Yumi, however, had mostly forgotten to take care of herself, and she was very, very hungry. She had to find food. There were no classes today, but it would also help to see other people and make sure she was still real. Humans were carnal creatures, but they were also social.
Leave Touga's bed? That was the difficult part. She couldn't manage it for several hours. Thunder had arrived when she finally did so, but thankfully, he slept soundly. Oh it was difficult to leave that bed, that helpless beautiful sleeping form... But she was nothing if not strong. "You've got a lot of guts," was what he'd said to her that first meeting.
She showered, using his shampoo and wondering if anyone would notice the scent. Probably only the sweet-faced jealous vultures.
Then she found her clothes, unwearable. She panicked. She couldn't dress herself in that ripped-up uniform. She was stuck here.
Not a terrible place to be trapped, but it wasn't good to be trapped anywhere.
Could she get away with borrowing some of his clothes, and running back to her own dorm? It would be painfully obvious while she was in sight...
There was an alternate solution: steal a uniform of Nanami's.
Yumi cringed at the idea of wearing that blonde mosquito's clothing. And going into her room to get it. Yuck.
Well, there was one more option. It was lunchtime. She could just sneak around the building and steal a uniform from Kozue instead. She'd been in there before, at least; she wouldn't have to go rooting through everything.
It would barely cover her butt, Yumi thought. Miki's promiscuous sister must buy her uniforms three sizes too small. Kozue was significantly shorter than Yumi and still managed to show more leg.
Wait, no problem. Only the shirt of her uniform was torn. A top from Kozue would be a scandalously tight fit, and even more scandalous in the rain she supposed was pouring, but suitable for darting across the dorm complex. Yumi wrapped herself in a robe, gathered her clothes and headed out.
She was not prepared for the mosquito attack.
A furious force materialized from nowhere and slammed her against the wall. No tame little bitch-slaps this time. "What the hell are you doing here?" snarled Nanami. "Are you stalking my brother?!"
That was a rather extreme case of the pot calling the kettle black. Yumi laughed heartily, or actually, she made a sort of amused wheezing sound since the wind had been very much knocked out of her, and was having difficulty getting back in since Nanami's hands were around her neck.
"I'll have you kicked out of this school in five minutes. You'll never be able to show your face anywhere decent again. You'll regret you were born if you come near him, you disgusting slut!"
The blonde razed her with blind hatred. Now Nanami was going to strangle her. She was like him. Or she wanted to be.
"Who's a disgusting slut?" Yumi ground out, and rammed her knee into Nanami's solar plexus. It was a very effective move. Her enemy doubled over on the floor. "You of all people should know. If you fight to keep him to yourself, you'll always lose."
Hatred scorched so violently within Nanami that she was sure she would be sick. The fact that she had taken a harsh blow to the midsection did not help. Hatred had made her a poor fighter, and hatred now did more to paralyze her than the physical injury. She was a perfectly ordinary human being in that above all else, even anything that might come between her and oniisama, she hated hearing the truth about herself.
Finally back in her own room, Yumi wondered if Nanami had noticed that she still smelled like him. Doubtless.
Quickly she removed the scandalous stolen uniform shirt, and put on her own that was intact and fit properly. She had not ended up running across the dorm complex as she'd planned, because this was the first time she'd seen rain as a human. It was cold and sadly beautiful. Like a child she danced in it, and splashed puddles, and stood with her face skyward and then opened her mouth to catch the drops. She hadn't been able to completely enjoy it, however, because she felt as though something bad was watching her. Most likely a pair of big cute cornflower-colored eyes, full of unfathomable hate.
For some reason she found herself regretting the unpleasant encounter. She had been cruel. She didn't like being cruel. But if the dumb blonde was going to be that stupid...
That didn't justify anything. She found that she didn't hate Nanami anymore, but only pitied her. Nonetheless, she still had a mortal enemy.
Yeah, and check out all these hicky spots. She'd have more than one mortal enemy to deal with. This was indeed a dangerous life.
Miteki, as it turned out, had come to find her. Yumi opened the door and there was her dark-haired friend with a blue umbrella.
"Oh, you are here," Miteki exclaimed in relief.
"Yeah," she said. "I'm sorry I worried you."
Miteki saw the love bruises adorning Yumi and pointedly looked another direction. Yumi blushed and decided she had best put on some makeup. Had Kozue known that this was why she'd need the stuff? Her stomach rumbled as she applied it.
