Her feet faltered as she approached the fountain. She had expected the school to be empty, given certain rules about curfews and her own embarrassed care not to go near the places used for... romance. She was not prepared to find - an angel, her confused mind prompted, taking in the tall white figure and long curls. Arisugawa Juri, her common sense snapped back. No angel, she or anyone else on the Student Council. You have enough problems without romanticising them, Tenjou.
It couldn't be denied that Juri looked angelic, the moonlight draining her reddish hair to pale gold, her nightgown shimmering to silver through the spray of water. Not a Christmas card angel, though. Something wilder, more pure, colder. Beautiful...
Utena trotted to a halt beside the older girl. Juri didn't bother to acknowledge her. Her eyes, grey rather than green in this light, were fixed on a point beyond the fountain. Utena followed her gaze, curious to see what the older girl was watching with such intensity that her shoulders trembled, but there was no one and nothing there.
Utena felt a sudden stab of exasperation. This was just... typical of what her life had become. No one in the Student Council could just stand there enjoying a pretty scene like a nice, normal person, oh no, they had to pause dramatically like some pre-Raphaelite maiden watching ghostly visions. Why couldn't anyone at Ohtori behave naturally for one moment, instead of every word and gesture being replete with symbolic meaning? Juri was a schoolgirl, for heaven's sake, not a figure in some romantic tragedy.
She was actually holding what was surely a golden-orange rose between languid fingers. That, Utena felt, was absolutely the last straw.
"What are you looking for?" she asked, her voice deliberately pitched loudly enough to break the spell and lively for good measure. She sounded unsettlingly like Wakaba.
Juri started, turning towards her. Utena noted with satisfaction that the sad, otherworldly expression had sharpened into irritation.
"Perhaps... for a prince to transport me out of this labyrinth," Juri said, but the dreamy mood had been broken and the effect fell flat. Utena felt perfectly justified in chuckling.
"You know Mr. Ohtori is the only one with a car here, unless you want to ride in Touga's sidecar," she said cheerfully, despite the difficulty of referring to Akio so formally. "Otherwise, I'd offer myself."
Juri gave her a pained look and turned back to the fountain, twisting the rose in fingertips that were longer and more slender than a girl so dedicated to fighting deserved to own.
Utena was determined not to let her fall back into her trance. She needed conversation, she decided, and she liked Juri well enough. Juri was athletic and intelligent and had undeniable style, and it was impossible not to admire her. They might even have been friends, if Juri wasn't the Student Council secretary and a Duellist, cast as Utena's enemy. But then there was poor Shiori to consider; no one quite understood why Juri was so cold to her once-dear friend. Shiori seemed so sweet and gentle, too... She reminded Utena of Anthy, in her shyness and her dependence on one particular friend, and her particular friend had openly cast her aside as soon as she had started to show signs of relating to other people.
The indignation that went along with that thought prompted her to ask how the plum-haired girl was.
"Should I know?" Juri's voice was tired.
"I think you do," Utena said slowly. "You may have quarrelled with her, but I don't think you're much good at letting go. If it's not disrespectful of me to say so," she added hastily, suddenly remembering she was addressing her senior.
Juri laughed, but the sound wasn't exactly vivacious. "She's miserable, I think, but there's nothing I can do about that." The hardness of her words were softened somehow, either by her tone or by the moonlight. "And how is the Rose Bride?"
"Don't call her that." Utena felt blood pulse behind her ears, and forced her anger down, only barely managing to avoid making herself look even sillier by attempting to order Juri not to speak of Anthy in that contemptuous tone. "Himemiya is... much the same as usual."
Juri laughed again at that, and the mood relaxed a little. "I suppose that's all that can be said." She smiled, switching on her considerable charm with the flash of teeth. "As we are both breaking curfew, let's sit together. I wouldn't mind some company. I suppose I can be assured that I won't receive an ungentlemanly kick in the stomach, tonight at least?"
