This is the first fic about Juri I have ever written, and only my fourth "Utena" fic; feedback would be most appreciated, ^_^ I can't understand what I am doing wrong if people don't offer me constructive criticism on how to improve! But…yes. This is a Juri-orientated fic, mostly based on the remarkable symbolism of the three chairs apparent in episode 29, 'Azure Paler Than The Sky.' This fic takes place at the end of that episode, and is really just my take on what the heck just happened. Of course, I may be utterly wrong about her feelings, but I wrote this just to sort out some things in my own head. I think maybe I should have stuck to the essay, because it's easier to be wrong there, O_o

Feel free to drop me a line if you have a comment at luna_dreamscape@hotmail.com. As always, I hide behind a disclaimer; I don't own any of these characters and to be frank, I wouldn't want to. Think of how much this series would drive me crazy if I was SUPPOSED to know what happened, [laughs]

*****

Musical Chairs

*****

"She looked at the steps; they were empty; she looked at her canvas; it was blurred. With a sudden intensity, as if she saw it clear for a second, she drew a line there, in the centre. It was done; it was finished. Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision."

~ To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf

*****

The shadows grow long.

It's interesting to watch them, you know. Sometimes I like to watch the shadows creep across the floor; often it feels as if they are trying to tell me something in silent sing-song voices. I'm not sure what that might be, however.

I am sure that they were trying to tell me something today.

The chairs have changed. I don't know who changes them. I wonder, actually, if I want to know who comes in here, and knows us so intimately, intimately enough to press these chairs into the conformation of our myopic minds.

Oh, no. No. No, only two of us had myopic visions. The third, our apex, he had a vision. I never really realised it until the end…until now. I wonder, actually, if I even truly wanted to see his vision. After all, he has shown me that all miracles demand of us a sacrifice, and in showing me a miracle, he offered up a sacrifice of his own.

I don't know what I would have done had I known that then. I don't even know now what I would have done. I have all this time to think about it, now that it is over, and still I have no idea what might have happened had I understood him at all.

Yes, these damned chairs. Chairs. It's odd, what effect chairs can have on your life. I'd never thought about them much until today, but that seems to be the thing about a lot of the artefacts of Ohtori Academy. They seem so ordinary, but if one to look beneath their surface…ah, perhaps then there would be something more.

I didn't really notice these chairs, even when they were arranged in their original conformation. At least, not consciously. Isn't that strange? Now that I think about them, I can remember so clearly the way the were when this was all just beginning.

It was only when it all stopped – as it has stopped now – that I truly realised what these chairs mean.

I suppose I should not be surprised that I never realised their significance. I…all of us, all of us who preside above the Academy in our balcony over the grounds, we care so very little for the lives of the others. Too wrapped up in ourselves, in our own problems…and even now that I realise that, even though I know that I have been one of the most exquisitely selfish creatures in this savage garden we call Ohtori, I can't do anything about it. My problems have become woven into my life too tightly. The web…can not be broken as easily as he thought.

But then I wonder if he ever thought that this would be this easy…or if he ever understood it would be this hard.

I am not sure what constitutes freedom. Thrusting off the shackles of imprisonment hardly seems enough – I've done that before, after all. I threw the locket into the water, as if that flowing, cleansing element could take all the pain I had locked into that pendant and disperse it freely into the world, away from my heart.

It came back to me; I still do not understand how. I can't remember the circumstances of that time too clearly as it is. I remember Shiori returning, I remember my heart screaming that it could not hold a love like that anymore, no matter how I chained it up. But the memory grows faded. It takes upon itself a…a movie-like quality. A projection, of sorts. I threw the locket away. I found it again within the school buildings. Shiori and I, we talked sometimes, the awkwardness of an old friendship with too many criss-crossing and misunderstood undercurrents.

That was not freedom, no, that was what I needed to be freed from. At least, that is what Ruka believed, or so I have come to understand it. He said…he said to those…whoever they were…that he wanted to free her…me. I can't quite understand what he meant by that, but the thought is there no matter what else is there as well. He wanted to free me.

I wonder how he defines…defined…freedom.

I should write the letter. It might help me think better – I always feel so much more in control when I write letters. I hear people talk about me behind my back; they think I am some kind of statue. Some kind of stone. I bleed, like they do, you know. I've bled so much lately. It is actually because of the fact that I am human that I can not confront people verbally – I'm afraid of losing that poise. That poise is all that separates me from the world. It's the only shield I have.

So, I write letters.

It's something of an ironic convenience now, though. It's almost like it was planned. I couldn't speak to Ruka face to face now even if I wanted to.

