The rain stopped. After school Yumi found her friend.
"What's going on?" said Miteki, who immediately saw the sharpness in Yumi's eyes.
"We have an enemy," Yumi replied. "Coffee?"
"Sure, let's go." They walked downtown.
Yumi was silent until they were off campus. "I don't feel safe talking at school. He's watching."
"Who?" asked Miteki, hoping that Yumi was not progressing into paranoid schizophrenia.
"Our friend the Morning Star." Yumi said it as though she could get gunned down by a sniper for talking. "We were right. There's something thoroughly evil about him. He's got that Tenjou Utena under his spell, and Touga, too, though Touga knows it."
"What do you mean?"
"You think I'm going crazy. I'll show you something on campus, if he doesn't show up to stop me. But believe me. That feeling we got that something was happening we couldn't see, it's him. He's got something going on, something about as good for everyone as nerve gas in the subway. And he's using the Student Council in it. ...All of them."
Miteki gasped, realizing that Yumi meant Miki was in danger too. They ordered their coffee and sat down. "But what can we do?"
"Frankly, I don't have a fucking clue," Yumi said wryly. "Yet. Tell me what you've heard that's going on around campus."
"Well, everyone says the Student Council's been acting strangely—even more so than usual—especially the President. And that he's redoubled his efforts toward Tenjou-sempai."
"Exactly. Now here's what that means. They're all under the spell of the so-called Trustee Chairman, including Utena. Touga, seeing what he really is, is trying to save her, but to no avail, because Utena loves Ohtori Akio."
"How do you know all that?" Miteki worried that Yumi was making things up to explain the betrayal, which was simply that, a run-of-the-mill betrayal.
"Juri and Miki told me."
"If they can't do anything about it, how can we?"
"I'm trying to think of that!"
The coffee came, and they sipped quietly for a few minutes. Miteki decided she should bring Yumi's possible thoughts into the open, so that they wouldn't entrance her from inside her mind. "Yumi-chan, do you think that he...broke up with you because he wanted you away from him, to protect you from the Trustee Chairman?"
Yumi raised her eyebrows. She had not thought of it that way; it was too dangerous. "Is that what you think?"
"No. I was wondering if you were thinking that way."
Yumi made a cynical sound. "Not so much. Thus far I'm sticking to the worst-case scenario."
"The worst-case scenario?"
"That he dumped me for kicks just like everyone else, obviously, which is what you think too. Although Miki said that it seemed like he hasn't been acting of his own will." Yumi sighed. "It would be nice to think that something else made him do that... Nice, but stupid."
"Are you going to try and get him back?"
"I'm not going to try, I'm going to do it. I have to be around him if I'm going to figure out how to protect him. You might want to stick around Miki, too."
Miteki blushed a bit. "Finals start the week after next..."
Knowing that impeccable grades were very high on Miteki's priority list, Yumi kept herself from scoffing at this. "Well, Miki isn't in as much danger. I'll try and keep you posted. Meanwhile, trust in your power. If you see anything—anything—I want you to tell me. I mean it."
"Um, okay," Miteki said nervously.
"Thanks."
They finished their coffee in silence.
"What's the thing on campus you want to show me?" Miteki asked as they left the shop.
"Oh, that. It's weird and secret and stuff. I'll have to come get you in the middle of the night."
Yumi did as she promised, and at one in the morning, she fetched Miteki and led her furtively to the Rose Gate. Miteki brought a bright flashlight, which Yumi carried, but they didn't need it to see the Rose Gate, for the curious monument seemed to glow of its own accord.
"What is it?" said Miteki, her grey eyes round.
"The gate to the apocalypse," Yumi murmured. "Beyond it, Ohtori Akio calls himself End Of The World and has the Student Council play out his strange rituals. Watch this." She walked up and grasped the handle, and her ring which was the key opened it, the water flowing and the structures moving.
Miteki looked about ready to faint. "I've seen it in dreams..." she whispered.
"Through there," and Yumi pointed to the enormous spiral staircase beyond, "is a place formed completely of magic. I'm not sure if it's real in the sense that the rest of the world is. It might be another dimension. I don't think I can take you in there. It'd probably kill you or something."
"You've been in there?"
"Yes. If I knew how, I'd destroy this gate, and seal off that strange place. That would put a dent in his plans."
They walked away, and the Rose Gate closed itself.
"I never entirely disbelieved you," Miteki said softly, "but I certainly won't at all now."
At the edge of the forest, a shadow moved in the darkness. A hint of a scarlet shirt.
"Run," whispered Yumi, shoving Miteki forward. "Run. Now."
Miteki did, but paused when she realized that the only feet moving were her own.
"Go!" Yumi mouthed frantically. Finally Miteki disappeared.
"Why, Maigo-san, what are you doing out in the woods so late?"
"I'll ask the same of you." She wanted to say that she wasn't afraid of him; or more precisely, she wanted to be able to say that she wasn't afraid of him without it being a blatant lie.
"You first." He gave a charming smile.
"I'm wandering aimlessly. Now, if you'll excuse me, I don't actually care what you're doing out in the woods so late, and I can't stand being in the same space as you." Yumi made a show of nonchalance and turned.
"The poor lost child," said Akio with mock pity, walking beside her. "She wanders in the dark, hoping that her love will find her and ask her forgiveness, knowing all the while that he could hardly care less about her. She knows he was false, and yet every moment she's away from him is absolute torment..."
His narration of her circumstances for the past couple of weeks grated on her heart, but she gave no sign of it. "Are you bored or something?"
"Of course not. I'm an incubus. They go after unprotected young women in the night."
Her fear doubled, so she became angry to defend herself. "You're an idiot, is what you are. Apparently you didn't understand me. Get the fuck away from me."
"Is that any way to talk to the Trustee Chairman?"
"It's the only way anyone should talk to you. Don't say another word to me, you piece of shit." Yumi tripled her pace, intending to leave him behind, but he caught her and pulled her to him. She yelped like a kicked puppy.
"I think you'll find there's only so much you can get away with," he murmured ominously.
"Likewise!" she shouted and twisted away. "Don't you dare touch me!"
"So quick to pull away..." He made his voice all soft and sweet. "Aren't you lonely, Yumi? Isn't your bed cold, without him?"
"I don't want no parts of that shit," she snapped in English, a phrase of which Chiharu was fond. But what bothered her was that the image came up in her mind and didn't quite manage to be distasteful.
"Oh, you'd like it. I'm good at warming his bed."
That was distasteful. She positively shivered with rage, gritting her teeth. "You stay away from him or I will make you so sorry you were ever spawned."
"Jealous? How about another threesome, then?"
She was furious enough now to have a good supply of nerve. She whacked him upside the head with the flashlight and stalked away. It hurt for maybe a split second. He laughed softly as he let her go. Sure, she acted angry enough, but her terror was obvious. She didn't deny her fear to herself, at least. She was denying her lust, however, and that was why he laughed.
Yumi did not run. She was as determined not to run from Akio as she was not to cry over Touga, and fighting the primitive urge to flee was just as difficult.
She did not run, but she trembled. She was so angry, and so, so afraid.
The melodramatic princess in her (which, she supposed, must be a part of any girl in love) was still whining for Touga to rescue her, to show up brandishing a kendo stick or even a real katana and tell Akio in no uncertain terms to get away from his woman.