Utena's face heated, but she resisted the urge to defend herself as she followed to a stone bench. She sprawled out, noting a second later how elegantly Juri sat with the folds of her nightgown around her, and couldn't decide if it would be more or less graceful if she tried to switch to a less tomboyish posture. She was unused to feeling so uncertain
of herself. She didn't enjoy it much.
"Utena." Juri was staring at the fountain again, her expression sad, but it was a normal human sadness this time, no excessive drama about it. "I'm sorry sometimes, you know. You're a nice girl, and you shouldn't have been caught up in all this."
"It's Himemiya you should apologise to."
Juri sighed. "I don't think you quite understand about your Himemiya's role in all this, Utena."
"How am I supposed to understand if no one tells me?" Utena snapped.
Juri ignored the implied question, but Utena had enough experience with the Student Council not to expect an answer in the first place. "Tell me... is she really your Himemiya, in fact?"
"What do you mean?"
Juri turned her head. Her eyes were shadowed in the moonlight, but her hand trailed slowly up Utena's arm, sliding over her shoulder to take her chin. She leaned down and in as she had once before, and like she had that other time, Utena tilted her chin up and breathed out slowly.
This time, there was no violent grab for Utena's ring. Juri's lips closed over Utena's, moving with gentle pressure, parting them long before the shiveringly delicate touch of her tongue playing over the lips, pressing almost intangibly inside until Utena's tongue moved back in response. The girls sat motionless together except for the movements of their mouths, as if their bodies were held in stasis for the duration of the kiss.
Utena's hands finally moved, reaching up to grasp Juri's shoulders and thrust her away. Juri fell back slightly on the seat, leaning back on her hands, showing no sign of breathlessness or confusion. The orange rose was still wound in her free hand.
"Like that."
Utena stared blankly at her. Her mouth still felt as if it had been caressed by velvet, and her heart was pounding painfully, echoed by a sharp quick pulse deep inside. One kiss had done this to her... and she looked at Juri's perfect face in the moonlight, and realised the older girl had done it in full knowledge of the result. This time her anger could not be damped down.
"No! My love for Himemiya is pure -"
"Pure and platonic, like sisters?" Juri laughed, and Utena felt stripped bare and naked, as if those knowing eyes could see her in Akio's bed. Juri lifted her hard, lovely face... and suddenly it crumpled into remorse. "I'm sorry. I thought you understood."
Utena wasn't the most perceptive of girls, but even for her things could fall into place. Oddly enough, it was a relief to know Juri's cruelty towards Shiori wasn't arbitrary, wasn't perhaps meant as cruelty at all. She wanted to like Juri; it was as simple as that, and didn't necessarily have anything to do with the kiss. "I'm sorry too," she said awkwardly. "I didn't mean to push you aside. I thought... you were making fun of me."
"I suppose I was," Juri said thoughtfully, considering the idea. "But I also thought... Perhaps I was looking for comfort, and thought I could give you some, as well. You're so uncomplicated, little prince." Her short laugh sounded in the empty courtyard. "But then, I suppose I'm not as complex as I like to think, either. Not in this, at least."
Utena settled down again. Juri had retreated into melancholy again, and she was sorry for that. Perhaps she had reacted too quickly or too much.
"Juri-sempai, how do you know? When you love your friend and... you know." Her voice stumbled on into the silence. "I mean, I couldn't love anyone in the world more than I love Wakaba, but..." Wakaba was sunlight to her where Anthy was air, she wanted to say, but it would sound stupid and pretentious, sound like something... a member of the Student Council would say. Even suspecting Juri would understand, she couldn't frame the words.
"Don't you know?" A certain degree of scorn returned to Juri's voice.
"Perhaps I do." She thought of Anthy's brown limbs against the white nightgown and the confused longings that swirled around the sight, the complicated hot sadness Anthy's joyless half-smile sometimes awoke in her. The illogical unshakeable conviction that Anthy was hers to protect no matter what, the distinct uneasiness she felt if they were apart for
long... Her second half, and that didn't make any more sense than Anthy did, but perhaps it was unfair to demand that either emotions or girls played by logical rules.