But how did he define freedom? I don't think it was like I did. I…freedom would be a demonstration of strength, in my estimation. I'm not strong at all, I can't face my feelings. I lock them away, physically and metaphorically. Freedom, to me, would be the ability to be free with those feelings. To speak of my mind, my heart, and know that every word I spoke was easy, true, simple.

I think freedom, to my old friend Ruka, was the ability to walk away from that which claimed a hold over your heart as both lay in pieces at your feet. And in that, I think he was much stronger than I have any hope of being.

I lean my head down, and I set to the task of writing my letter.

Ruka,

I imagine that this letter comes as something of a surprise to you. Given the circumstances of our parting, I suppose that I am not able to blame you for wondering if we would ever meet again, be that meeting in person or across the words of a letter. Still, though we both understand altogether too well my cowardice in matters of personal feelings, I can not let this go so easily. It would be unkind. It would not be fair to you, and I have been too unfair in my treatment of you as it is.

I didn't understand why it was that you came back to Ohtori Academy. I would like for that to be the sole reason why I behaved so badly to you when it should have been obvious to me that you were testing the waters, so to speak. After all, you had always been that way, hadn't you? Pushing me and pushing me to see how far back I would go before I would push right back. That was the way you taught me to fence, after all. You pushed me so hard that eventually I would not wait to be pushed. I would bulldoze over any opponent the second they stepped into my line of sight, and you knew it. It was the way you taught me to deal with what was before me, after all.

I wonder perhaps is that is why it baffled you so. My attitude towards Shiori, I mean. I never pushed at her. I let her run me into the ground, first with obliviousness and then with disgust, and I did not lift a finger to stop her. I wonder, sometimes. I wonder if the reasons why you did not want to watch this happen are firmly embedded in the fact that you were my teacher, and you felt that in a way you had failed in your task simply because Juri could not face her most galling obstacle with her head held high and her sword held firm.

It's actually very easy for me to believe that. I think that I would prefer to believe that. Maybe it is unkind to put it that way, Ruka, but then I think this entire situation has proved that I can not just forget the way I have behaved. It is, after all, very much a part of me, and has been for a long time. Maybe that is why it feels so peculiar to know that when I raise my hand to my throat, the chain of the necklace won't brush against my fingers.

But whatever your reasons for returning and whatever I believed those reasons to be actually were probably doesn't matter. I treated you unkindly. Somehow, you used that unkindness to do what it was you had come to do. And in that, I fear that you believe that you have made me hate you. Ruka, whatever passed for friendship between us once is still there – for I do not hate you. I think maybe that is the point of this letter…not to say thank you. Though I would do that if I knew how a person is supposed to say thank you for something that they can not even articulate, nor even comprehend fully. No, I want to say that I do not hate you. I'm not sure that I could, even if I had wanted to. Nothing is going to change that, not even the game that I am still so faintly a part of.

Yes, even though I feel my part has been played out with your departure, I know that this is not quite the end; you have given me a great gift in ensuring I may leave this Academy one day, but until the last move is made, I am still a piece able to be played. You understand that, don't you? You were a part of the Seitokai, once, though I feel you have done the remarkable and bowed out early, before the final curtain. You know of the game they call the Duels, the manner in which this game is played out. Nothing is ever said and we move as little more than marionettes. I have always realised this, deep in my heart, and I rather suspect that Miki and Touga know it just as well. Saionji knows, and has always known, I suspect; that is perhaps the reason why he was so irrational when it came to the game as it was.

But you…you knew from the beginning. Didn't you? You knew it was all a game and we were not the players of the game, merely the pieces. You did not rebel against this as we have wanted to do, to bring about this so-called Revolution that not one of us truly understands, not even Tenjou herself. You did not care for the Revolution at all, did you? Or if you did, it was not for the same reasons that we did…I was so angry with you in the beginning, you know. Angry, and frustrated…but then, weren't you just as frustrated as me? I look back and I see that I treated you as Shiori treated me, in the way that I could not be forced to do what you wanted me to do, not matter how noble your intentions or feelings. And yet, you managed to do something I never could do for Shiori…instead of breaking the chains that constrain my heart, as I know you wanted to do, you found a way to show me how to do it for myself…and in doing so, perhaps you showed me that…what precisely did you show me? Sometimes I think I know, and then it slips away from me like a balloon on the breeze, a ripple passing over the surface of a fountain.

I was angry with you, yes…but now…now the anger is gone, Ruka, and I fear that I don't understand you at all. In that I fear what has become of the remarkable thing that you did for me. Because even though I do not understand how you could be a mere piece and yet control your own movements and that of others…I understand that you did this for a reason. I want to believe that your spell here in the Academy was what you wanted, that I am not wasting your gift, though I can not see it.

Do you even know what I am talking about, or am I just jumping at shadows? Ruka, I just…I…I wish I understood what it was that you have done for me…and perhaps, for yourself as well. Are you doing well?