But that would not happen, because for one thing, the inverse was the problem. She had to protect him from Akio. And no matter how afraid End Of The World could make her, she would not let fear swerve her off the task.
Nor anything else that he might make her feel.
She knew that she was wet, and it didn't help her self-image much. But if he did not have that power he would not be what he was. Fear and anything else for the enemy were nothing next to the first and foremost of her feelings. That was how strong she was, she told herself.
Besides, there was the other problem. She was not, technically, Touga's woman.
Miteki was waiting for her at the entrance lobby, wanting to make sure that she returned. "What happened?"
"He came after me, like I knew he would," Yumi hissed.
"Did you get in trouble?"
"I can't get in trouble, I have a ring. No, I can only get hit on."
"Yumi-chan..." Miteki gasped. "I'm sorry!"
"Now do you believe me that they're in danger?"
"You are, too!"
"I'm usually in danger. Nothing's changed there."
A knock on her door came after lunch. By now she had the vigilance to ask who it was.
"Delivery for Maigo Yumi- sama," said a young male voice.
It had to be the new uniform. She took the box and thanked the courier, then set it on the table and stared at it without opening it.
What would it mean if she put it on? Would she be in the Student Council, automatically subject to the perverse will of End Of The World?
But no, she realized suddenly—it was the Signet rings which did that.
"This ring!" she cried aloud, and yanked it off her finger.
The moment she did so, she felt a terrible, searing, sickening pain as though swords were being driven into every part of her. She collapsed, curling up on the floor. She couldn't even scream.
For some reason she tried to convince herself that it was some freak cramp and had nothing to do with taking off the ring. But every second she kept it off, the agony increased, until she knew she had no choice. Six or eight seconds went by before she used her last reserves to nudge her finger back into it.
A thought got halfway into her mind before she fainted. This evil is....
I wake, my head throbbing. Why am I on the floor? What happened?
When I see the box on the table, I remember. It is clear now that I should not have taken the ring. But there is no way I could have refused what seemed at the time to be a gift from him, an invitation into his world.
The world I must change.
The other day I thought that if Utena is really his ideal woman, then I will imitate her to the fullest, and become the Utena who loves him. She's not the only girl, I thought, who can put on a boy's uniform and call herself boku.
So downtown I went to the uniform shop, but they didn't want to give me a customized boy's uniform, they wanted to give me a Student Council uniform. I bet End Of The World really has it in for me. He must know that I intend to destroy him.
It's impossible, my mind quails. I don't have any idea what the extent of his strange powers might be. Anyway, at the very least, I have to protect Touga from End Of The World.
And to do that I must stand up and face him once again. He will know that I cannot be broken, I cannot be ignored. I am not special, except perhaps in my complete refusal to cut my losses and move on.
In another hour, classes will end. I wash up and then take out the new uniform. It is nearly identical to the uniform the Arena gave me, but I think the sleeves might be a bit different. It has that tassel the color of my hair, just like the other Student Council uniforms. It would appear that I am indeed one of the elite, though no one on campus has said anything about that to me, and I don't know what the point is anyway.
I don it slowly in front of the mirror, feeling ceremonious, and at a turning point. It looks strange on me, unfamiliar. I feel like a different Yumi, but I do not feel like another Utena. Probably for the best.
I don't like the pants. They look too formal, and they make my butt look big. The cut works with Juri's generous hourglass curves, but not with my lack thereof. Besides, the weather has decided that it's summer today, and I'm too uncivilized to endure the heat for the sake of propriety.
Instead I try the standard-issue skirt, which looks funny with the jacket. I could get away with the combination, since I'm funny-looking to start with.
There's the pair of white shorts that I wore to the beach over my bathingsuit, that he probably won't remember and are probably too short to wear around school. If people look from the wrong angle, they might think I'm wearing no pants at all. But, let's be honest here, I'm not going to class, I'm going to pick up a guy. I may be in the Student Council now, but I am also the ghost who haunts the campus at midnight in an evening gown, once in underthings, and the weird girl who showed up unconscious and naked in the music room.
I like this combination the best, the jacket and the shorts. It's cute and a bit reminiscient of my new sort-of role model. And the shorts' previous usage gives me a sense of comfort, as though good luck lingers on them from the happiness that day.
But wasn't he happy that day? I could have sworn that just for that day...
I cannot dwell on such memories; they will bring forbidden tears to my eyes.
I smooth the jacket over the shorts, looking at myself in the mirror. I put a bit of color on my lips for the hell of it, the color of the pink room.
"This is the revolution," I tell my reflection. "Now, I revolutionize the world."
Because apparently no one told the other duellists that you don't need a sword to revolutionize the world, or a ring, or a fancy uniform, or any other accessories. All you need is your heart.
Arms folded casually, she waited by the fountain in the center of the lobby. Conversations turned to her, with people wondering if she was really in the Student Council (or if she was really wearing any pants). Boys rubbernecked to get appraising views of her long legs, but none stopped to hit on her, because her purpose in waiting there was clear.
Today, with the new uniform signifying her status, she did not have to wait for the groupies to disperse. They moved aside for her, though not without plenty of resentment; but they were also eager to see her make a fool of herself.
He walked his usual route through the school with no reason to expect anything of interest to happen. But then the throng parted, and standing in his path was an aqua-haired girl. He was reminded of the scene many weeks ago when she had made her debut, except this time she had a new uniform—flattering, he had to admit—and seemed to know exactly what she was doing there, wearing a stoic expression.
"I'm not the one who failed," she told him before he could speak. "You are." The words she forced out seemed to come from somewhere other than her own throat. Her heartstrings tied themselves all into knots, but she kept herself outwardly neutral.
He knew more or less what she meant, but said bemusedly, "Now what is it I've failed at?"
"Should I list everything?" she retorted in kind.
"Maybe just the ones you really think I'm not aware of." He gave her a wry smile. "There must be something you think I've missed, since you're going through so much trouble to bring it to my attention."
Her knees were going weak, but she drew herself up as proudly as anyone who ever started a revolution. "You failed to make me cry."
The idea that Ophelia-chan would have been able to keep herself from wetting her sleeves, when he honestly hadn't even expected her to still be alive, was so preposterous that he had to burst out laughing.
Again. He was laughing at her again. She wouldn't stand for it this time.
CRACK.
Silence spread outward in a shockwave through the entire lobby. No one moved except to turn heads. It was exactly as though time had stopped.
There were some who were in awe, others who cheered her inwardly, others who wanted to laugh; still others wanted to rip her to bloody pieces like wild dogs fighting over carrion.
Someone started to clap after nearly a minute of silence. Applause soon filled the space where silence had been. And even those who would rather have beat the impertinent wench within an inch of her life had to applaud her bravery—for they were the ones who knew best that he very much deserved it.
It was the first time he had ever been bitch-slapped. No one ever hit the Student Council President. Yumi and Touga stared at one another heedless of the silence and subsequent noise around them, both in a kind of morbid fascination at what she had just done.
Did I just hit him?
Did she just hit me?
Suddenly a profound world-weariness rushed into him. He had been feeling this way frequently of late—utterly tired of what he was, but having no idea what else to be. It was mostly Utena who made him feel that way, but apparently Yumi could manage it as well, perhaps because he had given the latter her fate in front of the former.
The latter, however, was refusing to accept her fate. Well, then, maybe that was fate.
