Author's Notes

This was originally planned to be a oneshot, but then the idea just grew. Hopefully won't be impossibly long though. Got enough of those…

Apparently the twins were born in 1993. Therefore add eleven years (twelve for English Dub) and you get the year they went to the Digital World, give or take a year. That's 2004.

Enjoy, and take note of the little blue button at the bottom of the page. Well, it comes up blue in my browser anyway…

All Things End with Home

'He always said I was going to die first.'-'Perhaps there isn't a reason for these things. - 'Perhaps there isn't a reason for anything.'-'I don't believe that. There has to be.' Char death.

Kouichi K & Kouji M

Prologue

It wasn't raining, but the weather was still pretty dreary. The green blades of grass glimmered with traces of late night dew catching the rays of light the lamps sent. Despite that, it was still rather dark, and if not for the torch he would have walked straight past his destination despite his intention. The yellow beam of light washed over gravestone after gravestone, reading off names that meaning absolutely nothing to him, vanishing into the abyss of his mind as his lips mouthed them carefully to make sure he didn't miss his stop.

He stopped momentarily at a particular grave before moving on. The surname was the same…but then again, it was a very common name.

It took a little longer till he found the right one, and when he did he dropped his load and sunk to his knees in front of the stone. For a moment he just stayed there, before stretching out a tentative hand to run his fingers over the engraving. Even in the dim light, he had no problem reading them, the words on the front of the monument.

Minamoto Kouji

1993 – 2007

The space beneath it was empty. Sometimes there was a quote or a small epiphany carved under the name. Sometimes there was a name of a spouse. Sometimes there was nothing, in which case the text that did exist was centred rather than crowded up the top.

The only time it was left empty like that was when they had been expecting another family member to die at or around the same date.

His fingers still smoothed over the stone, perfect, without a crack. The digits curled into a fist, and for a moment he wanted to shatter that blasted grey moment into a thousand fingers, but instead he brought it towards his chest, clutching it tight as his body shook. He fought the instinct to lower his head, even as the start of tears started forming, collating on his lashes.

'I-I'm sorry,' he began, voice shaking as well as the rest of his frame. 'I should have come earlier, but I just…I couldn't…' He shook a little more. It really hadn't been his fault though. As it was, his father and stepmother were going to freak out, but he just couldn't take it anymore. Of course, no-one was thinking about that at the time.

He straightened up the curled fingers, eventually forcing them straight when they refused to cooperate. For another few moments he sat in silence, before reaching into the bundle he was carrying before removing a brush and working to remove the light dust that had settled on the scene.

After a while, it was hard to see what he was doing.

There was so many things reeling through his head, but nothing was formulating into any sort of coherence.

'There's so many thing I want to say, but…' The brush fell, and he made no move to pick it up. It fell on the path of the torch beam in any case. Chances were he wouldn't miss it. 'I guess I just don't know how to say. Or what to say really.'

He picked up the flowers he had brought, carefully arranging them.

'I brought some sweets. And you're probably wondering why I brought roses when you hate them.' He didn't even know why the words were coming out of his mouth. Maybe because he had to say something, no matter how meaningless, how crazy…

'You hated it because of all the different colours, the ambiguity of the name where it could mean flowers no-one would ever think to be "roses". They're symbol of romance and beauty, too "girly". They meant secrets…though that one was my fault. I told you all about how they use a wild rose in Rome to signify a secret or confidential matter. It's where the phrase sub rosa came from. You remember that right? Under the rose?'

He took a deep, shaking breath.

'And the five petals, how they represent the five wounds of Christ…and we're not even Christian. The national flower of England, the floral emblem of the United States…we're Japanese. And it's a symbol of social democracy in a truckload of countries out West. The White Rose was a symbol in World War II of a non-violent resistance group in Germany. And a red rose is an unofficial symbol of Catalonia. Not to mention it's apparently an ingredient of love potions.'

He looked at the flowers.

'I threw in a red one you know. White, pink, yellow, orange, lilac and some you really hated because you couldn't make up your mind what colour it was supposed to be.'

The tears were flowing freely now.

'But I didn't put them into a bouquet. I brought a different one; I know what sort of flowers you preferred too. I followed you to the flower shop before we first met, remember? But single roses…you hate all those sublime messages too though. You probably don't even remember which is which. But single roses, they mean: I still love you. But I shouldn't have to tell you that…should I?'

