Rhapsody Theorem
Disclaimers: Revolutionary Girl Utena belongs to Be-papas and Chiho Saitoh.
Warnings: Everybody will be OOC, drug-addicts, and raving lunatics. It's surreal, rambling, and 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 (really random) take. There is a parallel universe, separated by dark matter, connected by a portal called the focal point of a Mobius strip…
Summary: Utena meets her favorite professor again, with some interesting consequences.
12
You're like a fish in an aquarium, looking out; yet you don't belong in there, in the water. When somebody takes you out, you die a slow and painful death, and then you wake up again. You're on the other side of the glass, but you don't remember why you wanted to be out here.
When she wakes up, Anthy is gone. A note is taped to the refrigerator door, "I'm running errands."
Utena goes through her usual morning routine, an empty, hungry feeling gnawing at her heart. Maybe it's her stomach, maybe she's mistaken. She tastes the bad taste in her mouth, stale water and rotting flowers, as she brushes her teeth. She sticks the toothbrush down her throat when she brushes her tongue, and her eyes water.
Utena can hear Doug's voice now as she drops wearily onto the couch in front of the television and turns it on. She can hear Doug's voice berating her for not keeping up with her studies, not attending classes, not trying.
He doesn't know, and maybe she doesn't know, but she thinks that once, she did try, and everything right now is wholly and completely insignificant.
She doesn't want Anthy to come back, she thinks. She wants her to stay away, forever running errands of the miscellaneous type, forever running from here to there and never back. Why does Anthy make her feel this way, she asks herself, knowing the answer. She doesn't believe in reincarnation and she doesn't believe in Mikage's theory, but somehow, that seems to be the only answer.
You were running. She hears him say again, a voice out of a memory. You could only run as long as everybody else in the world was frozen. Time had stopped while you were running. Only for people that were alone in their own rooms did time proceed as usual.
Something had happened, Utena thinks, and doesn't remember. And Anthy--
She wants to talk to somebody, and so she grabs her coat and heads outside. The air is brisk and cool, unbecoming of the sunny day, and the wind catches her hair and pushes it into her eyes. She is walking and walking, and she knows that he will come up any minute now, because it seems like fate and destiny, linked Mobius strips proclaiming some undetermined fate that has the potential to become reality.
"You knew I was going to be here." Utena stops, and says to the thin air. "You knew, didn't you?"
A student walking past glances up from her latte, and Utena walks on, murmuring to herself.
"Come on, Mikage." She says, walking past the flower shop, a dark-skinned, dark-haired girl catching her eye. Utena forces herself to look away, because she doesn't want to see Anthy right now. Not yet-- not while she still doesn't have the answers. She knows Anthy is buying roses; that's all she needs to know about the girl right now.
The professor is sitting at a cafe when Utena rounds the next corner, and she sits down next to him. They are restrained today; his usual cynicism held in check, Utena keeps her ferocity at bay. She stands there, looking at him, while he's reading the newspaper. Utena looks at the newspaper, squints at it. The headlines are a blur to her.
"Sit down." The professor indicates to the empty chair beside him.
"Where's your boy?" Utena asks. It seems customary for her to ask this. It seems as if she is the only one who has the right to ask this.
"Where's your girl?" The professor replies, and Utena feels the heat rushing up to her face, a surprisingly pleasant feeling on a cold morning like this.
"She's running errands." Utena says, and adjusts her coat around her. "And your boy?"
Mikage looks at her out of the corner of his eye. "I don't have the energy to sustain him."
Utena closes her eyes, then opens them again, a slow blinking motion "So who is he?"
Mikage shakes his head, a pinched smile pulling his lips tight over his teeth. "He was somebody I loved. That I still love."
"So you escaped here." Utena says, and signals for the waitress, indicating that she wanted a coffee. Across the table, Mikage sets down his newspaper and folds his hands. Utena waits apprehensively.
"Technically, I escaped." Mikage says. "I was supposed to have revolutionized something for him. He was ill, and I wanted him to be physically—emotionally— sustained."
"I wanted the same thing for her."
Mikage gives her a condescending look. "You didn't want the same thing. You didn't know what the hell you were fighting for. You were just dragged along into it all."
"You don't know a fucking thing about me."
"You don't know your situation."
Utena grinds her teeth. She wants answers. She will have them.
"So what's my purpose here?"