Ill at ease with himself and everyone else, he wanted everything to go away. But there was only one way he knew of to make that happen. Besides, she'd just asked for a little humiliation.
As though with an errant child, he hoisted Yumi up and over his shoulder.
"Neeh!?" she squealed. There were a few giggles. Most everyone was certain she would get a spanking for her rambunctious behavior.
She felt her face turning red, but was too stunned to protest. He carried her out like that, acting as though absolutely nothing was out of the ordinary.
How completely humiliating, thought Yumi, shutting her eyes for fear of seeing Miteki or Juri or anyone. But really, it is better than nothing... Merely the fact that they were touching gave her a sense of contentment, of relief, like coming up for air after a long time underwater. Not only that, but the shorts were made to be tight, and with her in this position they were riding up in a way that was stimulating rather than annoying.
Once outside he set her down, since he couldn't carry her that way for very long, and cornered her in a niche in the architecture, looking down at her intently. Heart pounding, she gazed back in complete rapture. Her lips tried to form something but no words came out; she couldn't find any words to put to her feelings. Then she lost the chance because he kissed her.
She was alive again, as if for the past weeks she really had been a ghost, and he breathed life into her now. And even if he felt nothing for her, even if he cast her off again, she would come back for more... Tears spilled from her eyes. Now, it didn't matter.
"So, where would you have me take you?" he murmured. He saw her gleaming tears and wondered if she really had held them in for so long that they leaked out the moment she saw fit to let her guard down. After all the thinking that Utena had prompted in him, he could feel a twinge of regret for what he'd done to Yumi. And yet Yumi wanted to offer him the chance to redeem himself, even though he didn't have to feel any regret for her to forgive him.
She shook her head slightly, indicating that where could hardly matter to her if she was with him.
No less deft at sneaking around to a daytime rendezvous for the jolt to his established identity, he led her without being seen into a conference room nearby the music room. No one would come by, but he stuck a chair under the doorknob and closed the curtains for the sake of intrigue. He started to say something uselessly romantic, the sort of thing she liked to hear, but she put her finger to his lips, amber eyes big and shining in the dimmed light.
They stood like that for a moment, completely silent, and then fell to making love on a plushy sofa, crazily, unable to wait. It was nice to have her in his arms, simply because he'd been abstaining too long, trying to look reformed and repentant for Utena.
He sat up, holding her, as their breathing slowed and thoughts atypically chased themselves in his head. The feelings he had just tried to escape by taking her would not be ignored.
He had tried so hard to capture Utena that he ended up with a little leftover sentiment toward her. He was never sure what image to present to Utena, and in the end, all of them had failed. The school tomboy who loved her Rose Bride's brother had made him realize that nothing was working anymore, that he didn't know how to live. But no one could fix it. There was no magic time machine to take Utena back to her Oujisama before the Morning Star fell and him back to his lost self. That was what he'd tried to make her see, that they were both in the same place, but for her to see that would mean giving up her dream. He, of course, had given up long ago, for to do otherwise would have killed him with yearning.
Just as he'd suspected would happen to Yumi. And she wouldn't have been the first. It really was amazing that he could be so heartless, driving girls to either disillusion or suicide without a second thought, as though he sought revenge on humanity for his own total disenchantment.
But Yumi claimed to have been something else, to have chosen to be human. It left him mystified, uncomprehending. Why would one, being something carefree and bright, why would one so free want to be bound in a mortal form, shackled to a soul and emotion, sentenced to die and vulnerable to worse before that happened? She must think being human was nothing but rose gardens and sunlight warm on one's face and pink satin sheets. Why would one want to be born human?
Auschwitz. Hiroshima. Nanking. That was humanity. Die and kill, kill and die, impossible suffering from the beginning to the end of time. Who would step into the great river, that eternal flow of sweat and blood and piss and so many tears, of her own free will? Either way she was mad. If the story was true she was mad for doing that; if the story was false she was mad because she clearly believed it.
But if it was true...that meant she had given up eternity just to be with him.
Of course, if she based her idea of humanity on watching him, it would have been only natural to think that being human was nothing but pleasure. And even now, after he must have proven to her otherwise, he knew she didn't regret the choice at all. According to her story she didn't have a childhood to look back on as a lost utopia, but she had her "vale of dreams."
And yet the shining of her eyes told him that all her dreams were here. She was strong. He had no idea how she survived feeling as she did.
She was curled up all blissfully in his embrace, asking for nothing, probably thinking nothing besides how beautiful he was. A tear fell from her lashes, sliding quickly down her face as though it didn't want to be caught. She had Utena to thank for it, but he really did feel regretful. Here was one, one out of the many to whom he could redeem himself. He couldn't give her what she truly wanted in her heart of hearts, but he might at least give credit where credit was due. And apologies.
"Yumi, I'm sorry. I truly mean it. I...I regret hurting you."
She stared wonderingly and touched his face as though to make sure he was real. This was not the Touga she knew, or at least, not the one he'd let her know. "What happened?"
"Things are changing," was all he could tell her.
"Could it be a revolution?"
"Maybe."
She knew without being told that whatever was changing, Tenjou Utena had been the catalyst. She felt awed, a little envious. But not really all-out jealous.
"You know," she told him what she thought earlier, "you don't need a sword to start a revolution. All you need is your heart."
He didn't say anything for a little bit. Strange girls got into strange places, and this one, perhaps, was getting into his confidence. After all the mostly-truths he'd told her before, she might as well be. "I haven't been able to find it."
She pressed herself close as if she might dive into him and begin searching. "Somewhere. Somewhere..."
The sound of Miki's piano playing drifted up to them. That song of dreams and shining things, "The Sunlit Garden," seemed to claim the moment gently.
If Yumi had been keeping up with the campus gossip, she would have learned it much sooner, but the subtle alterations in Touga's character were not going unnoticed. Groupies were mystified, resentful past victims skeptical. And somehow, Yumi became privy to the truths behind the changes, now confidante as well as concubine. She became the person who listened, who said nothing and passed no judgements, the quiet presence holding his stories to her soul.
"You're good at keeping secrets, aren't you?" he said when it began, more a statement than a question.
"I don't tell secrets that don't ask to be told."
"I mean you're good at living with them. Too many secrets can drag you down."
"They don't, because my head is full of air."
He laughed. "I'd say it's because your heart is light."
"That too. My heart is full of Floating World."
"A head full of air and a heart full of Floating World? No wonder you never sink too far."
"Kyouichi said it's because I'm a blow-up doll."
"Did he? Saionji's had a kendo stick up his ass for a long time."
"Yeah—yours." She grinned with the perfect double entendré retort. He laughed again, but she could tell she'd said something wrong. She would not ask. If he wanted to tell her then he would.
"He used to have all the secrets," Touga thought aloud. "But he grew out of it. He thinks that to be a man he has to be my rival."
Yumi said nothing. She would listen to him sort out his thoughts, because talking to a person, knowing only that they were listening, was far better than revealing oneself to inanimate paper. Maybe if she collected all the pieces, she'd be able to put together the map to his true self, and help him find it...
Minutes passed before he resumed to chase a different thought. "It seems to me that growing up is a fight to the death between oneself and one's dreams. You have to kill the dreams, or they will kill you..."
She squeezed his hand.
