A/N: Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, H50 – write a post-canon fic. This is technically post-arc instead of the entire canon, but HIgurashi's multiple timelines make it possible to continue one of the earlier arcs and still call it post.

Parasites in their Mind
Chapter 1

Acute heart failure. As if something like that could just come out of the blue after he'd been kidnapped, strapped to a torture table and stunned with a stun gun, rescued, and then stabbed in the stomach. Not that he should have gone through any of those things. Hinamizawa was supposed to have been a new start for all of them. A place away from shadowed crimes. Away from blood.

It turned out the only thing they'd managed to escape was the stress of schooling, and they'd paid a steep price for it. They were taking Keiichi back to the city in a body bag.

Acute heart failure. Neither of them could really grasp it, believe it. It wasn't as though Keiichi had a pre-existing medical condition to precipitate it – and yet they'd been barred from visiting for the two days in between the surgery and the death. First it was the police saying they absolutely had to see him first, and then it was the doctors panicking about something. But the result was that. Declared dead on July 3, 1983. Cause of death: acute heart failure. Doctor Irie wore a sorrowful expression but explained no more than that.

They couldn't believe, and yet they had no choice but to believe it. Because their son's body was spread out in the hospital bed for them to see, and there was no denying that.

The Maebara family was forced to move away from Hinamizawa three days after they'd intended to, and without their son sitting across from them.

.

The long ride had given them a lot of time to mourn, and think, and argue with the cold fact that faced them. Ichirou had even weakly joked that he'd claw his way out of the body bag and yell at whatever idiot came up with the idea of zipping him in there, but no such miracle occurred. When they arrived, almost dark, at the house they'd brought only a week prior and near their remaining relatives, Aiko's face was heavily stained with tear tracks and Ichirou's arms shook as he helped the driver with their precious cargo.

Thankfully, his cousin came to help and took that burden away.

The body bag was taken first, put into the bed in the largest room. The other room didn't yet have a bed, but it didn't matter. They wouldn't sleep that night anyhow. They wouldn't sleep for a few nights, probably, until exhaustion won over all else. But this night was different. While the large cities had discarded a good deal of the old traditions, some remained. And places like Hinamizawa clung to them all.

They had mixed feelings about that, but tragedy had befallen them in the city as well so they could not put blame to that place. Not then at least. Not when their raw wounds still bled. Where tears ran out, it was burning eyes and scratching dry faces instead. The cousin found himself coaxing Aiko's hand away from her cheek where it had drawn a thin line of blood. But he could offer little comfort otherwise. He couldn't take the tragedy away, nor the burden. He didn't know the details; they were details shared with no-one. He only know a child had died before his parents. A young, bright child who'd had his entire future ahead of him. A child part of his extended family.

But the world didn't pause when tragedy struck. Not for the Maebaras, anyhow. The extended family came together to mourn, dressed in black for the tsuya, carrying juzu beads and their condolences, and joined Ichirou and Aiko in kneeling by the bed.

It was the prelude to their son's funeral and their housewarming as well.

.

Ryugu Rena was the only one of Keiichi's friends still alive, and they'd planned to invite her to the funeral. They'd forgotten how long it would take for her to get to the city from Hinamizawa. It had turned out to be a non-issue though. Hinamizawa was sealed after an eruption of volcanic gas and its two thousand inhabitants were considered dead.

It was horrific, but they stood in the midst of their own tragedy. Aiko wondered if she should be grateful or enraged at the twist of fate that had forced her husband and herself from Hinamizawa before its annihilation. And after the delay as well. One more day and they too would have been choked to death with sulphur gas and ash. Then they wouldn't have needed to mourn. And they couldn't even say leaving had saved their son because it hadn't. They couldn't say leaving earlier would have saved him either, because they simply didn't know that.

If he'd died from complications of his stomach wound, then they could have said for sure. But not something unrelated.

And they didn't have the energy to mourn the place they'd fled from. They couldn't mourn the only friend there Keiichi still had left. They couldn't think of the complexities that had driven them to their hasty departure, delayed. They could only watch as the body was bathed and robed and placed in the dry ice in the casket. They put only spiced pork flavoured ramen from the personal items. Things had changed too drastically of late for them to know what else would ease his passing. Reminders of the city, or Hinamizawa, both soaked in the blood and stale air of their tragedies. Reminders of his friends, all dead, some insane. Reminders of the city, of those things that had driven them to HInimizawa in the first place – and driven the smile of Keiichi's face.

Maybe if he'd died with the smile HInamizawa had given him, it would have been easier to bear. Maybe if his expression had looked even a little bit peaceful – but it hadn't been that at all. Pained. Frightened. Those were the sorts of words they could use to describe. Those were the sort of words they didn't want to use to describe – but was a lie any better? Could they truly convince themselves Keiichi had died happy, had died fulfilled? If he'd had kids and grandchildren and lived to the ripe old age of ninety, then maybe. Even if he'd been expecting to die, then maybe. But to survive trials like what he survived only to die spontaneously in the aftermath? It was too mindboggling. They simply could not grasp it.

Not even when the coffin was nailed shut. Not even when they sat on the stone steps of the temple for an hour, watching the smoke colour the cloudy sky a little darker. Not even when Aiko's hands reached shakenly for the first bones, for the feet and almost dropped it when Ichirou's chopsticks struck the side of the urn with a clatter. Another relative stepped forth to take them. Ichirou allowed them to pick the chopsticks up, but he was the one who accepted the bone from the foot and transferred it to the urn – and the other bones that followed.

It was a long, slow process. Aiko's hands shook less with each bone she picked up, and Ichirou did not drop the chopsticks again. Maybe it was the ritual: so profound they couldn't deny what it presented them. Maybe it was because their son's body was now ash and bones, and the time they too would vanish from sight was soon approaching. Or maybe it was simply the passage of time. A dull despair clung to the both of them now.

And it stayed with them, like a heavy stone on their backs, as the urn was placed in the grave and the monument put in place.

.

The extended family drifted away, but they were slow to do so. They'd been together like this not too long ago – just over a month, or maybe it was just under. Two funerals so close together caused the days in between them to blur. The other death had been a grand-uncle to some of them, uncle to others. Grand-uncle to Keiichi as well, and the Maebaras had come from Hinamizawa for it. Two days, and Ichirou and Aiko had smiled at how tired Keiichi looked the Monday after, returning to school. And yet there'd been a small smile on his face. He'd been happy to be back in Hinamizawa. Happy to be going to school, to meet his friends. Even after a funeral he'd been able to smile, when a normal day would have had a tight expression on his face.

What had been so wrong about hoping they would last? What had been so wrong about despairing when they'd, in a matter of days, crumbled. First, it had been the photographer and the nurse from the clinic dead. Then the village elder had disappeared. Then two of Keiichi's friends disappeared. Then Keiichi and another of his friends disappeared – and when he turned up again, it was bound to a torture table and unconscious with another girl in a dark cold cell.

But the perpetrator was dead. That was what the police had said. The perpetrator's body had been found on top of her victims. The other girl had locked herself in her home. Perhaps the prison, after being locked in that underground cell for days, had been too much for her. She'd jumped from her balcony the day before Keiichi's death.

That…was like a run-on after the story had finished. The enemy had been caught. The remaining characters should have lived happily ever after once they'd healed – but they never had the chance to heal. The ones who would get the happily ever after ending were the relatives attending the funeral. The ones paying their respects to the newly erected grave and promising to return for the shōnanoka in a week's time.

Seven days to get through before that, Ichirou thought heavily. He sunk to his knees at the foot of the grave and put his head in his hands. And he didn't notice when he started scratching at the scalp.