Ana ---------------------------------------- The Morning After ---------------------------------------- Disclaimer: Shoujo Kakumei Utena and its characters are the property of Chiho Saito, Shogakukan, et al. ---------------------------------------- His seventeenth birthday party was grand and extravagant, drawing everyone he knew to the brilliantly illuminated mansion for a busy and crowded evening. His eighteenth was a quiet affair: dinner with Saionji and Nanami and Juri and Miki, familiar conversation and soft laughter. They had discussed the year, the advances they had made in the student council and in their own private clubs, the competitions they had won and lost, the memories they could share even after the seniors went to the university and the underclassman took over their positions. Nanami and Miki had sat together at the table, sharing looks and holding hands, too wary of his gently scrutinizing gaze to do anything else, and trying also to avoid the aggravatingly patronizing approval so visibly granted to them by their friends. Juri had leaned back, relaxed but ever elegant among the group, answering questions about her future plans for school and about the last time she had seen Shiori. He and Saionji had exchanged warm smiles, quarreling about the outcome of their last sparring match, refuting Juri’s claims that she could easily defeat both of them together, and making plans to try who was right. When the night had drawn nearer, Juri and Miki had parted, offering their final good wishes. Nanami had kissed him good-night and kissed Saionji good-night before running up to bed. And then he had retired to his room for a lazy, more private celebration with his truest friend. In the dark night, the birds chirped and the wind disturbed the trees sweetly, and he had at last fallen asleep next to Saionji, comfortably drowned in the silken green waves. The year that was his seventeenth had been much quieter than the tumultous events it succeeded. The whole of his existence was ultimately the same; they were small things that truly distinguished the gentleness of his life. He still harbored self-important dreams of revolutionizing the world. But it was no longer by fighting; now it was by writing a ground-breaking book or marketing an untarnished ideal or leading a country to greatness. He still led the Student Council. But it was no longer an exclusive committee that read letters it received from a mysterious sponsor and organized petty battles; now it was a body of student government, four dedicated officials working to meet the school’s desires and help its pupils. He still wore a ring on the fourth finger of his left hand. But it was no longer a stock rose signet; now it was a gold band, embedded with strips of emerald, matching only its ruby alternate on his friend’s slender hand. The Council, to its credit, had become more progressive over the months. Now all of its appointed members attended the meetings, and they were able to cooperate easily enough for there to be no serious dissension. They selected dorm assignments, looked over petitions for new classes, scheduled events, organized various occasions. There was more serious work to do, and less trivialities to distract him. Juri and Miki, he imagined, still had their problems, but he was no longer plagued by other students as he had been. Girls who had before gushed about Touga or Saionji found it equally agreeable to now gossip about Touga *and* Saionji, which infuriated the latter, but amused him to no end. When trying to find the one, students immediately seeked the other, and even the teachers never inquired about them separately. Stereotypical as it was, he found this new mold refreshing. He was able to settle down in exquisite monotony and forget about he shallow, inconstant regime he once followed. Inhibited by both respect and fear of retaliation, flatterers did not pursue him as earlier, and he was rarely tempted to sever faithfulness, held as he was by the strangely pleasant if intimidating knowledge that, if he did, more than just a heart would end up broken. It was hard sometimes, discerning his memories from his dreams. Events would come to his mind, faces and words and days, silly things that he would have dismissed as idle imaginings except that they presisted so desperately in his mind. Sometimes he dreamt things that he knew were real, and sometimes he remembered things that could only happen in dreams, and sometimes he found it difficult to identify the dream from the reality. It seemed like an elaborate fantasy that everyone had conjured up together, sometimes. When he first began remembering, they were random shards of a reality, pieces of a world he did not believe in. But then he remembered more, and it all seemed so neat in its chronology. Only when he tried to discuss it in the Council did he begin to entertain the idea that it was more than the work of boredom in a classroom. They had attempted to fit their separate pieces of memory together, for a time, before their interest slowly dwindled away and they stopped making the effort. And he knew why, in a way. It was disconcerting, remembering a reality that was so close to the one they were living in. Whenever he brought it up with his friends individually, their discomfort caused them to break away. Nanami would become frantic and paranoid and begin acting like a child again. Juri would turn frigid and would become distracted and would quickly go off to practice her fencing. Miki would smile, politely and distantly, and tap insistently on the closest surface with his finger. Saionji would grow coldly bitter and would run his hands roughly through his hair and shrink away from him. And he himself, he would start smiling more, and less sincerely, and think cruel thoughts he regretted later, and begin to feel as though his uniform were choking him. Everyone