She asked no questions, made no remarks. When long intervals of silence came up she offered nothing but her own companionship. He never thanked her aloud; he didn't have to. A gesture, a nudge was all it took for him to say what solace he found in her tender listening.
He talked often in bed, sometimes in his room and now sometimes in hers; other times they went downtown, to sit in the park away from curious students' eyes or even in the coffee shop of which Miteki had made her a fan. He told her the feelings that Utena gave him and why he'd tried so hard to save her, and the sense of desolate hopelessness he got when she defeated him in the last duel. He told her of his total discontentment with his present self and the feelings of regret he was getting for having hurt so many, knowing he wanted to change but unsure what he could become. He told her of the dark and stormy night when he and Kyouichi had found Utena in the coffin, and that it was Akio who had saved her, so Akio really was her prince, at least technically. He worked his way backwards into the past and finally told her things that he had no idea she already knew.
"It was on my twelfth birthday. God, I hate birthday parties. And those white cabbage butterflies. That's why I hate them, because they landed on me like they thought it was great entertainment or something. I couldn't get up and Saionji found me just before dusk, but we were too young, he didn't really understand what had happened. I kept thinking that I'd dreamed it, that I must be going crazy, because he never acted any differently; but I remembered seeing the blood and burning the clothes afterward. I was disgusting and awful, too awful for anyone to understand, so within the week I grew up, taking all the childish dreams and killing them before they could get to me. I ruined Nanami, because I felt so sure that I had to protect her from him; I got all possessive and hardly ever let her out of my sight. For a little while that need to protect her was all that kept me going. By the time I realized the mistake the damage had been done, and by then, I thought it was funny. I was too disgusting to be anyone's friend, and I resented Saionji for finding me, so I started being mean to him and encouraged his rivalry. By then I'd stopped caring about other people. I'd found out how great it was to control everyone with sex; that was my real talent, and everything else disappeared. It amazed me how easy it was to break hearts, so I did it again and again. Like some kind of weird addiction. I couldn't help but want to control everyone around me. It was the only way I could live with myself. But I'm sick of it, and they don't make rehab programs for this."
She wept for him, and for the fact that he was telling her. She cried and cried. She kept herself from sobbing, trying to be strong for him, but the quiet tears would not stop.
Suddenly he remembered who was listening, and felt shocked with himself. "I'm sorry. I can't believe I told you that. You don't want to hear about that kind of sorrow..."
"Don't regret it," she whispered then. "I love you. I love everything you are. This is what foolish women do, we cry for our men so they can be strong and not shed any tears."
He smiled and dabbed at her tears with a sheet. "Yumi, have you been reading samurai romance novels?"
"Umm...no?"
Yet as she lived in the moment, collecting his thoughts in her soul, piecing them together into the map that might lead to his true self, there were other things going on. The same day that she accosted Touga in the lobby to get him back, notices came from End Of The World to her and the other members of the Student Council that she was now one of the elite. Nanami set fire to hers; and Yumi wrote on hers, Eat shit and die! with a smiley caricature of herself, before she threw it out the window. She would not defer to any messages from End Of The World.
Juri and Miki warned her not to defy his authority; Touga practically begged her not to. She was a bit curious as to Kyouichi's reaction, but wasn't about to seek him out and ask him. He and Nanami were enough incentive not to go even if she hadn't been hellbent on defying End Of The World. Anyway she remained obstinate and refused to show her face at the meetings. She continued to wear the uniform jacket with the white shorts, however, because it looked good on her and gave her even more status than the ring. She didn't have to hide out during the day any more. If she felt like it she could read outside under a tree while others were trapped in class, or, soon, final exams.
Kyouichi attempted to mock her a few times as she read library books outside, but she did not rise to the occasion. She no longer had any cruelty in her, except for one instance when she spent the last of it. He was being fresh, and finally she looked up from her book and said in cold formal words, "Why do you insist upon hating me and everyone else so much? Do I threaten you? Could it be, perhaps, that you feel the same for him as I do but haven't the courage to admit it?"
His eyes went the color of thunderheads and he muttered something to the effect that such fools as her shouldn't be allowed to live, then turned arrogantly and stalked away in the direction of the dojo. She knew with a pang that quite without intending it, she had exactly hit the truth of Saionji Kyouichi. There could be a game- show bell going ding-ding-ding!
Well, it wasn't her problem. If he couldn't tell Touga, she certainly had no business doing so. She put it from her awareness as quickly as she had chanced upon it.
Nothing was actually happening, and yet, they felt as though something was. All of the Student Council—even the members who didn't show up to meetings—knew that Utena's final duel was approaching, and that something would happen. They may not ever know what, but something was coming.
"I had a dream last night," said Miteki one day, "that Tenjou-san was surrounded by these little laughing dark fire- thingies."
"Imps!?" Yumi exclaimed. "You don't see the unseen ones, do you?"
"No...not when I'm awake, anyway. And whenever I see her for real, it's like there's this dark cloud around her. Wow, that sounds corny, doesn't it? But that's how it seems. Something terrible is going to happen to her. I hope I don't get any visions about it, because I don't want to see it."
Yumi shook her head regretfully. "Of course something terrible's going to happen to her. She loves End Of The World. If that doesn't put a dark cloud of doom around you I don't know what would."
"You guys sure are mixed up in some weird stuff."
"He's a weird motherfucker. How was your English exam?"
"I can't even talk about it! I completely suck at English!..."
Yumi never forgot what she had to protect Touga from. Where he went, she tried not to be too far away, especially at night. She found him at sunset and stuck to him like a guard dog at least until the morning star disappeared. She didn't know that there was no need, since by now Akio was diligently focusing his advances on Utena.
She told no one, not even Miteki, how he was baring her soul to her. It wouldn't matter to anyone else. Hope blossomed in her, the hope that she could never acknowledge for fear of dashing it. It made her fencing improve again, so that Juri couldn't say too much to chastise her about tying her happiness so heavily to another person.
She was happy, but it wasn't that buoyant dandelion kind of happy. It really was more like...contentment. She loved him, and he trusted her, and that was all there was to it.
The day came when she skipped another Student Council meeting and, looking up at the Tower from where she walked across campus with Miteki, she could just see them all looking out from the great terrace high above, Miki and Juri and Nanami and Kyouichi and him. And she knew the day was here, the day of the final duel, Tenjou Utena against End Of The World, one who wanted to be a prince fighting one who used to be.
Yumi gazed up at that tiny spot of most beautiful red, caught in the afternoon sun. It moved and she knew that he saw her, the tiny speck of vivid aqua so far below; and he knew that she was looking at him, and that she stretched her arm toward him in something like a wave, something like reaching. That was the connection between them. She had a very strange, deep feeling that she couldn't name. It was like music, music from the heart of the world, music sung by stars, sounding out through the universe. It filled her soul and rang into the infinite expanse of sky.
It sounded like destiny. Destiny was getting closer, though she did not know what it was.
Miteki was looking back, toward the dueling forest. Something huge, some ominous mystical power, was gathering there. Oh, but she wanted to be off campus when it struck home... She turned to suggest to Yumi that they go downtown, but held her tongue. Yumi was far away, her eyes raised transcendently to some other plane of existence.
Utena passed them, perhaps headed for the Rose Gate, traces of a pained or determined expression on her face. The cloud about her seemed so thick that Miteki could hardly make out the pink hair. She'd never seen anything like it and hoped she never would again. Not until they were off the campus proper near the dorms did she push for going downtown.