Any onlooker would have a hard time distinguishing his words from his sobs.

'Dammit,' he cried, dropping his hands again. 'Why the hell did you have to be wrong? You always said I was going to die first. That I was too reckless and got myself into those sorts of situations. But it was you who did something stupid, and you…and I'm…'

He stopped talking altogether then, trying to get himself under control before picking up the water basin. His hands still shook, causing some of the water to slosh to the sides before he poured it carefully over the monument. The result was that the petals and leaves kept the little drops of water as well as the grass kept the late night dew.

'On the bright side, you'll finally get to meet 'baa-chan. Say "hi" to her for me, and to 'kaa-san…'

Somehow, a simple "hi" didn't even skim the surface of what he wanted to say, but he had the same problem. He couldn't work out what he wanted to say.

Nor did he think he could have said it. His chest fell so heavy, and his lungs would give him the air he needed no matter how hard he tried.

The wet grass masked the sound of footsteps, but even the torch was enough to shed a shadow over him. He didn't say anything, just took a few deep breaths and brought his hands as close to his heart as he could, clutching the fabric as his jaw clenched.

'Winter might be gone, but it's still pretty cold.'

Those words were accompanied by the sound of rustling cloth and then a jacket suddenly fell onto his shoulders, helping to slightly guard against the chill. Automatically, a pale hand lost its grip and came up to grasp it, but when he made to pull it a little more securely around himself, he realised just what jacket it was. Or rather, whose jacket it was.

When he did, the jacket fluttered to the ground with a startled gasp.

'Hey now. It is cold you know.'

The jacket came back around his shoulders, accompanied by brown hands to prevent him from shaking or brushing it off. Not that he tried to; it was more of a limp sort of reaction as the scent of his brother's jacket wafted in the air. Sooner or later, it would reach his nose.

'What are you guys doing here?' It was supposed to come out emotionlessly, but his voice sounded so cracked and weak that it rather lost its effect. Instead, it sounded like the voice of a vulnerable, lonely child.

Takuya kept his hands around the other's shoulders, and Izumi joined them both, picking up the remains of the other's load, along with the flashlight. When she moved the beam away from the grave, its light fell onto the engraving on the next, showing the name: Kimura Tomoko along with the years of birth and death, the latter being the same as her son as well as on every in-date calendar in the world.

'We were looking for you.' That was Junpei, standing a little behind the others, an umbrella in one hand. 'We had a feeling you'd be here, especially seeing as it's the middle of the night and all…' He trailed off, giving the only female a look. Perhaps he was expecting to be elbowed in the stomach.

'In any case,' Izumi said quietly. 'You should go home. It's late, and your parents are worried.'

Kouichi's eyes fell again, the blue glistening with nothing save tears and the barest threads of life.

'I-I can't…not right now…'

The breeze blew in around that time, stinging his eyes and drying up the water treks left from his tears. He trembled, this time more from the cold than anything else, reaching up to pull the jacket…his brother's jacket…closer around his thin and pale frame.

Izumi opened her mouth to say something again, but Junpei took a step forward and placed a hand on her shoulder. When the blonde looked up at him, he shook his head slowly, quietly.

'Wait,' he mouthed silently.

She turned back and obeyed, bringing her own hands (gloved) close to her chest to hide their own trembling.

Even the grass trembled in the dim light, swaying to and fro in the wind, losing its hue as the small water droplets rolled off, evaporating into the air, carried away from the sudden gust…before it fled, leaving them all cold, dry and empty.

'This isn't really the time,' Takuya said eventually, tightening his half-embrace. 'Come on, let's go back.'

'I-I can't…I need to-'

They only partially understood. After all, they had the chance to say goodbye, unlike him. They weren't his twin, the resultant bond which had brought him so close to death again the grave before them had almost held two sets of bones instead of one. They weren't the ones who had lost a mother and a brother so close together, seeing neither, hearing neither…

But they had all felt that overwhelming pressure, the need to say or do something but not knowing what.

The spare hand came up to rub off the salty feeling left by his tears, and he breathed again, once, twice, a third time…

'Come on,' Takuya repeated. 'You can come back. No-one's going anywhere.'

He thought for a moment. And then he shook his head. For a moment it looked like he was going to drag them both forward, seize the grave in a fervour with both hands and clutch it like a dying man…and no-one would have been surprised.

But he didn't. He simply knelt in the grass and dirt as his hand lost its grip on the jacket again.