Mikage shrugs. "You're here because you escaped. It's not a coincidence that you're here as well as I am. You like an antithesis to my being. You're a separate entity, yet we're almost the same. By my theory--" Mikage taps his fingertips together. "--one of us is supposed to depart from this comforting place." He gestures to their surroundings, their vaguely familiar surroundings, the ones that Utena supposedly has known her whole life and has supposedly forgotten.
"I tried my best." Mikage says. "I tried to force you back there."
"The gate was open to me--" Utena blurts out, suddenly remembering. "I was there, and they were all there-- and I wanted to come back-- so I did."
"I can't get rid of you, Utena." Mikage says, a smile stealing over his features. "You're too headstrong."
"It's not that." Utena frowns. "Something pulled me back."
"That thing--" Mikage leans in, "would be your girl."
"She's not my girl." Utena flushes again, feeling the heat rise in her face. "She's doesn't belong to anyone." The words seem wrong when she says them, but Mikage grants her a bemused smile and sits back.
"That's an accurate statement." He says. "You see, Utena-- we are human beings, solid, tangible things. We are transportable across the focal points. We are made of matter. They, on the other hand--" he says, "--are ideals. They are transient. They are omnipotent and ubiquitous. There is no way to label them as distinct entities. They are abstract things, formulated from our fragile human minds to sustain ourselves."
"Anthy is a person." Utena narrows her eyes. "And so is your boy."
"He is as real to me as your girl is to you." Mikage stands up. "And if you please, I will excuse myself now."
"I want the answers, Mikage." Utena stands up as well. "You created this place, didn't you?"
Mikage shakes his head and pulls his jacket on. "No, I didn't." He smiles. "I fell into it, much like you did. I've managed to exert some control over this place over the time I've spent here.
But one of us must exist on the other side of the focal point, Utena."
"I'm not going back." Utena's jaw tightens. "And Anthy's not going back."
"I'm not going back." Mikage says. "I'm going to stay here with Mamiya."
They look at each other like that for a while, and the waitress gives them a curious, bewildered glance when she sets the coffee down in front of Utena.
"You can tell yourself that she's real." Mikage says. "Just keep telling yourself that it's true."
"Don't give me that existentialist bullshit." Utena's voice is hoarse with an unnamed emotion, somewhere between frustration and acceptance, somewhere between resignation and violence. "She's real. You--" Utena's raises her voice as he turns to leave. "You just don't believe in anything. And if you don't believe in anything, if you don't even believe that the person you love is real, maybe you're the one that needs to go back."
There is a momentary hesitance in Mikage's step, and then he's gone. Utena sits back down and finishes her coffee, feeling it burn in her throat.
When she arrives back in the dormitory, Anthy has finished arranging the pink roses by the windowsill. She turns to look at Utena, and Utena drops her bag and kicks off her shoes so that they lie in a heap by the door. She doesn't care, she thinks, and walks over to Anthy.
"Did you buy those this morning?" She asks, and she already knows the answer.
"Just a few minutes ago." Anthy's voice is soft, melodic, a clear whisper.
"Anthy--" Utena lifts a hand up to the girl's face, traces the line of her eyebrows. "You've--"
The light streams in, yellow and orange. Doug is going to be furious at her, Utena thinks. This is the hundredth class she's missed. She doesn't care.
"You weren't there last night, Utena." Anthy says, worry clouding her voice, heavy and dense and still gentle and lucid. "I woke up and you weren't in the room--"
Utena smiles, and remembers Mikage, and what he said. I had tried to force you back there.
She doesn't think about that, though. Anthy is alive under her fingertips, and Mikage doesn't believe in anything. She wonders if it had been like this on the other side of the Mobius strip, if they had looked at each other like this before, breathing rushed and unhurried at the same time, the golden glow of skin, all the time in the world.
"I think--" Utena's voice catches in her throat. "I think I might--" Utena doesn't want to say it, and maybe she doesn't know how to say it.
Anthy's eyes widen imperceptibly, and Utena can hear her intake of breath.
They stand there for a long time, just this tiny pressure of touch between them, Utena's fingers just grazing Anthy's cheekbones. Utena presses her lips to the corner of Anthy's mouth, and holds herself completely still, her eyes open, watching for the other girl's reaction.
Anthy pulls away first, emotions playing subtly beneath her eyes. "You're missing your class." She says.
Utena grins, unabashedly happy, and sticks her hands into her pockets. "I know."
The air feels lighter around her, and she thinks—no, she knows, that something fundamental has changed.
"Looking good, Utena." Doug steps into place beside her, and she grins at him. "Finally get laid?"