found it easier to simply dismiss the memories as a quaint absurdity, and he found after a short while that he did not object. The notion worked well enough: out of sight, out of mind. No one talked about it and so no one thought about it. The process was disrupted once, when she came back. She no longer had the simplicity, the tomboyish innocence of the girl he had once found himself slowly in love with, but she was still beautiful. Sophistication instead of naivete graced her features: the heroine whose fairy tale had ended and who was now allowed to grow up. She was with her former Bride, now her friend and companion, and he was with his own, when they saw each other at the gates of Ohtori. Sentimentality had called her back while she was in the area and she came to see the few people to whom she had truly gotten close. The four of them eventually ended in a cafe by the Academy, having lunch together while they spoke of various parts of the past year. It was an odd situation: he, who had pursued Utena so steadily less than a full year ago, and Saionji, once so insistent on having Anthy, sitting across a booth from the two girls who were practically now each other’s world, they themselves wearing matching rings and no longer entertaining the idea of being with anyone but each other. Yet the peculiarity of the circumstances added only good-natured amusement, not tension, to the conversation, and they were able to talk as if they were old friends rather than onetime hard enemies. All four clearly remembered what had happened, and what their roles in the twisted storybook had been, but no one mentioned a word about it, and they were able to focus on what they presumed their real lives now to be. It was only when they were leaving the restaurant and about to part that he finally broke the code of silence and asked his former object of fascination where her ring was, and she looked back at him openly and said that she threw it away. Then she glanced uneasily at her friend and proffered, rather than asked, if they remembered. And Saionji smiled at her kindly and said that yes, they did, and then he hugged Anthy and kissed her forehead and waited as Touga gave them his number and told them to get in touch again while they remained in the around. The warm understanding between them serving as their farewells, they separated and walked away. They were far from the cafe when he turned to Saionji and asked him, casual and confident though genuinely curious, if he had truly loved Anthy. The youth had turned to him, and, with a smile that he had learned to identify as that of a cat that slyly clawed at its neighbor while fully expecting retribution, said that there were some things, Touga, that he could not tell him. He had considered that answer, and the fact that he could easily pry it out of his friend given the right conditions, before deciding that the sacrifice of dignity would not be worth learning something that Saionji did not deem important enough to reveal. They had walked another block in silence before he heard a resigned breath and Saionji asked the natural follow-up of whether he had loved the Tenjou girl, and he shrugged and said that he did not know. Which was, for the most part, true. He had thought, that long, long time ago when the events were still unfolding around him, that he had loved her. It had been more than lust, more than fascination, certainly more than a game to play like all the rest. But time had eroded his feelings, and he honestly could not be sure anymore. And he honestly did not care. She had been a girl in his past. Whether his feelings had been true or false or absolute or insignificant did not matter; they were no longer part of his life and they were only barely part of him. He and Utena, it seemed, had both moved on and away from the fairy tale. They had grown up, and they had each grown up with the one person from their childhood they could not leave behind, but those persons were not each other. She had seemed happy with her life, and that made him glad. If this meant that he loved her, then he supposed he did. But he was happy with his own life, as well, and this made him even more glad, and he did not see any reason on concentrating on anything else. The fairy tale and his boyhood were over; reality and adulthood had begun. He looked on the two transitions the same way. He would retain the memories from both the fantasy and adolescence: some, fond recollections; some, grotesque nightmares that he buried in the back of his mind. He would keep them all, and reflect on them occasionally, and use the remembrances to enrich the life he was now living. His real life. His life of schoolwork and kendo and the Student Council and chaperoning his sister and preparing for college and spending each day and each night with the person who had been with him from infancy to childhood, through adolescence and out into the real world. The reality was sweeter than any dreams or any fantasy might have promised, and he did not think that. . . It sharp harmonizing of the birds that made him realize he was no longer asleep. The branches swayed gently outside his window, and the crisp night air was beginning to frost the edges of the panes with dew. He moved slightly, lifting his head to gain a clearer view of the slumbering crescent in the sky. A pause, and then the body next to him shifted, drawing his attention away from the endless darkness. "Touga. . ." The question was a whisper, Saionji’s tired voice hoarse and soft. "What are you doing? Go to sleep." He smiled, pulling his friend closer against him, lowering his face to rest on his shoulder. "Why would I, Kyouichi?" His left hand landed on the pillow beside Saionji’s, the twin rings glittering in a synchronized dance in the darkness. ". . .I just woke up." ---------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------