"Come on, the dining hall just opened," said Miteki, and they ventured back out into the rain. When would they be able to tell each other all that had happened in the past twenty-four hours?
When would Miki tell her... Miki would never tell her, that was obvious.
Despite the somber beauty of the campus in the rain, as they crossed the bridge under the blue umbrella, something ominous still nagged at Yumi. It was quite different from her feeling yesterday that something was wrong. This was more like something that shouldn't be here, a shadow creeping out from a place where it was always night, was here, and it was watching her. Following her.
Probing smooth dark fingers into her mind. For a moment she was sure some vile force had physically stripped her naked, and she gasped and moved to cover herself, and was surprised to look down and see that her clothes were on.
"What?" asked Miteki.
"Something..." Yumi whispered, unnerved. A chill ran up her spine and she felt the terrible presence pinpointed behind them. She whipped around. No one was there but a man in a scarlet shirt with dark skin and lavender hair, and he wasn't even looking at her. Why then...
Shouldn't she remember him from somewhere? That was a man who had said something important once.
Miteki stopped walking, as Yumi had, and followed her glance. "Oh, that's the Trustee Chairman," Miteki explained. "He's engaged to the Dean's daughter. Quite the VIP. I wonder what he's doing wandering around in the rain?"
He saw the two girls looking at him, and gave them a friendly nod. Miteki bowed deeply in return, and nudged Yumi sharply when she didn't move. Yumi's bow was shaky and not nearly deep enough.
The Trustee Chairman's umbrella was a different shade of red than his shirt, a very specific red. "You're not allowed to have anything that color!" Yumi wanted to yell, but her lips wouldn't have moved even if she had something appropriate to say. What a weird thing to even think. If there was no such thing as a coincidence, there wouldn't be a word for it, right?
"Seriously, Yumi-chan, I just told you he was important. That was really rude," Miteki chided when they began walking again.
"I take it you didn't feel anything," snapped Yumi when she could talk.
"Well sure, he's got a weird aura, but that doesn't change who he is."
Yumi disagreed. Were the Trustee Chairman and the ominous, invading presence one and the same? That made about as much sense as some campus VIP man she'd never met buying a red umbrella specifically to taunt her. But for some reason that notion was also difficult to dismiss.
She felt like she should already know who he was, and that the title of Trustee Chairman was a facade.
"But who is he?" said Yumi.
"I can't remember his name. But you know that Himemiya girl, with the glassses and purple hair? He's her brother, or so I've heard. They do look alike."
Something resonated inside her like a giant bell. Something she could almost remember. Something she should know. Things seemed to hang in the balance of her knowing...
How was that man even important to her? She'd never seen him around Touga or anything.
Except there was something important about him, terribly important...
Too many conflicting contradictions. She didn't want to think about it any more. She was very hungry, because after all that, she still wanted lunch.
"I think they should call this place Weird Shit Academy," Yumi concluded. "Let's find food."
Yumi's aqua hair, contrasted against the grey day, caught Miki's eye; from a window high above he saw the pair enter the dining hall.
"Yumi-san!" he exclaimed.
Juri looked up from her tea. "Is she here?"
"She just went into the dining hall with her friend." He was quite glad to see that Yumi was alright. Neither of them would admit how afraid they had been for her. He thought of going to greet her but remembered that Yumi's friend was the girl who...
The girl who saw him crying yesterday. The girl who would want to know why.
Miki had gone pale suddenly. "What's wrong?" said Juri.
Inwardly he shrunk in dread from the idea of Juri finding out. If Juri knew. If Kozue knew. If Himemiya knew. If his father knew. Oh dear God. Would this fear of people knowing his depravity never leave him?
"Miki, you look ill. Are you okay? Was the bentou bad?"
He coughed. "No, I was...just a little worried, that's all..." But he wouldn't face her.
Juri remembered that Yumi had mentioned the Rose Bride. Yumi knew things. "I'm sure she's fine. I'll talk to her soon."
"Okay." Miki stared at the rain.
He had become very withdrawn all of a sudden. Did he have a fight with Kozue? Juri wondered. That was unlikely; Miki was too sweet-natured to fight with anyone. Well, she wouldn't press him. If he wanted to tell her what was wrong, he would.
If he was falling for the weird girl, that would explain why he was upset. But anyone could tell when Miki was interested in someone by the color in his face, and Juri had not seen him blush when talking to or about Yumi. Rather, hadn't he blushed yesterday at seeing Yumi's friend? Perhaps something had gone not so well between them. Juri would have liked to know, but if he wouldn't tell her, it wasn't her business—which simply meant she'd find out elsewhere. Information, in the form of gossip, tended to come to her without her even seeking it.
