker.
Sunny stands in front of the classroom door, and suddenly feels a spike of anxiety. He doesn't want to open the door and head inside, and finds himself frozen, just... standing in place. Luckily for him, the teacher notices that he's there. A yellow... lizard monster? Bearded dragon? Sunny has no idea, but she opens the door for him.
"O-Oh! You must be the new s-student! Sunny, r-right?" the teacher asks him. This is one of the few times that Sunny's been taller than somebody else, he realizes.
He wants to say something to confirm, but for some reason, he ends up staying silent and giving a nod. The teacher leads him inside, and he can feel everyone's eyes on him. Sunny tries to move his lips to say something, to introduce himself, but nothing happens. Dammit. Since he knows he can't talk, he decides to see who his classmates are.
Almost everyone here's a monster. A snake with sunglasses, some cat-dog monster, a purple reptile girl who's leaning back in her seat, a blue bird who pushes up his glasses, a deer girl sitting next to him, adjusting the hair around her antlers... the main one who catches his eye, though, is the one other human in the class. Their hair mostly covers their face, but Sunny and them make eye contact anyway. Sunny immediately looks away as the brown-haired human stares with wide eyes.
"C-Class, this is Sunny. P-Please be nice to him. Sunny, I'm P-Professor Alphys, uh... you can sit-..." Alphys cuts herself off, glancing around the classroom. "...Would somebody be willing to g-get a chair and desk?"
"I'll go," the purple girl decides, stopping her leaning in her chair, taking her feet off her desk.
The red-nosed deer girl volunteers, "I-I'll go too!"
"Thank you, S-Susie and Noelle," Alphys states. Susie grabs Noelle's hand and walks out of the class, making a motion at the one human besides Sunny, seemingly wanting them to follow. They get up, following close behind. They don't look at Sunny when they walk out.
This all feels... surreal to Sunny, to say the least. Back in Faraway Town, there was... maybe one or two monsters? Almost everyone there was a human. Here, though, the only humans he's seen are his classmate, himself, and his own mother. Everybody else is a monster, and Sunny isn't sure why it's so different from in Faraway.
Sunny tries to brush away any unease he has, just heading to the back of the classroom to lean against the wall. He isn't entirely sure where his desk will end up. This class looks like it was only meant for the nine chairs that are already in here. Alphys' gaze also sweeps over the class, and she politely asks, "Uh... Catti? Monster Kid? Could you m-move your desks and Kris' desk o-over to the side so that Sunny's desk can fit?"
Catti mumbles something, clearly not paying much attention, but she stands up as well as Monster Kid. What an odd name, Sunny thinks. That'd be like if he was named Human Kid. Monster Kid starts pushing on their desk with their back, having a surprising amount of strength and somehow not knocking it over as Catti pushes Kris' desk towards the right wall as well. Then, she turns and pulls her own desk a bit closer.
Kris, Noelle, and Susie come back into the room, Susie holding the desk on her shoulders, Noelle's face flushed as she holds the chair, walking right behind Susie, and... Kris isn't holding anything. They probably only went with Susie and Noelle because they're friends, Sunny guesses.
Susie casually tosses the desk over to where it's supposed to be. Sunny flinches and Noelle jumps, but the seat's somehow managed to land perfectly where it needs to be. Noelle walks over and puts the chair down like a normal person. Sunny signs a quick thank you, and sits down, setting his bag next to the desk as Susie goes back to her own desk in the back, Noelle goes to the front, and Kris sits between Catti and Monster Kid, refusing to make eye contact with Sunny. Not that Sunny minds, he's never liked eye contact.
Once the class stops staring at Sunny, Alphys decides to actually start talking. "A-Alright, class, uh... Since the festival is today, and we have a new student, I-I was thinking we could have a more r-relaxed day, since I'm sure y-you're all excited for the festival, and Sunny p-probably needs to ease into things. I-I have some craft supplies, but if you don't want to w-work on anything like that, I encourage you to w-work on your group projects."
...Sunny really hopes he just won't have to do the group project. Since he's starting later than everyone else, maybe Alphys will give him a pass.
