A/N: Hey look, a Valentine's Day fic! ...Just in time for Christmas. -_-;;; Well, Utena never made much sense anyways, so - here we are. An Utena drabble that is NOT angst-tastic, and NOT about Anthy. It's the apocolypse!!!
Disclaimer: If I owned it... it would not have been nearly as good. ...But Anthy would have gotten more screentime, so... that would have been better, at least...?
February 14th - Roses
Utena receives roses on Valentine's Day.
She also receives chocolates, and perfumed envelopes, and, once, a special package from the adult-toy shop on the other end of town. (Utena is afraid to open that one, and after giving it a few dubious shakes she abandons it in a neighbor's trash pile.) She gets poems. She gets lacy undergarments. She gets red-faced confessions, tears, kisses on the cheek and hand, and in one case, a clumsy chest-grope. (She felt so sorry for that blue-faced boy that she let him off with a mere smack in the face.)
It's a bother. Well, no, maybe that's not so much the word - it's that she understands that all of these things are nice, in a pink-hearts-and-pink-cheeks type of way, but it's really not her kind of thing. She doesn't want any of these gifts. She doesn't know what it is she wants, exactly, but she does know that every time she sees roses lying on her desk, tied with ribbon colored like a soft melted-lipstick smear, she wants to gag.
They're almost always red roses, every year, though of course there's the standard smattering of pink and white. (One girl had spent a week finding a shop that carried roses of the exact same shade as Utena's hair. She didn't have the heart to throw that one out, but forgot to put it in water and so it was dead by the 15th anyway.) One year she gets yellow ones instead, and turns around to find a girl with a high forehead and shining chestnut hair spilling over her shoulders, Hi! Hi! Utena-samaaaaa I can't believe it's been so long!
Utena is queasy, but she's happy anyway because yellow roses are for friendship. Wakaba. When did they forget about each other? She's glad to see Wakaba again, glad she's with Tatsuya-kun. She just wishes Wakaba had made her a bento or something instead - she's got a sudden craving for takoyaki.
The year after that, she gets blue roses. She hears bells and pianos crashing in her head when she sees them, and staggers - but after that, her classmates notice she develops a sudden interest in classical music, and even more so, in composers; on White Day, she's too engrossed in the latest find - Prodigy Admits Scandal, Incest - to remember to buy return gifts for all the other people who left her presents.
Every time Utena sees Miki's big, round, unashamed eyes staring out at her from the black-and-white photo, she feels strangely jealous. And she doesn't understand why she keeps imagining him with a sword, until she remembers - of course, that must be it - she watched him fence a few times.
It's a few more years before she gets orange roses, dotted with camellia. These aren't for Valentine's Day, they're delivered to Utena's dorm-room along with Arisugawa-senpai's business card. Utena had wondered why a certain model seemed so familiar - the one with red-gold hair and eyes that always looked straight at the camera - and grins for a moment in recognition. Then she spends the next few hours being violently sick.
The phrase grant me the power throbs in her head every waking moment for months on end.
Red roses again the next year, on Valentine's Day, as is proper. Touga always could play the gentleman. He shows up, too, at her dorm, in a flashy white car - with Saionji in the passenger's seat. Saionji has not brought roses, thank god, but he grudgingly hands over a box of chocolates Touga brought for her, as well as his own recipe for Japanese-style fried eggs. Utena trashes the chocolates, rolling her damp eyes, after she gets back from dinner with the two of them. (The eggs, however, are absolutely delicious.)
She knows, now, what is missing. She waits and tries not to travel much and wonders if the roses will be white - which would be terribly like the Rose Bride, slightly cruel but a sweet gesture nonetheless - or maybe purple, Himemiya would look good in purple - lavender? Red? (She somehow doesn't like the thought of Himemiya giving her red roses, even if the sentiment behind it makes her chest ache in a good way, an excited, hopeful way.) Maybe she's not coming. Utena still can't remember quite what happened in those last few muddled moments - can't summon a clear picture without the bright memories of the Seitokai to highlight it for her - but she remembers her empty hands, and a great, piercing sense of loss. Did Himemiya die? Did she tell Utena she hated her? Maybe she isn't coming at all. Edelweiss, iris, snowdrop, a magnolia - a wallflower, that's what she would send, Wakaba half-jokes when Utena mentions it, as red-faced as her prospective suitors.
Valentine's Day.
And again.
And again.
And again, the years blending together into a waxy rose-petal smear.
Utena still gets roses on February 14th. She still gets chocolates. The boxes are smaller and more expensive now, the confessions quieter, but every year Utena has to wince at at least one person and say, Thanks, really. But no thanks. Until Wakaba's pregnant with her second baby, and Juri has retired with enough savings to keep Shiori in diamond earrings and silk wraps for years, and Saionji has talked several unwelcome men out of pursuing his "little sister" (because even the most bullheaded of men will become a boy when faced with a snarling kendo master) - and it's only then that she realizes she's lonely. And tired. And angry. Maybe it's time for kids, she thinks - and shudders a little at the thought, but hey, she shouldn't get ahead of herself. She could get a haircut, meet some nice guy, settle down first.... That'll show her. Witch! But even just thinking the word makes her bite her tongue in shame and gulp her scalding tea.
Clematis and orange lilies, purple hyacinths, a marigold. She probably isn't coming. She's probably still locked in her coffin, riddled with swords - and there is nothing romantic or tragic about that, it's just the hard facts, and Utena does not want kids, does not want suitors, does not want roses. She puts her head on her arms and knows, finally, what she wants.
It is four days later when Utena comes in to work to find her boss spread-eagled on the floor, gasping. He points to her desk in silent rage, and there, calmly munching a cracker, is a big-eared little animal, not a monkey or a mouse. It screeches when it sees her, jumps around and makes little happy crying sounds.
It takes her more than a minute, but she finally manages swallows the lump in her throat and goes to open the box that sits on the desk. She catches a whiff of perfume as she removes the lid - but what is that scent? Lilac? Mint? Daisies? It's not roses, that she knows. What could -?
Himemiya has not given her roses. She has not given her sticky-sweet chocolates, not a poem or song or ribbon or lace or any other valentine cliche. Instead, Himemiya has given her running shoes.
Utena puts her head in her hands and laughs. Her hands tingle with the memory of a heavy golden sword handle, and she laughs. She pokes at the ugly scar she hides under her shirt - the one that forms one knot by the small of her back and another just below her right breast - and she laughs. She remembers how Himemiya always, always smelled like roses, unless Utena got close enough to smell something else - something dark and spicy and not like a Rose Bride should at all. She laughs and laughs until she can taste tears.
Then she ties on the shoes, gets Chu-Chu settled in her blazer pocket, and runs.
*
The next Valentine's Day, Utena receives a sweater. It's poorly made, practical, and not very romantic at all. But she turns to Anthy and tells her she loves it, and when they kiss, Utena can breathe in deep Anthy's heady spicy scent.
And it is exactly what she wanted.
R&R, please! It nourishes Yutaan's soul.