"I'm really sorry I burst in like that," said Miteki. "I just... Well, I had to see if you were alright."
"I understand. I wasn't really drunk, though. I just wanted to give you an excuse to leave quickly." Yumi grinned. "It didn't seem like you were having as much fun seeing him run around in a skimpy silk robe."
Miteki grimaced. "Will you not bring that up? We're kind of eating."
"Hmph! Some people have no taste."
"What happened when you...?"
Yumi got a serious look, and then replied quietly, "I shouldn't say."
"Oh."
He's so fragile, Yumi wanted to say. Something hurt him. He's so vulnerable and nobody knows it. But she would keep his secrets. "What about you, how was your day?"
"Miki was crying!" Miteki whispered intently. Her face was worried, anguished, pleading Yumi to tell her something.
"Crying?" Yumi became worried as well. Miki was kind to her even after she beat up his sister. Miki crying? Could it have anything to do with what hurt Touga? "When? Why?"
"In the piano room. After school yesterday. I don't know why. Yumi-chan, what's going on? Why's everyone getting all weird?"
"There's something wrong with this place," said Yumi angrily. She looked out the window, and her voice quieted to somber tones. "It's beautiful but there's something wrong with it. Like we can never quite get a handle on what's going on. Who really calls the shots around here?" She had that feeling again that there was something huge she should know, and let out an anxious sigh. "I wish we could just get everyone out." By "everyone," of course, they were referring to the people important to them.
"I know what you mean." Miteki looked up. "Wait, what do you mean, who calls the shots? It isn't the Student Council President?"
Yumi frowned. "That's... I used to think so too. But there's something else. If it was him...they wouldn't have done that to him..." Whoever "they" were, and whatever "that" was.
A pink and black bolt of energy entered the dining hall then—Tenjou Utena, flanked by her perky brown-haired friend Shinohara Wakaba, and dainty purple-haired Himemiya Anthy.
Yumi's sense of unrest grew. She had never trusted Utena. It was true, she had never trusted Utena not to be her rival.
Technically she had hundreds of rivals. But, as everyone could see, Tenjou Utena was something else. The problem was that Utena didn't want him—she didn't want to be Yumi's rival. And she probably never would be. So why did that make her the most dangerous one out of the multitude? How is she my rival by not being my rival? Nothing makes sense in this place, nothing.
She just didn't trust Utena. All there was to it. No need to complicate gut feelings by trying to explain them.
Instead Yumi turned back to the Miki issue. "So he was in the piano room crying? How was he crying? Quiet or loud?"
"Just...crying." Miteki lowered her voice even further. "And...his shirt was off."
"His shirt was off? What the hell for?"
"Damned if I know!"
"What is that about? Did somebody jump him?"
"No, there wasn't anyone else! Except I saw someone—" Miteki's eyes went wide suddenly and a hand flew to her mouth.
"What? Who was it?"
"That can't be right..." Miteki said through her fingers, barely audible.
Minutes later, Miteki was at the table writing disconsolately, and Yumi was gathering food at the buffet a third time. This time, however, it was not for herself. She was trying to think what would make a good lunchbox when Miki appeared beside her.
"Yumi-san...how are you?"
"Oh, hi, Kaoru-sempai. I'm fine. What's up?" Yumi looked at him curiously, searching for any traces of the distress Teki- chan had described. "I'm sorry I got upset at you yesterday."
He turned away from her clear gaze. "Um...well...are you really okay? We were worried, when you didn't come back..."
"I wish you wouldn't worry about me." Actually, she wished that Teki-chan had come with her, so that she could make some excuse to leave them together. But maybe now she could extract the information from him. She didn't like the idea of being so nosy, but as a matter of fact, she was intensely curious.
She knew Saionji Kyouichi without ever having met him. He had been friends with Touga but all had soured after the terrible thing. It had torn at Saionji so that he wanted and needed nothing more than to one-up him. He couldn't use the Rose Bride against him any more, so now—if Yumi was putting two and two together correctly—he was using Miki.
...Friends? Was that the right word? Yumi would have liked to know, but there was such a thing as too much information.
At the moment she was more curious about Saionji's current possible antics. It wasn't very nice, if it left Miki crying like that.
A horrible thought hit her like the kick she had given Nanami.
