Kaleidoscope

Stumble.

"Come on!"

"Shit, Mion, that hurt!"

"Watch out for the fence, Kei-chan."

"Why didn't you tell me that before I tripped over it?"

Keiichi muttered a few more swear words and hopped precariously on one foot while rubbing his scraped knee with his free hand as he was pulled along by the devil in front of him. She glanced behind her in exasperation and rolled her emerald eyes. "It's just a scrape, Kei-chan," she admonished him.

"You try falling over that damn thing!" Keiichi huffed, trying to recover from his flamboyant display of weakness.

"I'd rather not," Mion snapped.

"Well, can you at least tell me why the hell you have a half foot tall fence around your backyard?!"

"Ask Onibaba! I have no idea!"

Keiichi said nothing to this; he simply lowered his head and charged ahead despite the throbbing pain in this knee.

Where had they gone wrong? Was it the knowledge that they didn't need each other after crushing Takano that drove them apart? Maybe it had been Keiichi's straying eyes at the Angel Mort. Maybe it was Mion's little twinges of jealousy that gradually built up over the months as she witnessed Keiichi and Shion's incessant flirting.

And so their friendship crashed in a rapid downward spiral. One day, they'd be laughing together, smiling together, simply doing the act of being together. The next, he'd have a red handprint across his cheek, and Mion would have streaks of mascara running down hers. Their friends distanced themselves from the destructive pair with few backward glances. After all, negativity is contagious.

One more night. A last ditch attempt to salvage the remains of their relationship. Mion had called Keiichi out of desperation. Her loneliness was consuming her from the inside out. When all of her friends had finally walked away, the only one who was left was the one who started it all.

She asked him to meet her behind her house at ten.

He agreed for the same reasons she wanted to see him.

It was their driving need for human interaction that kept their fingers intertwined as Mion dragged Keiichi through the pitch-black forest. While they both knew that any words they said would be wasted on antagonizing the other, in a strange way, they also knew that they would enjoy their time spent together. Any fights they'd get in would be ten times better than being alone for another night.

The hallways of leaves and branches brushed past the pair's faces as they flew through the woods. Mion didn't know why she was forcing them to move at such a fast pace. Keiichi didn't know why he was letting her lead him in such a brutal fashion.

Had they been in love once? Neither of them could've identified the feeling that had blossomed for a short time after Takano's demise. They only knew that their bodies fit together right, and it felt good. Had they mistaken that for love? If so, then it was that sole confused feeling that took their lives down a path they never would've dreamed of. It was that memory of past passions that kept them coming back to each other, no matter the consequences.

Soon the trees began to thin out, and Keiichi and Mion found themselves standing beside the winding road to Hinamizawa. A lone streetlight illuminated the dirt path and also the two's faces.

Keiichi stared at Mion, and she gazed back. His shoulders slumped, and his stringy, once chestnut hair hadn't been washed in weeks. His grip was weaker than it had been a year ago, and his skin was a white that it had never seen the likes of before. Spending months watching the world spin on from his bedroom window had cost him his good looks and strength.

Mion's pale face seemed much less powerful to him than it once had. Her nails were short and stubby from the anxious chewing that ensued from all of the times that she had waited by the phone for calls that would never come. Her hair was fell in jagged, uneven waves; it had been sloppily cut by a confused Shion on a day that Mion thought she wouldn't see the end of. The twins had fallen apart soon after that over the same things they'd fought over thousands of times before. So with no one else left, she clutched his hand as strongly as she could, because she couldn't let go of the one thing remaining from better days.

"Where are we going?" Mion whispered gently; she couldn't help but remember the time that they'd kissed under this same streetlight after talking all night, and the sentimentality of it all loosened her usually brash demeanor.

Keiichi turned his head to look down the road, and shook it sadly.

Why had they suffered through each other's company for so long? Where were they going? What was left for them that they could find in each other?

Hadn't their love died a long time ago?

He slipped his hand out of hers and let it fall to his side. She said nothing, but she began to wring her hands together in a dance of uncertainty. Keiichi glanced back at her, and let out a long sigh. What was coming to him was evading the girl standing beside the once beautiful boy.

Things he'd been told by those who'd left him were resurfacing from the dusty corners of his mind. "It's only going to get worse," Rika had warned him, "and you need to end it before it gets out of control."

"It's not adowable anymore," Rena had murmured the last time they spoke.

"That's not love," Satoko had said pointedly. "That's a lost cause."

He didn't want to acknowledge them, but they incessantly pounded his thoughts with their obvious truth. He couldn't accept it, though, not without proof.

They stood together in the dim light for minutes, maybe even hours. He wanted to see if his deepest fears were real. She wanted to feel his touch again.

Finally, Mion leaned in and crushed her lips to his. She'd thought that calling him and organizing this meeting was her final attempt for salvation. She was wrong, though. This was her conclusion, her last act. Every fiber in her being hoped that it wouldn't fail. Without their never-ending story of fights and forgiveness and fights again, she would lose herself in the depths of their self-prescribed loneliness.

Nothing.

In that kiss, no one's heart beat faster. There was no desire to take it somewhere further. It was hard enough to make it last, let alone pretend to enjoy it.

It was gone. The sparks of passion had faded to ashes. A sudden flood of relief drenched Keiichi's body and mind. He didn't have to keep doing this, he knew now, he could finally begin to rise out of the burnt and destroyed city of what was he and Mion.

Mion was defeated. Where would she go? As he started to pull away, she leaned forward to attempt to keep the kiss going. Would more time make him remember how they used to be?

She knew, however, that it was never going to work. She didn't enjoy his company, either; the misery that they put each other through was finally beginning to dawn on her. Did she really want to continue like this for the rest of her life? Friendless. Only speaking to tear down the statements of others. That wasn't life. That wasn't what Mion wanted.

"Kei-chan," Mion said.

"Mion," Keiichi said.

"I think we should go home," she stated.

"Me too," Keiichi replied; this was the first thing they'd agreed on in too long.

"Goodbye."

"Goodbye."

Mion and Keiichi departed in opposite directions. They wouldn't be apologizing for anything they'd said then or ever. No one was sorry. Life would go on.

The streetlamp flickered, and then pitched the scene into blackness.

And Keiichi and Mion kept walking.

Author's Notes - The title is named after the Sleepy Rebels song "Kaleidoscope" on their World Record album. While that is the title, this was also heavily inspired by the songs "Your Ex-Lover Is Dead" and "One More Night(Your Ex-Lover Is Still Dead)", both by Stars from their Set Yourself On Fire album.

I hope that this was a little bit different than the normal Higurashi one-shot, and I also hope that you enjoyed it. Thank you for reading! (: