Author's Note: AU fic. Might be a little bit of OoC on both character's parts. There is hardly any love for this EriBato at all, so I decided to contribute. Got heavy inspiration to write Umineko fic after all the announcements that came out yesterday.
Disclaimer: I do not own Umineko no Naku Koro ni, any characters involved, or any other pre-existing form of fiction. All I own is the actual story.
Back and forth. Back and forth.
Erika found herself mindlessly swinging at the city park one cold, windy, autumn's night. It was a lonely feeling, even more so when compared to the last time she had been there.
Swing, swing, swing.
It had been a warm, spring afternoon. The sun's beating on them had been just warm enough, the breeze soft enough to be enjoyable, and that warm, fuzzy, embarrassing, stupid feeling in her stomach had been heavy as he gently pushed her on the swings, upon his younger sister's orders, his bright red hair intensified by the sunlight. He had been detached from the movement, always casting his eyes away, whether it be on a car passing by or one of the many groups of children screaming and giggling obnoxiously. When Ange would wander away to play, he would turn it into an excuse to pretend he didn't hear what she said. Erika hadn't minded, though, for it was brief relapse in her life where she accidently let her only thoughts be about the way he smelled, and how rich and beautiful that smell was, and how that smell almost felt so warm that, if she closed her eyes, all she could see was a brilliant shade of gold. It fit him, she had decided, but she never said so. She refused to say so, for she knew it was foolish. Detectives, real detectives, aren't supposed to feel things like that; they aren't supposed to think things like that.
Swish, swish, swish.
The wind blowing past her ears now was similar how it had been then, but the moment such a thought broke her out of her reverie, she realized she was going much higher and much faster. Back then, she had only kicked her legs slightly and gently, perhaps because she was afraid that if she went too fast, he would be forced to step out of the way, and she would no longer feel that soft push of his fingertips against her back. Looking at it in retrospect, thinking about herself on that day, in those short months of her life, all she saw was a fool. She had been stupid, acted too much like her physical appearance, a teenage girl, rather than what she was inside. She was a detective, not a boy-crazy idiot in middle school. She had been stupid, she should have seen it then and stopped herself from digging too deep into that thing called a heart, those little pieces of nothing called feelings.
But she hadn't been able to stop herself, and now she was paying the price for her foolishness. The only thing that made it the tiniest bit better was that she had always kept that all inside, and never let him know the way she felt. She was always the same towards him; condescending, pompous; at least she could lie to someone, even if it couldn't have been herself. However…the immaturity was still eating away at her heart, telling it to feel those things for him, want to have him hold her and make that hole in her heart go away. How stupid it was. How…annoying. How...ugly to want that from him. That stupid perverted redhead; that stupid waste of time.
In these thoughts, her grip on the chains of the swing tightened, then loosened, and suddenly, she was thrust off the swing and onto the hard, mulch covered ground beneath her. The pain in her back didn't phase her, and neither did the heavy wind blowing her long, blue hair messily across her face. She withheld the shudder that nearly escaped her as the chill of the night began to creep back into her after her brief bout of exercise on the swings. None of this could compare to the cold, hard fact that her heart was in pain, that the small act of immaturity, the relaxation in her unfeeling nature had disrupted and pained her for a long time to come. She didn't get up; she just laid there on her back, and stared up at the pale, white, full moon in the sky, a ball of despair and slight disgust at herself forming in the pit of her stomach.
And at the same time, on that same chilly autumn night, Battler lay out on the balcony of his family's apartment, his little sister asleep in his arms as they snuggled in a sleeping bag (their last "camp-out" before winter), and he stared up at the moon, thinking about that same spring afternoon, remembering how he had tried so hard to seem like he didn't want to be there, like he wasn't enjoying himself, when all he wanted to do was smile at that girl who seemed to hate him most and ask her if she wanted him to push her harder. And he wanted to laugh after he asked that, no matter what the reaction of that unpredictable girl was, and just talk to her, even if she might get annoyed. But for some reason, he was too afraid that she would point-blank completely deny him this conversation, and yell at him, and tell him to shut up because he was stupid and worthless. So he took her approach at the situation, and made it look as if he hated being there, like he hated her, and just completely ignored her, all the while silently observing how generally soft she was against his fingers, and how the perfume she was wearing smelled eccentric and intellectual somehow, and how it truly fit her personality.
He wasn't entirely sure whether or not he felt that way about her or if she was just intriguing, but the one thing he did know that he regretted not trying to get to know her, not letting his interest in her as a person grow into an initiative, which, if he was lucky, could have made their general distaste and hate towards each other dissipate and turn to something just a little more pleasant. Either way, he thought it was weird when he suddenly took that interest in her; before then, he had genuinely hated her. Yet that weird feeling had formed, and that strange lingering regret still hung over him. And he felt that same ball of despair and self-disgust form in his stomach.
And as they both laid there in the cold and stared up at the same sky, they realized they missed each other. They missed each other more than they had missed anything before. And yet, the next day, they would continue to deny it, to move on. But that small, intimidated feeling of remorse, that little lingering feeling that they wanted to see each other would always be there, in the pit of their stomach, to keep that ball of regret company.