Rhapsody Theorem
Disclaimers: Revolutionary Girl Utena belongs to Be-papas and Chiho Saitoh.
Warnings: Everybody will be OOC, drug-addicts, and raving lunatics. Lots of rambling and surrealness, half of the fanfic might not make any sense.
Rants: This takes place after Utena 'escapes' from the TV-series Ohtori. What exactly happened after the million-sword-stabbing-her-body incident that Kunihiko Ikuhara effectively blacks out upon? Well... this is one take, and highly unlikely. There is a parallel universe, separated by dark matter, interconnected by a portal called the focal point of a Mobius Strip…
Summary: Utena realizes something about Himemiya.
Radishface
The point in life is to discover what it means.
It's to be happy.
Discovery is happiness.
Discovery brings you eternal suffering when you discover it's not all it's meant to be.
You would live in oblivion?
Yes.
Oblivion is... it isn't. You discover, and you live with the discovery. Once you realize you can live with it without feeling pain, isn't that happiness?
It's not eternal.
Nothing is.
So why discover?
She could see colors, swirling in vain in front of her eyes, as she finally reached the last step of the apartment complex, her chest heaving, the shirt soaked from sweat. The salty stuff poured in rivets down her face, obscuring her vision, and the sight of the door never seemed so welcome, so forbidding.
Utena had run all the way from the campus, her lungs were twisting painfully in her chest, her heart an unsteady murmur of whispers, of the times when she was talking to herself but she wasn't, the voices in her head screamed to her, their words an unintelligible blur of commands and demands and pleas and cries of help.
"Himemiya." She gasped, as she opened the door, her eyes cast on the floor as her shoes seemed to fall off her feet by themselves, walking their own way to the shoe rack, and her body tumbled onto the couch, in front of the television. Utena felt numb all over, her fingers tingled with unreleased blood. Her face was pressed into the throw cushion, and she felt her nose twitch, and she sneezed.
Sitting up, Utena rubbed her eyes, bleary eyes, and stared at the pillow. It was filthy, lint clinging at the corners, a fine layer of dust greying the burgundy of the cushion. She stared at it, confused and angry, for some reason. Himemiya had seemed to have cleaned everything up in the dormitory. She had missed this one ragged, dusty piece of furniture.
Utena looked up, her eyes clouded with tears from the dust and the dirt and her own frustration, and blinked, and the pearly drops of liquid slid down her cheeks as they were let loose.
Dishes were piled up in the sink, unwashed, dirty dishes, leftover food clinging onto the edges of the plates, green and grey and black mold growing over the sides of the sink, the counters coated in grime and dirt, the cups overturned on the kitchen counter and the sink dripping stagnant water, a steady and unsteady flow of mead liquid, filtered through teeth.
Utena stood up shakily, and looked around the apartment. The coffee table in front of the television was overloaded with cups and mugs and bowls of junk food and candy wrappers and everything else, sticky soda coating the varnished top with a sickening odor, the television had suddenly turned on, grimy pictures moving in slow motion behind the fine layer of dust and oil layering on top of the screen. A person was talking on screen, their lips pulled back into the semblance of a smile, showing teeth, and seemed to be talking to her, but the mouth was moving too slowly.
She turned to the screen and stared at it, mesmerized and trembling, and reached out to it, to the television. Her fingers made a path through the dust, through the oil, and they were coated with a sticky and dry substance, resembled blood, tasted like iron.
The girl on the television was dark-skinned, had purple hair. Utena felt a scream rising in her throat, wouldn't let it give voice.
"Himemiya?" She whispered, hoarse, hands frantically tearing at the electronic dots of light, of color. She wiped off the dust frantically with her hands, trying to see more of the picture.
Bright green eyes, long, luxurious hair, lips smiling but countenance frightened, timid, a white rat on her shoulder, and Utena's hands shook as she looked at it, at the television screen.
And the quivering green eyes were hiding behind a pair of glasses, the hair tied up into a tight bun, a school uniform of teal and white appeared on her, the white rat on her shoulder suddenly floated away.
