Thoughts of You
by: ryquest
What do I feel – truly feel – when I look at you?
Onii-sama has asked me the same question, mocking me even as he knew I struggled daily to keep you from penetrating the hidden recesses of my heart. How verily I guarded myself against the onslaught of your almost cruel kindness. How I knew that your warmth and affection masked a hidden longing, a desire you perhaps could not name in your innocence.
The same yearning you roused within me, perhaps.
It goes beyond friendship, this relationship we share. Yet it remains bereft of lust, for in your nobility there is little room for the wanton longings of the flesh. In your desire to protect you see past my need to be held, sometimes; to simply be lost in the urgent, passionate release that feverish mating seems to bring. He offers me that in our nights together, when you slumbered and dreamt of a prince.
That which I almost ardently wish you could give me, in his place.
And you could not, my Engaged One, because you are but a girl who desires to be a prince. Because you are fraught to the same weaknesses from which I had succumbed to, which have doomed me to my fate as a witch. You could not see past your own need, your fervent pride; you hold to your rose-colored view of the world wherein there are princesses to be protected, and princes to shield them.
You could not possibly be a prince, for I am not your princess. Nor could I be one, other than in that fragmented dream that had tormented me that night. When, bereft of both you and my brother, when I have sent you out to deliver roses knowing what is to befall you in his arms, I simply lost myself in my longing to be your bride in all honesty, in simplicity, in truth.
There is such singular joy in hoping. And an even greater pain in knowing that there is nothing to hope for.
So how do I really feel when I look at you, Utena-sama?
I do not know, for certain, for feeling is what I had ultimately forbidden of myself.
It robs me of certainty, this strange feeling that awakens in me when I behold her.
On the surface, she is a quiet, introspective girl lost in her own world, happily living her life away from the glare, given to tending her roses in solitude. Yet I knew her existence masked deep secrets, unspoken realities that invariably intrude into her being able to live life as any normal young girl would. Behind that inscrutable gaze is locked a wellspring of sadness that I long to free her from.
Tears that I ache to take as my own.
Yet I knew she would not let me, just as she has never let me completely into her confidence. Oh yes, we were friends, and she has been considerably more open than she has been when I had first come to know her. When I had inadvertently gained the Rose Bride upon winning a duel of which the real intent I had no knowledge of at the time. Since then, I have been in numerous duels to protect her and keep her beside me, though the true purpose for such encounters still elude me.
She is a strange girl, this Himemiya Anthy to whom I am Engaged. It is a strangeness that I have come to find endearing, however. There is something that lurks in her eyes when we glance at each other at night, when we hold hands just before falling asleep. It is during those times when I find her most open, when I long to put my arms around her and make her world as safe and normal as it possibly could be.
But what is normal, truly? Is it normal for a girl to pretend to be a prince, to try to emulate the noble character of a dream that might not exist in reality at all? Do I even want to meet that prince again, knowing that all that I have to come to cherish lately will change with the onset of another reality?
It is certainly confusing, this onslaught of feelings. For even as I long to feel your brother's touch, taste his lips on mine, I long even more to hold your hand, to look into your eyes and discover for myself all the secrets that you keep from me. Perhaps I long to be a princess, finding my prince astride his great white horse, beaming gently even as he swept me into his arms. Other times, I see myself on that horse, only it is I who will sweep you away into a safe haven we can come to call our own.
Still, there is a simple certainly in my life that I cling to more than any other. That is the certainly that she is beside me still.
Note: This is a rather short Anthy/Utena fic from both their POVs. I've always been fascinated by how nuanced and dynamic their interaction in the anime can be. I'm hoping that I could somehow capture part of the richness that defines their relationship in SKU. Comments and/or recommendations certainly welcome. Ja, arigato!