"Absolutely not," said Yumi. "Don't you feel that power? I've got to make sure it doesn't make anyone's head explode."
"What about mine? I don't like this. I want to get off campus."
"Sorry, I can't go with you. Don't you want to protect Miki if he needs it? You don't have any faith in yourself, but you can be brave for him. Nothing can touch you when you think of the one you love. Think of that song he plays, 'The Sunlit Garden,' isn't it?"
"Yeah..." Miteki blushed a little, as she generally did when anyone mentioned Miki. "Hey, did Kozue ever write you like she said?"
"Nah. She probably ended up deciding not to trust me."
"Typical."
"That, or I never found the letter. Well, I do fancy a quick cup of coffee, though. Let's hurry!" Yumi smiled and set a lively pace.
She was always smiling in the face of so much danger, Miteki thought. Being around Yumi was enough to make one brave. She had courage to spare.
Utena never came back.
The Revolution came, but no one knew what form it had taken, because Utena was not there to tell them. They all felt it, all of the student body and everyone from the faculty to the sanitation workers, anyone who spent time on campus—a strange blip, like Yumi felt when some form of darkness had drawn a sword from Touga. Throughout the city birds clamored, dogs howled and cats yowled, so that people called geological centers worrying about earthquakes. Miteki's psychic head pounded and ached unremittingly for several hours, and although she was more worried about him, Yumi stuck around to give her tea. By the next day, no one could remember the name of the pink-haired school tomboy, for End Of The World had erased the name and memory of the sheep on his altar.
But by the next day, Yumi didn't care. The Revolution came, bringing destiny with it.
When Miteki's headache began to subside, all the aspirin and tea making her sleepy, Yumi ran to find Touga. But he was with Kyouichi, celebrating the finality of revolution—or perhaps lamenting it—and much as she tried to fight it, the same thing happened again.
She felt like a broken record, stuck on this one line over and over, until anything resembling thought or emotion was driven from her once more. They didn't tie anyone up this time, but they may as well have. She couldn't get away. That ecstasy...in the end, it was all any of them were...
It should have turned into a fiasco, but perhaps because Yumi felt no anger and Kyouichi was afraid of what she knew, no fight broke out. "Well, I'm glad you two have learned to put up with each other," said Touga afterward.
"Shut up," said Yumi and Kyouichi in exact unison, which was more than a little strange. Touga had to laugh.
Maybe it wasn't wrong at all, she thought later. Maybe, in fact, it was supposed to be like this. There was some French term for it. Wouldn't it be just typical, in this weird place.
She pretended to sleep, but she didn't. The boys were doing the same. It was kind of funny. Each of them knew the other two were actually awake and yet continued to feign sleep. A moonbeam fell on her face, and Yumi looked to the window. The full moon had drifted into view, huge and bright, a serene and mysterious image. She could see the three-legged toad that Chinese folklore said was there. She opened her mouth to comment on it to Touga, but the words never came out. He was staring into space with a faraway look of discontent and longing. No, he was staring at Kyouichi.
Out of nowhere she wondered if that was the sort of look she got when she gazed on him.
It was a perfectly idle and meaningless thought. It had no significance to it and she was barely aware of it having passed through her mind...until suddenly the only thing such a comparison could mean loomed up from the depths of her consciousness with the destructive force of a tsunami. A tremor far beneath the ocean, unnoticed by anyone, triggered a cataclysm to wipe out anything and everything in its path once it reached the shore.
She saw it taking shape, stabbing her with fear.
Hadn't it been in plain sight for one searching so keenly as her? Hadn't she just been ignoring it?
But now there was no stopping the tsunami. Fragments of his ramblings, hidden meanings and momentary thoughts fit together until one memory, one sound filled her mind, a truth edging slowly into her, the great wave creeping up to the coast.
Kyacha? That wasn't a name. It wasn't even a word.
"Kyacha" made no sense at all. Because he hadn't said "kyacha." Her ears, nonetheless human for their elfin shape, had twisted what they didn't want to hear, missed what they weren't listening for.
"Kyacha" was not a name.
But "Kyo-chan" was.
She got up from the pink bed, perfectly calm, as though headed for the bathroom. She had to get away before the tsunami hit. Its shape loomed over her, waiting to drown her in the hugeness of the truth. Somehow she kept her steps unhurried and quiet until she stood, naked, at the threshold of the Student Council dorm. The campus and the city had long since fallen silent. Some nocturnal bird made a soft, mournful cry, and it seemed like the only sound in the entire world. When it ceased the stillness was total, as if the world was frozen, holding its breath in the last moments before the apocalypse.
She walked carefully as if afraid of breaking the ground, waiting for the tsunami to crash down upon her.
Here was the mystery she had sought:
Here was the truth of her longing, the end of her dreams:
His true self was love for another. The key to his happiness was someone else.
She fled into the night.
None of the Student Council were sleeping that night. After sunrise, Miki came in early to clean the piano. It needed more attention, after all, in the humid weather.
But Yumi was there, unclothed on the floor, just the same as the night of her appearance; except that this time she was curled into a fetal position on her side. "Yumi-san!?"
It seemed to take her a while to realize Miki's presence. "I was...supposed to be...strong enough..." she murmured shakily, her low voice telling of some struggle he could scarcely imagine. "Supposed to be...supposed to be strong..."
Had she gone off the proverbial deep end? Why? What edge had been there for her to fall from?
He didn't give her his shirt or call the hospital, as it crossed his mind that he probably should do. Instead, feeling driven by some impulse outside of himself, he sat down at the piano and played, purely from memory, her Chopin piece. He played it much better than he had before, amazing himself.
The music reached her, stirring in her ravaged soul, the song of herself. The song of her destiny.
A destiny beyond her power to endure.
It returned her to herself, as Miki had hoped, at least enough for her to cry. When the last sweet note died away she began to sob, then to cry as small children do, wailing at some fact of the world like gravity or hunger that seems to them to be the most extreme injustice.
It didn't make sense for her to be crying, she thought vaguely. It didn't make sense in the way that one electron didn't make sense to the universe. If she stood at the top of the Tower and screamed until her vocal cords snapped, it would be like the soft ting of a pin falling to express the fury of a supernova.
But she'd probably try it anyway. Somehow she stopped her tears, hating herself for being so spineless as to bawl like the baby she'd never been. Like some toddler who dropped an ice cream cone. Whiny tears didn't begin to cover it.
Her anguish frightened Miki. He couldn't comfort a naked girl. He ran to find a student directory, to call her friend.
What, he had to wonder, what had Touga done this time?
When the phone woke her Miteki knew something was wrong. She always knew when something was wrong. She thought it should be Yumi, but knew that it wasn't before she picked it up. "Hzbgh... Hello?"
"Kodama-san? This—this is Kaoru..."
Miteki nearly fell down. Even if her abilities had told her the caller's identity, she wouldn't have believed it, and she was startled. "Um—uh—hi!"
"I'm really sorry to wake you up but...I...I went in early to clean the piano, and Yumi-san—she's like she was that one night, except, I don't know, she's crying and...I'm sorry, I don't know what's wrong..."