"Himemiya." Utena heard another voice call from the television screen, and drew closer, shaking, trying to find the source of the voice. "Himemiya, I'm home."
The dark-skinned girl turned around, a watering can in her hands, she was watering roses, white roses. White roses that had just bloomed a minute ago when she had been watering them. She smiled, only with her lips, and a little with her eyes.
The camera angle seemed to turn, and Utena saw a girl in a black school uniform, with a grinning countenance, an easy smile, blue eyes, glittering with enthusiasm for innocence and life and naivety. She didn't know anybody like that. She didn't. She couldn't.
And the dark-skinned girl said, "Welcome back,"
"Utena?"
She turned around abruptly, eyes wild, her breath coming in short spurts. Her hands were on the television screen, which was turned off. The coffee table sparkled, the kitchen counter glimmered. The sink was empty, and the cushion on the couch wasn't there.
"Himemiya." She said, stupidly, not believing it, feeling tears coming to her eyes again, and she willed herself to stay strong, for a moment. Cry later. Cry when she didn't need the answers.
The green-eyed girl was standing in the doorway, looking at her with concern, her hair spilling over her shoulders, the white rat nestled there chittering away. She held a vase of red roses in both hands, red because she had just bought them.
"I was out." The girl said, noticing Utena's gaze, and stared at her hands, at the flowers, at the vase. "I thought that a few flowers would be nice." She smiled, hesitantly, an intent to reassure.
The vase was white, designs sketched into the sides in black. Buildings were etched into the white porcelain, a tall tower arching above the rest, a clock embedded in its front. Utena stared at it, not understanding, uncomprehending.
"Himemiya..." Utena started, her eyes glassy, her gaze somewhere else. "Where's the cushion?"
"Oh, the one on the couch?" The dark-skinned girl laughed, embarrassed. "It was a bit out of shape. I threw it away. I'll go buy a new one, if you really want one. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have gotten rid of it."
"No, no, that's fine." Utena said, dazedly, and turned around, started for her bedroom.
"Are you sure you're alright?" She followed, placing the vase of roses on the coffee table. "You're back early from the lecture. I thought you'd be going out to lunch too, with Doug and Syle. If I had known you'd be coming back for lunch, I would have made something."
"What about you?" Utena asked, suddenly turning around to face her new roommate. "What would you have eaten?"
She blinked, large, innocent, quivering green eyes. "I don't know. I don't think I would have had anything."
Utena shrugged, unhappy, for some reason. Tired, and frustrated, and desperate for something she didn't know the name for. "Anthy." She said, her voice a monotone, as if it wasn't her speaking, but somebody else, for somebody else.
The green eyes widened with shock, surprise, and glimmered with a half-hidden joy, a half-hidden delight. Utena failed to notice, and she couldn't have noticed anyway. Not when they weren't facing each other.
"Yes?" The quiet voice was a little less musically controlled, a little less light, heavy, breath coming unevenly.
"Anthy," She asked, pressing her hand to her eyes, to stop the tears from coming down. They came down anyway, in streaming rivets, and Utena's voice broke, could sound no more than a whisper.
"Where are your glasses?"
"What?"
"Didn't you have glasses?" She murmured, in a dream, in a nightmare. "I remember, somewhere, sometime ago, you had glasses. You used to wear them. You never took them off because you were afraid you'd misplace them. Except you never did. You never misplaced anything. You always knew where everything was." She choked on her words, and fell back on her bed, arms sprawled, eyes on the ceiling, the cracks for water, the cracks for the earthquakes. "You wore glasses. I know."
Anthy stared back, and lifted a hand up to her temples, feeling for them, not finding them there. Utena watched out of the corner of her eye, watched Anthy shake her head, watched Anthy press her knuckles to her lips, as if to stifle the words that threatened to tumble out of her mouth.
"No." She said, and Utena didn't know what it was an answer to.
She smiled brokenly, raising her arm over her eyes, so that it was all dark. "Oh." She said, trying to laugh. "Never mind, then. "
Ah… strangeness. ¬_¬ Trust me, though. It's going somewhere. Somewhere. In the dark, maybe. But at least it's getting there.