He glances around, and sees that Kris has put their head down and fallen asleep. Sunny stands up and decides to grab a piece of paper, before heading back to his desk and searching through his backpack. He manages to find a black pen and a red pen, as well as some scissors. Then, he gets an idea for something to make, and heads to Alphys' desk for two more pieces of paper. Sunny brings them back and starts drawing with the black pen as the deer girl walks up to him.
"So, uh... Sunny, right?" she asks. Sunny nods, so she says, "right. I'm Noelle! If... If you need a group for the project, uh... I think Professor Alphys would be alright with a group of three. I'm in a group with Berdly."
Sunny realizes that this probably means he can't just get out of doing the group project with the excuse of joining late. Dammit. He manages to mumble, "sure." Noelle tilts her head to the side, as if thinking something to herself as she briefly glances between Kris and Sunny.
However, she dismisses whatever thoughts she was having, and asks, "uh... So, what are you making?"
Sunny shrugs. He has a concept for what to make, but isn't quite sure yet what he's actually making. So far, he's drawn some cats, varying in size, with some being colored in black and some not. He'll figure out a use for the red... eventually.
"...I'll stop bothering you," Noelle decides abruptly. Before Sunny can tell her that it's fine, she walks back to her seat, before faltering and deciding to talk to Alphys.
Sunny just keeps working on his art, even if he isn't entirely sure what he's making yet. As he does, the blue bird comes up to him. Sunny assumes this is Berdly.
"It appears a new challenger has entered the ring, hm?" he says, as Sunny already realizes that he is not going to get along with this guy. Sunny decides to stay silent.
Berdly stares for a few moments, clearly waiting for a response. When he doesn't get one, he continues anyway. "Hm... a silent one, I see. Well! No matter, for Noelle has decided that you will be joining our group! I suppose I can tolerate you... especially if you aren't saying anything."
Sunny resists the extremely strong urge to roll his eyes, and just keeps ignoring Berdly.
"What's with the eyepatch, by the way?" Berdly asks, pointing to his own right eye. Sunny decides not to answer.
"...Fine, I see how it is." Berdly crosses his arms before going back to his seat. "What is it with humans and being super quiet?" he asks himself under his breath.
Sunny's gaze sweeps the classroom, half-expecting somebody else to walk up to him. Thankfully, nobody does. What he does notice, though, is that Susie must've left the room to ditch... at some point. Whatever, that's not his business.
Alphys suddenly calls out, "uh... Sunny? Do you know where the storage closet is?"
"Big doors?" he asks, hoping he's right as he instinctively pockets his scissors.
"Y-Yeah, uh... I've ran out of chalk. I'm... not sure where it keeps going," Alphys admits. Strange, but Sunny stands and walks out of the class, nearly walking into the door as he does.
The first thing he sees is Susie eating something. He tilts his head to the side for a better look, and sees that she's... eating the teacher's chalk. "...Alphys wants some chalk," Sunny mumbles, holding out his hand expectantly.
"Oh, c'mon, I'm almost done," Susie states, biting the last piece of chalk.
Sunny frowns, but ultimately decides that Susie won't help. He starts heading off to the storage closet. Once Susie realizes where he's headed, though, she blocks his path. "Woah- hey, where are you going?" she says awkwardly.
"The closet. To... get her chalk?" Sunny tilts his head again.
"Uhh..." Susie falters for a few seconds, trying to think of an excuse. "Tell her that she doesn't need it? I mean- it's not like we're having an actual lesson, right?"
Sunny rolls his eye, unable to stop himself this time. "Do you have any left? Outside of what you're eating?"
Susie sighs, but heads to her locker and grabs a lunchbox. She opens it, and it's... full of chalk? She grabs one of the pieces and hands it to Sunny. "I was saving this for lunch. I can tell you're not gonna stop annoying me, though. Just don't tell the teacher."
Sunny blinks, but takes the piece of chalk and heads back into the classroom. He holds it out to Alphys, and she takes it. "Thank you, uh- Sunny."
He says nothing as he heads back to his seat and goes back to working on his art. In a bubbly sort of writing, Alphys writes down a few bullet points. One about the fact that Sunny's here, one about when projects are due, one about the festival, and then Sunny decides to stop paying attention.
Internally, he wonders why Susie was so defensive of that closet. Maybe he'll go there after school. Besides, if Sunny takes a while, he can just tell his mom that he was at the festival.