The next time we meet ...there's one thing I really want to ask. What hopes had you entrusted to the Power of Miracles? And who were they for? I pray that they come true.

I am not sure that my letter makes any sense…for I can not write what I really wish to. If Ruka did in fact give me the power of miracles, then how am I to thank him for such a thing? Because I do feel it, in my heart…something has been washed away. The chain of my necklace was broken and the rose cast open, the photo inside sullied by rain and shards of broken glass. It can't be returned to me now, and I can not go to retrieve it…if indeed it still exists atop the duelling arena. I suspect it does not, and I have a stronger suspicion that even though I continue to wear the Bara no Kokuin I will be unable to ascend those stairs again, or step aboard the gondola one last time.

But whether or not it makes sense…that may be irrelevant. Perhaps what is most important is simply the fact that I have written this letter at all. Ruka will understand what it is that I can not say. After all, if he did not understand me, the few days he spent at the Academy are a legend of luck and coincidence and nothing more, aren't they?

…aren't they?

I will go post this letter now. This letter to Ruka. Something whispers to me – something always whispers in the dark to me! – that there is so very little point, but who are they to tell me what to believe now?

Who are they indeed.

Maybe he loved me, maybe he did not. That is not what truly matters to me, at any rate. Love is simply and only love, after all, and what have I ever truly known about love anyway?

Shiori…I loved Shiori. Whether or not that love was "right" or not is immaterial. Whether or not Shiori's change in heart towards me is true or false is immaterial. What matters is that I did in fact love her, and now that love is…not gone. No, never that. Just…simply…resolved. I have never known until this moment how peaceful that kind of closure can be…but while one piece of my heart is quietened, I fear that another portion will not have that.

You have to understand, you see, that now one can never know what he truly felt towards me, nor what I truly felt towards him, because…because he is lost to me. I cannot understand a man I can no longer see displayed before me – if indeed one can ever truly understand the mind of a person not ourselves.

Still. Ruka, he is not lost to me entirely. Even though I said so very little to him that evening, those painful last moments in the sky, suspended like marionettes atop that Duel Arena…something passed between us. I can't explain it – I have tried to disprove the power of miracles ever since I first believed I was cursed to desire the impossible, but that moment was itself a miracle. It was as if Ruka were inside me, and I think he still is.

Ruka was my friend.

And that is all that truly matters in the end. Our friendship was far from conventional, but then, when has this world we live in ever claimed that adjective? We weave our own twisted tapestries, and even if this letter does not reach Ruka, in writing it I feel that he has already listened to what I have to say. It makes so little sense. But then, in this nonsense – both that of this aftermath and that of the actual events – perhaps there is something that I needed to know.

James Joyce called it an epiphany. A moment when one realises something that they did not know before; a moment when, for a second in time, everything fits into place. I remember he said a line upon the subject that stuck with me in a story of a man's epiphany… "His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead."

I remember the rain storm and I think of those lines. That rain, perhaps it washed us both clean. Neither of us were innocent…ah, but it fell upon the living and the dead. It fell upon Ruka and me.

These chairs, they're so odd to look at…though I'm only looking at one now.

I said it, didn't I? Someone comes in here, and they move the chairs. I know they do…because Shiori's chair. It's moved. It's pointing towards me even as I continue to point at her.

But Ruka, Ruka, the one covered by the snow, his chair, it is gone.

Gone.

As if it were never even there.

Who moves the chairs? Who seeks to govern our destinies? I do not know, but when the thought bothers me…it's peculiar. I can hear Ruka's voice, somewhere deep inside me.

("Juri...don't worry. Don't worry…Juri.")

I think he came here, seeking to give me an epiphany, a moment of truth. He threw into my face in that car my own words, as if I were a fool for believing them, but I think he was merely asking me in a roundabout way what would make me believe.

And somehow, without my even telling him, he knew. He knew my vision, he knew my epiphany.

He knew my miracle.

And that was my release.

As I have said so many times, someone has been moving the chairs. Who knows? Maybe it was more than one person. I think I hear the shadows laughing sometimes; you can never be too sure with anything within Ohtori's walls.

I think I won't listen to them anymore. I'll take control of my own destiny.

I rise from my chair, and I turn it slightly.

Striding across the floor, I still hear his voice in my head.

("Juri. Shinpai nai. Shinpai nai, Juri.")

"Shinpai nai…ka?"

But when I say it this time, an echo from before, I am smiling.

("Come to think of it, he was always saying: "I want to give the Power of Miracles to the one I love. I want to free her.")

My chair, it is facing his, and even though his is gone…oh, I can feel it.

It is turned to me, too.

*****

O, learn to read what silent love hath writ:

To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.

~ Sonnet 23,William Shakespeare