ZM8rW`һp"cjbWcy"H٥H<'[3(U L&߇or6h?_Z7Y'{J?)&KZ{Mrկi1q;]oἳ.Gk!ͱ.v)Ov{ރOm~.cpjdy2_[^qLuKN+ X5[i؋qq4bQO8{)hxs>r9uNxX# G?D"t<~le5x 9Nusފؽ/vz2M&a@<5p%nsg{u'\{Q/\?evȣNt\s,z{p>*6`]l'a|juЧy3O^̟ RMyH4:K w7s>sM%U*ZZAV}Nq|SO>͙v,SP#éM]qWڃgvf>;43,(n=WKr]3L Xb K1x[ 0VwY/PxWW=18ᡗ<]n@c{;+4y?_6>]u캰;L|{nO4vgz"FKC}S0pq8x5pCk2mj?Yri}հHpLfK*/@hKc/LpFR#ͺQ]|4骖tDM$I<-4%GׄɒVӨ(ml[TfN]`X3HALc1X#ii l%pt߅H-`0NL G<1&jC,^+iIG><_ܠĮ)j0k Y8S.`;B\`ėh$AC,']z>W0?[=;"6Ϯ2wp b}ߺ0v@9.B-$ub0,?`"^ 3wY̨̧0֨Dh3H"NJR!P\eUׅx\#R`6e%HWm&&\Hٰ!θ~gB]7@mO5yT\ $?80}$ָQc.zF4}{?^,'!{2K&x45 B#i3̴̳"RzqFc5aU QŴ@BwcbUVM(USνI ,\)5w0KOBkN1nFRݙ?ԈP=('ϳj7mj('P}OyC+ ٲAIY]K:.w;"o Cݺ넰*\ ݾc83 u>B*_¯Nm*i㾌{ԑd 'g2)ȩm*Z#:!+Ù??^x.M#2\Jv+HB^AZÉ(U`o#0aF餧;Uأ}OEkW$ƒKp+'8|,Zd^Rʕf,dk(+QuG.s[_^96`;e)GVܟ/V@1vE5eN( !QgsiɽoqEgkE(GA?(Hxv*o(Qcdj>GD!D 9{77݈|"hyTEaۀ/4"Ue>Xe$h6Q]+E>JF 2ě atf{4[f*7ࠦ~ۃjOyD^ e:bGQZJ,N؏M҅H,#砰c˩֮)u8hQBn"Eas[`$]E^(QnnQU97^\l|7Hx HU#LA򅜴 ޫ +Č[+*ԁArܟu>]cX8 cU&R+P9"N$k""}y6׀ّ0HV`3-2urݫZ]Fɼ3كOuXD9-M i&fYmY|.Xe that something still wasn't quite right. You insisted that the wedding date be moved up to the day after my graduation, for one thing, and that seemed very strange, given that I knew you didn't really love me. Oh, I thought you could *learn* to love me, and I was absolutely infatuated with you, (although, to be honest, I'm not entirely sure of when that happened, given that you were my father's choice at first, and not really mine, but somewhere, somehow . . .) or I wouldn't have let the wedding go ahead. And . . . well, I know Touga Kiryuu was your friend--except that, as it turns out, he, too, was most definitely more than that--but you never spoke to him again, and he never came looking for you. You threw yourself into your paperwork as though, by doing so, you could keep your demons at bay. I told myself that the little wrongnesses, the brittleness I sensed in you, would disappear after you got used to her not being there anymore. But it didn't. Oh, you went on much the same way as you always had for another three years, but I think I spent that entire time waiting for the other shoe to drop. And then it did, although I'm still not sure exactly how or why. All I know is that you came home one day about six months ago, in the middle of the afternoon, mumbling something about a "Rose Bride", whatever that's supposed to mean, and drank yourself into a stupor. You started wearing black the next day, and you've been refusing, ever since, to leave the house or perform any of your duties as Chairman of Ohtori Academy's Board of Trustees. I've been doing most of those. If Dad hadn't died last year, it would break his heart. And then, tonight . . . Oh, dear gods, tonight . . . Most of the house was dark when I got home, but that wasn't anything especially unusual, and I didn't think anything of it at first. It was late, after all, and the servants had probably all gone to bed by that time, and I thought you had as well. So I went to the back parlor, which I had noticed *was* lit, intending just to shut the light off and then go to bed. Instead, I found you. You were sitting in one of the big old heavy chairs that are the main reason that room hasn't seen much use since my grandparents' day, asleep. Or at least, I thought you were just asleep until I saw the bottle and glass on the endtable, and the empties on the floor beside the chair. And even then, I didn't know that there was anything especially wrong. I thought you were just drunk, which was annoying but has been happening an awful lot lately. Then I got closer, and I saw. The blood was dripping from shallow gashes in your wrists, which you had apparently inflicted on yourself with the object that you held in your hands. I think it's part of a sword-- something with a rounded handle long enough for you to grip it comfortably and an inch-wide, razor-sharp blade snapped off to a length of about half a foot, anyway. Thankfully, you'd passed out before doing yourself any real damage. There was something white lying in your lap: a note. I can't read much of it, since your blood apparently dripped all over it while the ink was still wet and made it run, but I can make out "I can't do it without her--it won't open for me alone" and something about there being "no more miracles left". I'm still not quite sure what that means, and at the time, I didn't *care*. I was too busy tearing strips from my blouse so that I could bandage your cuts, then, slowly, by stages, hauling you upstairs to the bedroom. It wasn't until I'd already gotten you up onto the bed that I noticed what state our room was in. You always forbade me to open that chest. You kept it locked, and carried the key around in your pocket. In almost four years of marriage, I never saw what was inside. Until tonight. You must have thrown the clothes aside when you were looking for the sword-shard, because I found them on the floor near the foot of the bed. White trousers and a white jacket styled not unlike the old Student