And Now a Premature Word from The Minister…

I am not the original creator of the fanfiction Sorrow nor am I the creator of its sequel. I am, however, the creator of the sequel's sequel, which you are reading right now. I am writing this with the permission of Cherrylin94 who is the original author of Sorrow I and II.

(BTW Champion is not dead and neither am I. This is a special project though. Hope you enjoy it)

HIGURASHI NO NAKU KORO NI – SORROW III

For my Chii-chan.

Perhaps I was just scared...

Though is cowardice really preferable to stupidity? Because that was the only alternative excuse as to why I did not act when I should have. Even then, as I stood at her front door, I delayed myself with pointless questions—putting off what needed to be done a long time ago. And as I raised my fist to the door, rapping gently and almost fearfully as though I somehow could anticipate how unnaturally loud a sound my knuckles would make against the wood, my heart simply refused to be still. And every heart beat thumped in harmony with the rhythm of my knocking so that anyone who heard it would know the steady, fearful melody drumming beneath my breast. And then the door opened. A young girl with striking green hair tied up in a ponytail stood at the other side.

"Ahhh if it isn't young Maebara-sama."

And then the image of the green haired tomboy vanished when I noticed that the voice did not match up with the face my mind conceived. It was the voice of an old man I heard, and when I heard it, the girl was gone before I could even blink and instead a man in a worn brown kimono stood there. He was just one of the Sonozaki's servants. I felt my heart calm down a bit, which made me feel no small amount of shame.

"Are you here to see the girls?" inquired the servant.

I looked at him unsurely, wondering if I had the strength to face her and see my negligence personified. "Yeah." I was surprised by the confidence in my own voice. "Well just…just Mion, actually. I-is Mion home?"

The servant nodded, motioned me inside and had me remove my shoes at the door. Then with a polite bow, he excused himself, and reminded me to knock before entering Mion's room. And when that old servant shuffled away, I swallowed hard, and felt a bead of sweat tickle my brow. I considered calling out to him and asking him if he could help me find Mion's room but I figured that would be no good. I mean, Mion's house is big—no one could blame a guy for getting lost in there—but that's not why I felt so helpless when the man suddenly abandoned me. The thing was: I wasn't sure I could make myself go to her on my own. I knew she wouldn't be mad at me…but…she still didn't know what I had done. Or rather, what I had neglected to do.

She didn't know I had seen her cry. Not just today. I'd noticed it so many times, and I did nothing.

She didn't know I had taken notice of how quiet she'd become. Not that Mion was at all silent or anything these days. In fact, most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference between this sad Mion I saw and the one they knew. But I could pick up the subtleties; the strain in her voice, how she seemed to look away from Rena and me too quickly. And apparently only I saw these signs. Me alone. So then it fell to me alone to help her. I just didn't.

If she knew that I just let her go off and cry each day…she'd hate me. And I even knew—and this most of all is why I hated myself—I even knew why she was so sad. "She loves me…"

And again, I wanted to slap myself for thinking that. How can someone think that without feeling like the most conceited son of a bitch on the face of the Earth? Why would I think I'm good enough to earn that kind of affection from her? Why do I let my own hope that she'd have the same feelings for me as I do for her masquerade as some sort of evident truth? Sure, she flirted with me, but as usual it was probably all in good fun; a playful sort of flirting simply designed to make me feel as uncomfortable as humanly possible. I had no reason to believe, let alone "know", that she…that she loved me. And yet as sure as I know that the sky is blue and that her hair is green, I knew that Sonozaki Mion loved me and that I loved her.

We were in love. Both of us. There should be no problem. "So why was she crying earlier?" I pondered. "And why am I shaking now?"

"…And how did I get here, in front of Mion's bedroom?" I muttered aloud to myself when I suddenly realized where I was standing. My legs must have gone on autopilot or something as I was mentally berating myself because I had no memory of moving from the front door to here. And as my body and its senses slowly reacquainted itself with my brain, I heard something that put pains in my chest. It was Mion. Crying. Crying so loudly that I could hear her clear as a bell on the other side of the door.

I didn't bother with knocking like the servant advised. I thought it better I caught her unawares before she had time to put her strong tomboy front up again. Normally, I would have let her do just that—but I decided I could no longer afford to be that cowardly.

"Go away, Shion!" she barked almost instantly when she heard the creaking of the door, not bothering to look over her shoulder at me from where she sat cross legged on her futon with her arms wrapped around her pillow. "I told you I didn't want to talk about it!"

I didn't dare breathe as I crept up towards her, stepping as lightly as I could, thankful I had taken off my shoes at the door. And as I was making my move, my mind was going totally ballistic because I had no idea whatsoever what I was going to do once I was within arm's reach of Mion. Should I be my regular old playful self and shout "boo!" or something to try and pretend like everything was okay? No, no I was done pretending. But then what was left? I suppose I could have just said "hi" and that could have made the whole situation a lot easier, but my tongue seemed quite content to stay glued to the roof of my mouth. Then…should I hug her? That would be a fun surprise, wouldn't it? Of course, some people might feel threatened by a pair of arms suddenly appearing around their waist.

"K-Kei-chan?" stammered a voice softly.