"Oh! Oh, I see..." She could hardly talk. She was blushing because he'd called her, but had no idea that he was blushing for the same reason. "Yes, I'll be there in a minute." Miteki remembered the rumors of how Yumi had appeared and what Miki had thought when he found her. Poor Miki! How shocked he must be! But, more than that, poor Yumi—and Miteki was wondering the same thing that Miki was.
"Thank you, Kodama-san." He hung up.
Miteki dressed, unhappy at having to go outside in the morning without a shower, and ran to Yumi's room to grab some clothes. Fortunately, this was a place where no one locked their dorm doors unless they were doing something that needed locked doors.
She reached the music room where Yumi sat quietly in a ball, face wet from tears. "Yumi-chan..."
Yumi put on the clothes silently, underwear and a needlessly cute sundress and shoes. She didn't seem to be in as bad a state as Miteki had imagined from Miki's anxiety. Somehow she'd gotten herself under control. Miki was waiting outside nervously, and Miteki thought of him as she turned away to let Yumi dress.
"Thanks, Teki-chan." Yumi stood, her voice soft and heavy with sadness, so unlike her as to be utterly chilling. "I'm sorry to be so much trouble."
"What did he do to you?" Miteki whispered.
Yumi raised her eyes—such sorrow in those golden eyes, in her bearing and her slightest movement, that she reminded Miteki of some haloed Catholic icon in a book of Renaissance art. "He didn't do anything. I did it to myself."
Miteki, troubled and mystified, grabbed Yumi's hands. "What is it?"
"He tried to protect me from it. Just like he tried to protect her. But you can't protect someone from destiny."
"Yumi-chan, what?!"
"It is not my secret to share. Stop trying to help me. Take your piano player and walk away. Please apologize to him for me."
"Yumi-chan!"
"I'm sorry. Leave me alone or I will get angry and hurt you." She walked out as if every step, every breath was torment. "Don't worry. I won't kill myself. But soon, the molecules of my body will find it too painful to stay together, and I'll simply melt into the air, like the mermaid in the story melted into the sea..." She passed Miki with these words, and Miteki was following her, frightened.
Miteki stopped beside him in the doorway of the piano room, and Miki hesitantly took her hand as they watched Yumi walk away, half-expecting her to melt away as she said.
She sang as she walked, a clear and melancholy sound, a post-apocalyptic nightingale. "Exploded and scattered, the fragments of my heart glitter all around me. Since when have I become so weak?..."
"She said to tell you she's sorry," said Miteki, then began to cry. Brave Yumi was fallen. Miki could only return the favor she had rendered him before, and held her.
Yumi went to the Student Council terrace. Alone in the elevator, she intoned a new version of that strange speech. "If the chick cannot break out of its egg, it will die without being born. We are the chick. The egg is a star that will burn out. Fight the dream that will kill you, or die without being born. Smash the sky of stars. This is the true revolution."
She stepped out onto the terrace. It was hardly startling to see it covered with red, red rose petals, the red that was the color of her dreams. The dreams that spelled her doom. Petals occasionally drifted upward, and changed into the little white butterflies, which then disappeared with little bursts of flame. All of the petals that her feet touched did this. She stood at the edge, then on the edge, looking out over the campus and the far landscape. Haze blurred the western horizon so that there was no line between sky and sea. The day promised to be swelteringly hot.
She wasn't satisfied with the height. She wanted to scream from atop the Tower.
She walked back inside, beneath the huge stained glass window in the design of the Rose Signet, petals floating up and transforming behind her. There was a rickety spiral staircase by the elevator that appeared to go all the way up. Perhaps it was there only because she wanted it to be. This Tower, like the Arena, had its own version of "reality." She climbed it, for how long she had no idea, but her legs were tired when she reached the trapdoor at the top. Just as she'd hoped, it opened to nothing but sky. Then she was on the roof. If she had been in a state to mind her health, she might have been wary of the Tower's smooth dome. But she was not in any such state, and besides, if she slipped there would probably be something in the architecture to catch herself. If she even felt like catching herself.
The sky stretched on and on. At the center of the summit there was another Rose Signet, a flat circle the width of her shoulders for her to stand on. There she stood, and stared into the blue until she was no longer sure whether she would fall up or down should her feet falter. The gusting wind of altitude whipped her sundress about her legs.
She thought of everything that she was and the truth that she'd been after for so long.
The red petals from the terrace came up to float around her, metamorphosing one after the other into butterflies that stayed to mock her with their blithe fluttering. She filled her lungs, and screamed. Her fists clenched, nails making unnoticed cuts in her palms. Her body went rigid as her voice tried with all its might to let out the screaming inside her.
In his planetarium, Akio laughed at her. He did not yet know that his tiny sister and her tiny pet monkey were packing to leave.
Kozue and her cronies were sunning on the high bleachers in the afternoon, except for Rini, who was birdwatching. She followed a seagull with her binoculars. It wheeled in front of the Tower. From here the angle was just right for her to catch...
"Holy shit!"
"What, you find a bird with two heads?"
"No! There's a person way up on top of the Tower!" She focused the binoculars. "Oh. Not such a big surprise. It's Yumi-chan."
"Can I see?" said Motoko. Rini handed her the binoculars. "Thanks... How the hell did she get up there? She's singing, or yelling or something."
"It looks like she's stuck up there somehow and she's scared," said Chiharu, taking her turn. "No...no, she's in pain. I wonder if it's got something to do with that funny blip yesterday? Maybe it's the aliens that took her, and—"
"Gimme that." Kozue snatched the optical instrument. "What a weirdo. Moto-chan, go tell her boyfriend."
"The Student Council President? Why?"
Kozue giggled. "Cause I wanna see what happens." She gave the binoculars to Motoko and nudged her in the direction of Touga, who was not far away on the bleachers among some groupies.
"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players in the soap opera for Kozue-sama's entertainment," Motoko muttered and went to the task.
"Well? What did he say?" asked Kozue upon Motoko's return.
"It wasn't all that exciting. He said, 'Oh no, is that where she is? How...' and he looked in the binoculars, then he sighed and excused himself to the giggle-girls, and there he goes." Motoko pointed to the Student Council President walking across the field. "He acted like it must be his fault, but something he didn't want to happen."
"Hmm. Interesting. And now, we watch the drama unfold." Kozue raised the binoculars again to Yumi. "Somebody had to tell him. Don't you think she might kill herself from up there?"
"She could, but he doesn't think she will," said Chiharu. "He isn't running."
"He isn't running because it's too damn hot." Motoko picked up the fan which Chiharu had smartly brought and waved it at herself. "Or else because he still doesn't care."
Rini was unsure whether to be sorry or glad about deciding to birdwatch that day.
Oh, but the mad expanse of her pain, boundless as the sky! It made her solitary midnight hauntings into sketch comedy. It made supernovae into falling pins and galaxies into guttering candles. She yelled until her throat began to hurt, and then rested her vocal cords to yell some more later. At least, when she was screaming at the top of her lungs up here above everything and everyone, it felt like she was doing as her feelings told her. The sun grew hot. Soon she might faint and fall, and she didn't much mind the idea.
The other side of an extraordinary capacity for happiness was, of course, an extraordinary capacity for sorrow. How much longer could she survive? How much could her body handle before the storm in her soul made her very atoms repel one another?
Someone was yelling her name. It was him. Why? What did he want from this mistress of secrets and exploding stars? "YUMI! Yumi, come down. Please, I'm begging you. Come down from there." He was standing in the trapdoor and stretching out his arm to her.