—WHAT IF—
What if Saionji did to Miki—
—the same thing that was done to Touga?
The speculation made her inhale the tea cookie she'd snuck into her mouth, and she stood there coughing until Miki grabbed a glass of water for her. Soon she was breathing more or less normally again, and wiped the tears from her eyes. "Thanks."
"Are you alright?" The concern was distinct in Miki's blue eyes.
"Of course. I guess I had to be punished for eating while standing here." Yumi smiled nervously. She wanted to run away. This was too heavy for her.
Miki smiled uncertainly in return. "Maybe."
Change the subject. Gotta change the subject. "Um, Kaoru-sempai, do you know what makes a good bentou?"
"Oh, a bentou? Who's it for?"
Yumi didn't look away. "You know."
It took a moment for Miki to understand. "Oh. H- How is he?"
"He's okay." A sincere, gentle smile lit Yumi's face. Miki didn't have a very high opinion of the Student Council President, and hell knew what had happened to leave him crying shirtless in the piano room, yet here he was asking after him with genuine concern. He was so kind. It was easy to see why Miteki would fall for him. "He's just feeling a little antisocial, I think."
"I see." He wasn't used to girls smiling at him like that. He almost blushed, but not quite.
Then Yumi's expression turned sharply serious. "Do you know what happened?"
"I..." Miki blinked. He couldn't tell Yumi about the duels. But didn't she already know? She'd mentioned the Rose Bride yesterday. "I think Arisugawa-sempai will tell you."
"Where is she?"
"She said she would talk to you soon."
Yumi let the matter rest for the moment. If anyone had the facts, it would be Juri. On the other hand, something had happened to Miki as well. Did Juri know about that? Yumi wasn't so sure any more that she wanted to know.
"Anyway," Miki interrupted her wonderings, not unwelcome, "it depends on what kind of bentou you want to make, like noodles, or sushi..."
He helped her pick out a few things, and after Yumi thanked him she said, "Oh, Teki-chan said she had your music book. You dropped it in the piano room."
"I...I did?" Miki started.
Yumi looked at him expectantly. They both knew he now had no choice but to go talk to Miteki.
Miki knew then that Yumi's friend had told her what she'd seen. Yumi gazed at him with her otherworldly eyes, empty of judgement. Yet he was sure she would turn away in revulsion if she knew what he'd done.
Or would she? Her look appeared to say, I don't care. You're not a bad person.
Almost as if she already knew.
She broke the silence between them. "Well, don't you want your book back? Teki-chan's over there." She pointed, and it seemed for a strange instant that he was standing at a celestial crossroads, and she a guardian angel pointing toward his destiny.
Juri managed to watch everything without looking like she was watching. She watched Miki talking to Yumi and wondered what thought made the girl's eyes go all horrified in the moment before she choked on a cookie. She watched Yumi direct Miki to her dark-haired friend and finish putting together the lunchbox. She would have liked to watch Miki talking to the shy girl writing poetry about him—it might have given her some clues as to what had upset the boy—but Yumi soon vacated the dining hall, slipping away silently to let the pianist and the poetess have their moment. Juri addressed her the second her hand touched the door.
"Hello, Arisugawa-sempai. Are you well?" Yumi bowed, careful not to tilt the bentou.
"Fine, thank you. I believe we have some things to discuss." Juri opened her dark fuschia umbrella, under which they ventured outside. With her precious cargo that she had arranged with such care, it was clear where Yumi was again headed.
"Thank you, sempai," said Yumi, bowing again, since Juri was sacrificing her personal space to let her share the umbrella. Besides, she was glad for the company. She had been a bit uneasy about walking back to the dorm complex alone, and not just because of the rain. "Where shall we start?"
"Well, let's begin at the present and work our way backwards. Why did you choke like that just now? It was clear that something frightened you."
"An unpleasant thought that strayed into my head." Yumi looked hard into the grey distance, her words quiet but stiff. "I would not mention it aloud without due cause."
Juri nodded. She knew those kind of thoughts. "And you know that Miki is upset? Was it, perhaps, something between him and your friend?"
She thought carefully before answering. She didn't want to just hand out people's secrets like raffle tickets. "Arisugawa-sempai, I can tell you all you want to know about myself, but I don't know how much I should say about other people."
"I understand. It's just that there seemed to be a bit of something between them, and..." How could Juri persuade her that she would be telling secrets to help her friend? "Well, you know Kozue. Your friend's a nice girl and I could keep an eye on her."