I looked down. My knee was about half an inch away from the tip of her nose. Dear God, I think I would have ran over her if she didn't notice me just then.

"Kei-chan?" she murmured again quietly when I remained silent, staring up at me expectantly with puffy, red eyes.

It felt like there was a pebble lodged in my throat that kept any words from escaping my gaping mouth. Why couldn't I speak? Why couldn't I say anything? I knew I shouldn't have come! I knew something like this would happen. And Mion must have sensed my regret, because before I even had time to back up she cried out "Wait!" in a cracking, tearful voice, lashing her hands out to take one of mine and keep me from retreating.

However, she soon seemed to think better of it. She released my hand, looked away bashfully at her lap as I took two paces backwards to give her some room. And then she cracked me that tomboy smile again, and I knew I was too late.

"Pfft!" she laughed, so forceful and fake that it wrenched at my heart harder than any sobbing or wailing ever could. "Y-you thought you'd just walk in my room uninvited, eh Kei-chan?" She wiped the tears from her eyes. "Thought you'd try to catch me getting changing or something?"

I said nothing. My vision began to grow fuzzy as a shiny coat of tears glossed over my purple eyes.

She sniffled. "What's the matter? Too disappointed to speak?" Another wry smile from her ran through me like a spear. Why was she lying? Why was she putting up this front because of me?

"Is uh…" she hesitated, biting her lip and wiping her eyes of fresh tears. "Is Rena with you?"

I couldn't even shake my head. And when I didn't, all she could do was stare at me and wait for an answer that would never come.

Is this what you were so upset about, Mion? Rena and I? Goofball, I wanted to call her. There was as much reason for her to be worried about me and Rena as there was for Shion to be worried about Satoko and Satoshi.

And then she stood up, and put her back to me again, shuffling awkwardly over to her shelves where she kept her menagerie of board and card games. "So long as you're here, we might as well chrism my new Chinese-Checkers set I got from Oni-baba. C'mon, I'll go easy on ya!"

"Stop…"

Mion turned to glance at me, looking as surprised as I felt that I had said that. It seemed like my body was just working by itself today.

"Stop what?" she asked, the tears in her voice gone, trapped inside her where they would drain her spirits dry like leeches.

Yes, mouth. "Stop…" what? What was I going to say?

She cocked her head at me curiously. "Kei-chan, you're acting weirder than usual." And with that she just went back to searching through her collection of games in the completely wrong location—I could see the Chinese-Checkers box sitting on the floor by her futon.

I swallowed hard and acted on a sudden urge. I stepped towards her slowly and fearfully. I had no idea what would happen next. I think I was just banking on my body to ignore my brain and do what it had to do.

I grabbed her by her shoulders and spun her around. And in spite of the look of shock and surprise in her eyes, she did not cry out as I kept my grip on her and stared deeply into her. I was shaking. My knees were wobbling; my blood had turned to fire, numbing my skin so I did not even notice the tears rolling down my cheeks. It was the tears that seemed to frighten and confuse Mion the most.

"Kei-chan…are you crying?"

Perhaps I just didn't like this girl seeing me get all teary-eyed, but for whatever reason, the next thing I did was hide my face in Mion's shoulder as I pulled her in and wrapped my arms around her tightly. But then sobbing began to escape my lips, and I knew there was no point in holding back any longer. "I'm so sorry, Mion!"

She had become unusually still and stiff and at the time it felt as though I were hugging a mannequin.

"I knew…This whole time…I knew you weren't okay. A-and I didn't do anything to help you. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

She whispered my name again ever so quietly, and instinctively I held my ear closer to her lips so I could hear her all the better. "I let you suffer like this, Mion, for I don't know how long. I'm…I'm so sorry…"

I felt a gentle hand place itself atop my head, and another cupped the side of my face, and together they gingerly pushed my head away so that I could stare directly at her. And I saw now that she was crying too. Only it wasn't the same as before…because there was a smile beneath those weepy eyes. A true smile. One of Mion's smiles that read "You're a real dork, you know that?" One of those smiles that would make me grin dumbly at whatever it was I'd just done.

And before I knew it, our smiles both were at a dangerously close distance to one another. Her warm breath made my lips tingle and my embrace around her tightened slightly as she in turn coiled her arms around me. I wanted to ask her, before we did anything, "How did we get here?" because not even two full hours ago she and I had been messing around with the club like two of the greatest friends. And now I was in her room and it seemed I wouldn't be able to ask her that question without speaking directly into her mouth.

But I didn't need to say anything. Words were useless at this point. I think that was why she and I had been doing this stupid "would-be-lovers dance" for so long. How were we supposed to just tell each other how we felt? That wasn't enough. And I think we both knew it.

And so I never did tell Mion that day how much I loved her. Nor did I tell her that Rena and I were just friends. In that one inexperienced, clumsy, beautiful kiss we shared together that day, we exchanged all we needed and wanted to say. I wrote "I love you" into her lips, and she wrote those words back to me with passion and vigor. And when all was said and done, when our smiling lips had parted and our spirits had become one, we both knew exactly what the other was trying to say in all that mess. Three words:

I am Yours.