Council uniforms, but with more elaborate decorations. Clothes that I had never seen you wear, but, tailored as they were, they couldn't have belonged to anyone else. It wasn't until I'd picked them up and shaken them out, wondering, that I noticed that the chest was sitting just outside the closet, open. And, like Pandora, I just had to peek inside. Most of what's in there . . . Well, I'd heard of most of those things, and even seen some of them when a girlfriend of mine had hauled me into an "adult toy store" as a kind of joke, but I had never guessed that you might own any of them. And they look like they've seen a lot of use, some of them. Velvet and leather spotted with old stains . . . There was a familiar-looking envelope lying on top, and I grabbed it. Photographs. They couldn't be dangerous to my sanity, could they? Not like what was underneath them. Dear gods, I was so naive. I expected the other girls. I'm not stupid enough to have ever believed that you were a virgin on our wedding night. I knew about your reputation, but told myself that once you were married, you would settle down. And it's true that none of the pictures seem to be from after we got married. Was there no one else after you landed me, or did you just not take photographs of them? The one with the pink hair mystifies me, though. She's the only one who wasn't in a compromising pose when you took her picture, and I have the weirdest feeling that I should recognize her, even though I'd swear that I've never seen her before in my life. I wasn't exactly expecting the photo of you in the white outfit, jacket open and hair down, sprawled over the hood of your car, with an expression on your face that made you look like the Devil Himself, but I didn't exactly find it objectionable. In fact, under other circumstances, I would have been drooling over it. It's a side of you that I don't think I've ever seen before, because you've always kept it so tightly controlled when you're around me. You look so very different in that picture--arrogant, powerful, dangerous. Regal, almost, in a nasty sort of way. I think I understand now why so many nice girls are attracted to bad boys. But it's the other pictures that bother me. I suppose I should have been prepared for the one of you and Touga Kiryuu. To be honest, I think what shocked me wasn't so much that you'd been sleeping with him as the position you had yourselves photographed in. I can't believe that you let him do such things to you. It shouldn't bother me so much, not with everything else that I've found out tonight, but there's something in my brain that just . . . seizes up . . . when I try to think of you like that. And the other one, the last picture, is even worse. The girls I don't really mind. I think I'll even be able to tolerate the thought of you with Touga, once I get over the shock. But how could you sleep with *your own sister*?! That's . . . sick. Just sick. I honestly don't know what I'm going to do with you. You need help desperately, but I know you won't talk to a psychiatrist, not when you won't even talk to me. Huh. There's another, smaller envelope inside the first. I didn't notice that before. No familiar Fujifilm logo on this one, though. I wonder what's inside. More pictures. Black-and-white photographs that have to be at least thirty years old. Relics of your childhood? Let's see. But that's impossible! He has to be your father. Or an uncle. Or even an older brother. But, no, I know I'm lying to myself. The man in the second picture is *you*. You exactly as you are now. Wearing that same white outfit. But judging from the hairdo on the girl with you, and what I can see in the background, this picture is decades old. What *are* you? No one can stay unchanging, unageing, for that long. It just . . . isn't possible. Maybe you are the Devil. Or . . . something else? *Ohtori*. You took the name when you were adopted into our family, but I wonder if it fits you better than we ever knew. The Phoenix. The mythical bird that immolates itself, only to be reborn stronger and more beautiful than before. But something went wrong this time, didn't it? Instead of vanishing in a blaze of glory to be reborn, you burned down to ashes. Your sister did something, or failed to do something, and it went all wrong. I think I'm going to ask you to explain, when you wake up. Maybe there's something I can do to help. I don't know what. But I love you, Akio, and I'll do anything for you, anything at all, if it means that I won't lose you. The End E. Liddell eliddell@puc.net http://ejlddll.virtualave.net -- My fan fiction http://lightning.prohosting.com/~eliddell/utena/ -- Utena graphics --------------------------------------------------------- "One tacky fairytale artefact per expedition is about my limit." --------------------------------------------------------- UtenaCode(1.0) U:6- F:To+++Mk+:pOA D:CC X:*:a39++ M:f"Internal Clock, Municipal Orrery"