"But how can you feel that way about another girl?" She asked the question more for reassurance than information.
Juri gave her a long, measured look that made Utena feel rather like she'd had a bare heel ground into her face. "You possess the Rose Bride. You tell me."
Utena bit her lip. "I don't possess her, not like that. It's all wrong to act like a duel can make a living human being belong to someone. We're friends... our love is pure." The words hurt her heart with a kind of piercing light. Our love is pure... She took in Juri's pitying, contemptuous expression, and an ugly thought struck her. "Is that why you
duelled for the Rose Bride? Did you want Himemiya... like..." She felt too sickened to finish the sentence, whether with jealousy or disillusion.
"You're a little fool." Juri snapped the stem of the rose in her hand, but her voice was more reflective than angry. "Do you know, I don't think I've ever hated and despised anyone in my life as much as I hate and despise Himemiya Anthy."
"Don't talk about her that way!"
"Well? Would you prefer that I confessed a secret desire for her, and challenged you to another duel to take her from you?" Juri held out the orange rose, her gaze challenging. Utena didn't answer, her fingernails digging into her palms, and Juri's laughter floated on the breeze. "I think you're not entirely honest, for a noble little prince." The orange rose fluttered from her own fingers.
"Perhaps not." Utena was stung, but her lips were still warm from Juri's kiss, and the anger faded into bewilderment again. "I don't understand her at all, you know. Shouldn't loving someone mean you understand them?"
"Not in my experience," Juri said drily, and Utena wished she had the right to ask the question.
"It's not what I wanted." Thinking of Anthy's eyes, of her sweetness, she wasn't sure if she was speaking the truth.
"Not your pretty fairytale of a prince on a white horse?"
"Don't laugh at me!"
"I'm not. Utena, this is all very hard on you, isn't it? You're too noble for these games. You should find some nice, ordinary girl who isn't involved in all of this, and leave the Rose Bride to her Duels."
"Or a nice, ordinary boy?"
"That's always a possibility," Juri said gravely, the corner of her mouth twitching. "It's a pity, really, that you and I... But what's the use? It's too late."
Utena rested her head in her hands, her elbows propped on her knees. "I think... it's too late for me, too. I have to play this out to the end."
"I'm sorry for that."
"You don't need to be." Utena flung back her head suddenly. "But I won't play along. Himemiya is a nice, ordinary girl, who deserves to be happy... and I am, too. I have to remember that, no matter how it seems. I have to remember that, or I'll lose," she finished with conviction
"Don't ask me to love the Rose Bride. It's beyond my powers," Juri said bitterly. "But perhaps, if you do, it will be enough." She stared at the fountain again, seeing whatever she saw through the glistening water.
There was a long wordless moment, then Juri turned back to her. "To give you courage, little prince," she said quietly, and pressed her mouth against Utena's once more. This time, there was no deliberate sensuality, no calculated attempt to arouse, just the sweetness of two girls' mouths together, gentle and loving. There was guilt somewhere in the pit of Utena's stomach, but it would be ungracious, she told herself, to refuse this gift... And it was oh, so sweet.
The kiss dropped away into smiles a breath away. Juri reached down and slapped Utena's hand lightly. "Go figure out what you want, Tenjou Utena."
"I already have. Juri - thank you." She stumbled to her feet, wishing she could be more graceful under pressure. It was so easy to be graceful on the basketball court, or in the Duelling Arena, and Juri was never at a loss.
The older girl sat unmoving, as Utena took the path back to the Chairman's house. Utena paid her no further heed. All that mattered was that she needed to see Anthy... She needed to see Anthy right now, if she stood a hope of undoing the confusion and ugliness of the night. Right now, everything seemed exquisitely simple. She and Anthy belonged together. The rest was a mistake... She'd make Anthy understand, and she'd look after her always, and everything would be how it should be. In the flush of Juri's last kiss, it all seemed easy.
tbc