Utena does not entirely understand how they are here, and no longer in Ohtori. Anthy tries very hard to explain how this is the case (her lips crease into a thin line, her eyes narrow, whenever Utena asks) but it seems like something that is beyond both their understanding; a shared out-of-body-experience, or something.
They ultimately decide it's not worth mulling over. It's never clear if Anthy is just as ignorant as Utena or if she knows something she cannot articulate.
"I looked for you," she says, "and I found you. Because I was looking."
For whatever reason, that makes sense.
They buy a house about fifty miles outside of Lyon. Anthy speaks French and Utena doesn't, so she does the grocery shopping once a week while Utena waters the weeds and familiarizes herself with the forms of être. It's boring, but in a comforting, grown-up sort of way. When she feels like it, she watches the English programs since thinking about her home country is still a source of loneliness and dread. She makes some rudimentary attempts at home improvement and does her stretches.
The house itself is a wreck, but they both love it that way; all rickety wood and leaking roofs. The architecture is as far from gothic as possible, and there's no garden-only weeds and wildflowers, which they tend to completely out of spite. The house had rose bushes when they moved in but they cut them down immediately.
It's so odd, isn't it, Utena thinks, how normal it all feels. She went straight from high school to independent adulthood, from one end of the world to the other, and it all feels at least (for lack of a better term) safe. She kisses Anthy when she feels like it and most nights they share a bed.
Anthy never ties up her hair now, never cuts it. It falls in wild curls down past her waist, almost animalistic, in contrast with the airy sundresses she's taken to dressing in. She wears glasses when reading and only sparingly. She avoids the ruined garden out back and takes her tea indoors, three times a day but never at the same time; she collects porcelain monkeys and they both feel sad looking at them.
"Where did he go, do you think?" Utena asks, examining the spine of Anthy's book while she lays in her lap.
"Somewhere," Anthy replies. She's terrible at explaining things.
She buys a few brass frogs to go with the monkeys. They all get a special shelf in the kitchen, above the pantry.
Utena wonders if Anthy ever has nightmares; Utena does, but surely since Anthy has been through so much more than she has she should have them, right?
She doesn't, but that's because she never sleeps.
She'd lay down in bed with Utena, curl up in her arms with her eyes shut, and just lay there, apparently trying to imitate sleep so Utena wouldn't worry. As soon as she was found out, of course, the arrangement was quite different: she'll stay with Utena until she falls asleep, come back if she hears her crying, but mostly she'll sit at the table across from the porcelain monkeys and read books in languages Utena can't recognize. In the morning there's always tea ready for the two of them, just like-
Utena always drinks the tea in the morning, but at lunch she makes herself coffee. Anthy thinks coffee is "filthy" and refuses to drink it. It's one of the rare things she expresses open disapproval towards.
Coffee, roses. The list is quite short.
"How long has it been?" Utena knows they didn't move into the house immediately after leaving Japan, nor does she know how long it was between her disappearance and Anthy's "finding" her.
"Hm. Twelve years, I think. Maybe thirteen."
The passage of time is something Utena lovingly notices now, particularly the ten-year increments. Ten years seemed like a good, solid chunk of time back then, enough that things would have changed a little but they wouldn't be too estranged from each other.
She speaks French quite fluently now, but her English has gotten worse; Anthy still speaks more languages than she'll ever know exist but she's a very patient teacher.
The collection of porcelain monkeys grows every year. Once, Utena hid one in a cake as a joke and they both laughed until they were tired and sad again. It felt like a cleansing.
They never talked about the promise, since they never talked about Ohtori in general. Maybe they still had friends there, maybe they'd broken all the spells and everyone had been freed. Anthy never looked back to check and allowed Utena to form her own conclusions. It was hilariously like her to say that outright.
Utena asks about whether she was dead or not, whether the two of them were ever dead. This gives Anthy significant pause.
"Don't they say that when you fall in a dream, you're supposed to wake up before you hit the ground?" Anthy says.
"Something like that," Utena mumbles into her coffee, awaiting the vague poetic response.
"It's as if….we didn't wake up. It did different things to us, I think, but it killed us in the dream so we could wake up here."
Utena looks at the ground. She looks at Anthy's feet in silk slippers, the ones she'd bought her for some holiday or another.
"Makes sense," she says, and this time she means it.