Juri showing concern for another person? What was going on? Well, it had to do with Miki, so maybe it made sense, Yumi concluded. "Her name is Teki—Kodama Miteki. It wasn't anything she did that upset him. She merely found him after it happened." She certainly was not going to tell Juri what she suspected, and what she feared. If it was true, Juri would find out herself.
"So you don't know what it was either?"
"No clue, sempai." Yumi didn't know why she lied like that, but it seemed a better course of action.
"Kodama Miteki." Juri tried to think if she'd heard the name before, and decided not. "Does she...have feelings for him?" Dumb question if there ever was one.
"He is her prince," Yumi replied without hesitation. And what of mine? I think you know what happened to him.
"Okay. Back to yesterday, before you left. You said something about the Rose Bride."
"Did I?"
"Yes. How do you know?"
Great. How to explain this to Juri. "Remember when I said I'm not from this earth?"
"Yes."
"It's true. You don't believe a weird thing like that, but it's true. I know some things. Not a lot, but maybe more than I should. More than people think, anyway."
Who the hell was this girl? She thought she was a tennyo now, or an alien? Okay, never mind how she knew... "Tell me what you know, then."
"I know that tiny quiet girl Himemiya Anthy is the Rose Bride. I know if you have a Rose Signet ring you duel for her, and there's supposed to be some power you get if you win the duels, and this is all mostly the Student Council's business. That's it, and it's a big pile of enigmas if you ask me."
"Enigmas," Juri agreed. "There are a lot of those."
"So, now that I know all that, do you have to kill me, or what?"
"I don't see any need for that. Obviously you haven't been blabbing to people about it."
"No, although everyone knows the Student Council is up to something really weird."
"You don't have the ring. So you haven't been in any duels."
"But we saw the duels. I can't really remember, though."
"'We'?"
"Myself and the others like me. I wasn't human before. See?" Yumi faced Juri and tugged at a pointy ear with her free hand.
Juri blinked wonderingly. Certainly she was no stranger to strange things, though she may be skeptical by nature. "But you're human now?"
"Yes."
Never mind that question, then. Juri suspected no one would ever understand the aqua-haired girl's origins, seeing as she'd come up out of nowhere naked in the piano room. "Well, it's not my call if we're supposed to do anything with you. As long as you're not telling everyone about it, I don't see that it matters much."
"Whose call is it?"
"I suppose it would be up to the mysterious party who directs us, whom only Kiryuu can contact."
"The mysterious party." Yumi squinted, sorting through fragments of memory. "Dios? No, End Of The World?"
"That one. End Of The World."
There it was again, that giant bell sounding, that thing she should know. Yumi shivered.
They walked in silence for a few steps, surrounded by the pouring rain and other students returning from lunch under their umbrellas, until Juri asked, "What is he up to, in there by himself?"
"Being a recluse for a while, I suppose," Yumi answered in a small, wistful voice.
"How is it that you are allowed in?"
Yumi looked at the older girl as though she'd asked a very rude question. The brightness of her amber eyes stood out from the dim rain- drenched scene. "Because I give a damn," she said in clipped syllables.
"Hm." Juri had no retort for the truth, though she would have liked to warn Yumi again that the feeling wasn't mutual. Yumi, however, seemed determined to learn the hard way.
"You know what did this to him. Tell me."
Juri tried to come up with a reason not to, and couldn't. "He lost a duel, that's all. Losing takes its toll on all of us. I imagine it's more of a shock to one who isn't used to losing."
"That's it?" Yumi had seen people lose duels. Was it that traumatic?
"We all lost to her. You must know."
"Her..." Images flickered before her mind's eye. The Arena, wide blue sky! The watchers! The mysteries! He was the only human watcher. Purple-haired obedience, pink-haired righteousness, forest-haired bewilderment; rose petals scattering, churchbells pealing... "Tenjou Utena!" Yumi spat the name as though it were a curse.
"Yes, her. You don't like her, I take it. But she's only doing what she thinks is right." Juri sighed. "Maybe what is right."
They were across the great expanse of the bridge now. Yumi pressed her lips together, holding her anger within. Nothing that hurts him is right. Ever. I will kill anything that hurts him. I will kill it.
But Juri saw it in the strange girl's eyes, and knew that before long she too would wear a ring and hold a sword.
She entered his room again and was attacked with desire again. It didn't help that he was sprawled naked and enticing on the bed, all red silk locks and ivory skin and dark lashes, a layer of pink satin over his legs, barely covering the scene's pi
