A/N: Did this one in a little under an hour for the temps_mort community, which had a ninety-minute challenge on complementary colors up this week. Love triangle-ish and yuri-ish, with Kira + Rumi, Kira + Rei, and Tatsuya x Rumi.

Kira's POV.

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"Surviving Her"

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Nighttime. Late and dark and lonely and alone in my bed like always.

I see color. Everywhere, there is color. Ceiling, floor, walls: kaleidoscope patterns scorched over my retinas and reflected all around me.

I remember, once, speaking to you and saying that you were a sad color. I never named it at the time, but now I think that it is yellow. Not the brilliant yellow of the sun, of dandelions and black-eyed susans, but the ugly, painful yellow of a half-healed bruise: not sore unless touched.

She is purple, however. Violent, passionate, purple, that loves with obsession and will never, never let go of a memory. That is dark and brooding and rich and full and so insanely ALIVE . . . that always, always hurts.

I like to watch her talk about sex. She's beautiful when she does. When she wraps her arms around herself and murmurs the stories of the way Tatsuya touches her, and my fingers start to tingle and my stomach gets hot and tight and then I want to touch her too.

I don't think that I am supposed to want that.

But then I look at her, trembling with the force of memory, and don't care.

She's so strong, so alive. Powerful, fierce purple that protects me like a man. And it wasn't always like that, but it is now so that's all that matters. She's easier to trust than you are, in fact, because she's already done everything that she can to me, and I know that I can survive her.

I don't know if I can survive you. You and your violent, ugly yellow. But wrapped in purple I feel so much safer. Purple is the night, the holy, dark warmth between the sheets. But yellow is the harshness of daylight, where there is no hiding anything.

Sometimes, there are things you need to hide. Purple lets you do that; keeps your secrets safe and private. But yellow strips everything away and lays it bare for everyone to see.

I don't want the whole world to know me. It's enough to let one or two people in and tell them about me in my own time. But yellow is too insistent, too forceful: the in-your-face reminder of past pain that won't let you go away without ripping off your skin.

However, every pain with her is fresh and new and does not fade. Because pain isn't meant to fade until you are over it. People have to live with it until they are strong enough to surpass it all and go on with their lives.

And it is a beautiful thing, pain. Because when someone gets past it, they are so much stronger and so much more glorious to look at.

She has survived very much indeed. You both have. You are both glorious.

But I'd still like to stop thinking about you with your ugly yellow and her with the painful purple now. It's not working, though.

Insomnia's a bitch.

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* fin *

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. : when you come to me, I see the rainbow of light, spreading colors of love all through the night : .