It seemed to tear her open, a physical agony like a sword slashing into her. "Why should I?"
"Because you're scaring me. Please! Come down!"
"How many, Touga?" Her voice was raw and accusing. "How many pillows soaked with tears, how many emptied bottles of sleeping pills, how many wrists bleeding in bathtubs, because you couldn't give us the truth?"
"Stop it..." But she couldn't help it, he thought. She was torn, broken, and had to rail and curse her world in protest.
"You can't even give yourself the truth! Why? Why do you go on hurting one another? Why do two people who love each other—"
"Shut up!" Was she trying to say things that made him itch to break the code of chivalry and hit her? His voice went icy. "That's an old lie. It's gone. Don't say such stupid things."
"Oh, you hide it so well, don't you! It took me long enough to see it, and you still keep him in the dark! People wonder why he's so bitter—it's because he loves you and he thinks you care nothing for him!"
"He does not. Stop being so ridiculous." She was malicious to speak such lies, to torment him with dreams dead and buried like the ruins of some fabled ancient civilization. But he would not let her see the power it still held. This was one secret she must not have. "Those are all lies, dead lies, and it certainly has nothing to do with you. Leave it alone."
She stared in disbelief. "You IDIOT!!" she screamed with such harsh force that she then wept tears of blood.
"...Now he looks extremely displeased with her. Whatever she's saying, he doesn't much care for it. She stares and then yells with a fury that wracks her slender form, and... Oh my god," said Motoko with the binoculars, faltering in her narration. They had decided that she should have them because of her storytelling talent, and the soap opera now had an audience of random students. But this disturbed even the cool Motoko. "She—she's crying blood!"
"She's a vampire!?" Chiharu blurted.
Rini kicked her. "That happens when little blood vessels in your eyes break."
Motoko waited for the murmurs to quiet before she continued. "His face is turned away. Maybe he's not sure if he wants her to come back down any more, if she's going to talk like this. The blood tears frighten him. Is she possessed by some hateful spirit?..."
Far and above, the sound of the wind was loud and forlorn. He looked up at her again, the picture of all sorrow, dress whipping about her, rivulets of blood on her cheeks, a goddess of suffering from some dark forgotten world. She was broken by the last secret. Couldn't she understand that it was gone? He reached his hand toward her once more.
She had no idea that she was crying blood. She thought that the dark curtain falling in her eyes was death, that her body was finally giving up and dissolving. The sun was too hot. She swayed on her feet. "This...is goodbye..." Tenderness passed over her face for a moment before her eyes rolled back in her head.
"Yumi? YUMI, NO!"
"...She begins to sway on her feet as though it's too much trouble to stand up. Is she fainting? Oh, she's falling!" shrieked Motoko. Cries of dismayed suspense went through the audience. Chiharu and Rini clutched at each other. Everyone leaned forward, eyes riveted on the Tower, even though only Motoko could clearly see the two people there. "Catch her! Oh, he's got her. Careful—no! They're going down!" Everyone screamed. "No, they aren't. They're alright. He made a flying leap and caught her, and then lost his balance for a moment. But now he has her and they aren't falling. She's unconscious. He holds her tightly, making sure that she's safe." A collective sigh sounded. "He might be trembling; it's hard to say from here. But even Musashi would be shaking after that. Now he moves carefully, gracefully but carefully, with her in his arms, back to the open trapdoor. And there they go. He carries her down and they disappear." Motoko finally put down the binoculars and rubbed her eyes, sighing. "Goddamn. Don't ever make me do that again."
"That was almost as good as the 'Splat' story," said Kozue. Both Rini and Chiharu kicked her.
Touga descended the rickety spiral stairs with Yumi in his arms, which was hard work. She probably had a bit of sunstroke. At the floor with the Student Council terrace he waited for the elevator, which shouldn't have been taking so long. He could hear it moving higher up. When it opened he saw the reason for the delay—Himemiya Anthy, in a bright pink dress with her voluminous purple hair down and glasses off, a suitcase by her feet and her little pet on her shoulder. She was almost unrecognizeable.
"Oh, Seitokaichou- sama," Anthy smiled and moved her suitcase for him. "What a surprise. Isn't it a nice day?"
"A bit too nice," said Touga, unceremoniously wiping his forehead as he stepped into the elevator with the unconscious Yumi slung against him. "It's very hot. Be careful if you're walking far."
"I see. Thank you."
"Are you off for a summer trip?"
"I'm off to seek my fortune." Anthy made a courageous smile most atypical of her.
"You're leaving?" Touga blinked. How had the demure Rose Bride escaped End Of The World? Something had happened...the Revolution?
"Yes, that's right. There's a friend I'm going to meet."
"Is that so."
"Yes. My goodness, what happened to her?" Anthy appeared to just notice Yumi's limp form.
"She dreamed," Touga sighed. "That's what happened to her."
"Oh, a bad dream? Poor thing." Anthy knew perfectly well what Yumi had come to, and felt rather sympathetic toward the fairy-girl, but there was nothing she could do. She needed all of her power to find her friend—the one she loved. "She looks sunburned."
"Yes, she was in the sun too long."
"The chariot of Apollo," Anthy murmured pensively. "It puts out all the other stars."
"Chu!" her pet added, but he probably meant praise for the cookie he was eating.
He waited until Yumi woke enough to walk, albeit unsteadily, then took her to her dorm and made her drink plenty of water. She kept her eyes down and said nothing, as she was very tired and light-headed with the heat. He was worried that her stomach would refuse the water, but she fell sound asleep almost before he put her to bed, her face and shoulders and arms pink from the sun, specks of dried blood on her eyelashes. Even in sleep her brows were drawn slightly inward, her mouth tensed. He touched her face, wanting to erase the injured pout from it. She was a bit too warm. He put a cold cloth on her forehead, though the heat was probably just sunburn and not fever.
He knew this would kill her. He'd known it all along. That was why, when he told her everything, he left out this part. There was no point to it. It was dead and gone, but trying to explain was no use; she refused to understand. She wanted to return the part of him that was lost forever, and now, having discovered what it was, she would not leave it alone. Even if it destroyed her. He should have done better to shield her from it; he knew he shouldn't have started another threesome... Sure, he could make regrets, but she would have found out somehow because she'd been after that dead dream from the start. And this, finally, was the only thing that could break her. What cruel irony this world could come up with...
She was doomed by her dreams, just like...like...who was it?
Her slumber was too deep to be feverish, and promised to last quite a while; he could only hope that her dreams there were not so cruel to her. He was just about to leave her to her own devices when a knock on the door came.
"Yumi-chan, it's me," announced a gentle female voice. "Are you here?" Yumi's shy dark-haired friend made her way in. Upon seeing the Student Council President, rather than going all timid and polite, she went angry and rude—most uncharacteristic of her, even he knew. "You? Why are you here? What did you do to her this time?"
"I don't know!" he said, unnerved at the thought that other people would want to know what had hurt her.
"Wow. That was cool. You just managed to cram more bullshit into that little phrase than I've ever heard."
Great. He couldn't deal with Yumi's friends come to bitch him out. "Be quiet, will you. She got sunstroke and she's sleeping." He left, shutting the door quietly.
What a strange day. Miteki angry and rude; Yumi full of spite and sorrow; himself full of regret; if such a trend continued, Nanami would say he had cooties and Saionji would...
...run into his arms and...
Damn Yumi and her dreams! Her vicious lies made him taste the same deadly torment of longing that had her crying tears of blood atop the Tower. Did she want to drag him down with her, calling forth the ghosts of dead dreams to plague him? Was she out to martyr herself to dreams in a love suicide?
And yet he knew that it was not even that sorrow which made her scream hard enough to weep blood. It was that she actually believed what she'd said. For she believed everything that she told him.
What cruel irony.
The human being is astoundingly adaptable. The resilience of the human spirit is known even to other races of beings from other worlds. It is one of the inexhaustible marvels of existence, although it is no more than completely necessary. Any being that knows it is going to die must be quite resilient to go on living.
This is like one of those agonizing terminal illnesses you hear of people valiantly enduring until death finally comes for them. It will kill me, but slowly. It will flay my soul raw every moment, and yet...I can adapt to pain. I can accept it. What else is there to do, but live until I die?
Broken dreams. Exploded stars. Oh, don't I understand now, why people kill their dreams, why he did! But I will hold on, like the little mermaid, like that girl...that girl who liked to wear a boy's uniform...who was she?... She must have succumbed, as I surely will.
I've read that the big stars which shine the brightest and hottest sometimes explode rather than burning out. And sometimes after a star explodes, it can become something called a black hole, a strange phenomenon so massive that it distorts space-time, so dark that it is a great maw of absolute nothingness. Everything that passes near gets sucked in and crushed and ripped apart down to the atoms, maybe further, and even light cannot escape it.
Pain, however, feeds spite. I think of how much I could hurt him by telling everyone. I relish the idea of making bitter, hopeless Kyouichi mad with jealousy, of taunting him with words so cruel they'd be worthy of End Of The World.
Yes. End Of The World.
Because after the few days it takes for my eyes to clear of blood tears, I come to see that it is End Of The World who keeps them like this, hurting each other, unable to forgive—keeping them in their state of diamond shell and cold north wind, for his exploitation, for his amusement. He has them under his wicked spell, convinced that each hates the other, as he uses their pain in his dark machinations. I know they did not get this way without any help.
It is End Of The World who keeps Touga from happiness, and for that, he has no more devoted enemy than me.
If dreams will be my downfall, Ohtori Akio, I will be yours.
Even in the depths of my selfish despair, I stand up. I do not falter in fencing practice, as I cannot have Juri asking me what's wrong. I give Teki-chan the simplest of answers, so that she can at least stop being mad at him. But I will have no one's pity, and he, after all, does not want anyone to know.
Whatever motions I go through, my soul is still up there on the Tower, screaming and screaming. The pity I really must avoid is that from myself.
Yumi was altered. Everyone could see it. She seemed to have caught the affliction from which Touga had been suffering lately, and it took a more dramatic hold in her. Some ineffable sorrow graced all her movements, once gangly and upbeat; her eyes made anyone who met them fall quiet under the mournful gaze. Her voice had become slow and soft, her laughter rare; even her hair seemed less spiky. When anyone showed concern or sympathy, she ignored the offender completely.
"What has he done?" Miteki asked angrily, as she had been doing for the past three days. They had taken a bus to the local department store, more intent on the air-conditioning than shopping, and were eating in one of the top-floor restaurants. "Why won't you tell anyone?"
Yumi poked at her salad. Her appetite had been failing. "He did not do anything."
"Nothing else would make you so upset!"
"Why do you want to know?"
"Because you're my friend!"
Yumi looked up with her eyes so sorrowful they were like a rebuke to anyone who doubted the depth of her suffering. "Swear two things."
"What?"
"One, that you will never speak of it."
"Who am I gonna tell?"
"You could tell Miki or Juri."
"I won't tell anyone."
"Swear that you won't speak of it. That also means never bring it up again."
"Yes, I swear. What else?"
"Two, that you will not pity me."
"Okay, I swear. I'll never speak of it and I won't pity you." Miteki was aching with sympathy, though, even before she knew what it was, because it was obviously so awful.
Yumi closed her eyes. She didn't want to say it. Saying it meant thinking about it; saying it made it real. Every fiber of her being hurt. It tore at her like so many swords, but she forced the words out finally, because Miteki was angry at him without reason. "He loves another."
"Oh!" cried Miteki in vicarious grief, and tried not to show any true sympathy, because Yumi really did hate sympathy, even if it wasn't exactly pity. "Well...damn, that sucks."
Yumi laughed, but it sounded more like crying.
They went to the bathroom after the early dinner, and all of a sudden the tears came out. Yumi fell to the tiled floor, covering her face. The song, playing softly on speakers throughout the department store but amplified by the acoustics of tile and porcelain, had broken the floodgate.
"People are all alike, they fall by clinging to kindness.
Once this unexpected betrayal shattered my dreams, my heart was crushed.
To the end of time,
Unable to do anything, unable to forgive,
There will be those people who hurt each other.
Unable to do anything, with my eyes shut
And my breath hushed, it might all be useless,
But surely, just like this..."
She knew the song; she had the album. But hearing it now, such a ruthless expression of everything, made her curl up and cry right there in the fancy department store ladies' room. Miteki knew her well enough to do nothing but sit beside her and hand her tissues.
"...Unable to do anything, unable to forgive,
I looked at those people who hurt each other.
Even if bit by bit, even if it's just a little,
I want you to hold me and wrap me up tightly.
I want to dream again, and when I can do that,
Then, slowly opening my eyes, now I'm over the end."
The song ended and then Yumi stood up, blew her nose, and stared at herself stoically in the mirror. "Let's go back now," she said after a moment. "It must have started cooling off outside." She wiped the last of her tears and straightened her shoulders.
Miteki gaped. "God, how did you get so fucking brave..."
That gave Yumi just a little bit of comfort. She did not want sympathy for her ordeal, but...admiration.
Really she wanted to be in his arms. With him, the pain stabbed into her again and again, ceaseless as ocean waves, yet at the same time she felt a kind of peace, faint drifting sparks of the happiness that always came from being near him. Perhaps the word was "bittersweet."
They had no more words for each other. Between them, language seemed to have lost all meaning. They went entire nights together without saying anything. There was real sincerity in the quiet tenderness with which he treated her. He was the only one, of course, from whom she would accept any hint of sympathy. She knew that he cared for her but the place in his heart she wanted—much as she'd always tried to deny her wanting it—was long since reserved, like an apartment whose tenant had gone missing. She doubted that a worse fate could exist for one who felt as she did. But she had to be close to him. There was no other way for her to live.
He knew how she was hurting. How he wished he could make her believe that the thing she'd seen was long dead! He was still afraid that she would show up with a bottle of sleeping pills and ask him to leave this life with her. It frightened him because he wasn't so sure that he'd be able to refuse. The thought came up so often that he must want to. Washing the pills down with saké, falling woozily into each other's arms, the love on her face blurring in his vision as the long sleep claimed them together... He must stop thinking of such things, before they seeped into her own mind by some kind of morbid osmosis.
It frightened him because he knew death was the only way she might stop hurting.
But she didn't think at all when she was with him. If she did, her thoughts would probably go that way. She simply sank into the lull of his warm presence, and that was all she asked for.
All she could have.