She punches him and laughs. "Don't think so. Not everybody is like you."
Doug raises an eyebrow. "I had to think of a decent reason that you were missing from class this morning. It had to be the sex."
"There is no sex." Utena feels a blush coming along, and does her best to suppress it. "There was no sex."
"So you say." Doug raises the other eyebrow. "All the same, you look better."
"Good things happen." Utena shrugs easily, and the world seems so fluid, so variable—one touch from her fingers could send it spiraling into a kaleidoscope of images, of emotions.
"Well, then." Doug says, and he sounds amused. "I'm happy for you."
She sees Jerry after class, standing outside, talking to Doug. The woman isn't dressed formally today—she looks comfortable in a polo shirt and jeans, her bright orange hair tied up in a loose ponytail, curls cascading down her back.
"Ah," Jerry says, when she sees Utena. "how's my favorite girl doing?"
Doug shakes his head and answers for Utena. "A lot better than before. No more frown, see?" And then Doug presses his hands to her cheeks and bats her around. "She got laid." He whispers conspiratorially to Jerry, and the woman gives her an amused smile.
"Don't tell me it's that girl?" She says, and Utena feels her face grow hot.
"No." She says. "No." She says again, emphatically.
"You're not convincing me, you know." Jerry laughs, and Doug laughs with her. Utena feels embarrassed, at the same time, jubilant. She tells herself, it was just one little kiss.
Then why did everything feel like it had fallen into place? Utena stares at Jerry, at Doug, for a minute. No, something isn't quite right. But it feels better than it did before.
"Enjoying the view?" Doug quips, and Utena shakes her head.
"Can't say that I am." Utena smirks, and tweaks his nose.
She imagines it: the dim lighting, the wine glasses, the murmured voices of people, the elegance of their surroundings, overlooking the city. The inevitable shrimp cocktails, the men's silk ties, the ladies in their black dresses.
Jerry had been at the campus to invite Doug to a posh social gathering with a couple of her law firm buddies. Utena had been invited as well, but she'd opted out in favor of spending a quiet night back in her dorm.
The television was on, and Utena stares through it. Anthy is a comforting presence beside her, maybe the other girl is watching, maybe not. Utena remembers a stash of pot she has hidden under her mattress, but decides against it.
Something feels so good, so right. She doesn't know what it is, and she doesn't want to acknowledge, for fear that maybe she'll somehow jinx it. Utena casts a sideways glance at the dark-skinned girl sitting by her.
"Anthy." She says.
Luminous green eyes turn to look at her, and Utena's voice catches for a moment, stuck in her throat.
"How did you get here?" Utena says, after a minute.
Anthy blinks slowly. "I can't really say." She shakes her head. "I think—I think I walked."
"How long?" Utena asks.
Anthy shakes her head again. "I don't know."
Utena hears bells ringing in her ears, a warning that she shouldn't be asking. She shouldn't endanger this ethereal happiness, she shouldn't chase it. Wasn't it enough that Anthy was here? Why should she care how Anthy got here, by bus, by train, by foot? Why should she care how long it took Anthy to find her? Why should she care that Anthy—Anthy's known her before?
"Utena." Anthy says, her voice soft, her arms open. "How long have you been waiting for me?"
The words don't leave her mouth, Utena forces them back, because they don't make any sense. She feels herself falling, black water washing over her face, roaring surf in her ears, she can't breathe. But it doesn't matter, it can't matter. Anthy's on the other side.
Anthy's hands stroke Utena's face, fingers trailing over the bridge of her nose, across the line of her eyebrows, over her cheekbones. Utena lets herself be comforted, her content mixing with a heavy ache at the bottom of her heart. She doesn't know why she's hurting.
Forever, she wants to say. I've been waiting forever.
You don't suppose… you don't suppose that the outside never existed? That it was always just an aquarium, a lonely aquarium…maybe, that on the other side of the glass, it was just another aquarium? That maybe the fish could never die… because there was always water somewhere.
We're on this bridge; we're the only ones here. We really can see everything. It's just the ocean and me and the bridge, and if you lean out far enough, of course you'll fall, but the water's there to break it.
Break my fall?
No. She smiles. Your barriers.
The story is coming to a close! Just a few more chapters, now…
Rhapsody Theorem's been through so much crap I can't even believe I've gotten this far. I've managed to keep it disjointed, full of plot holes, loopy, and just… discombobulated, in general. I don't think it's a terribly good thing.
The key, I guess, is to read between the lines and supply your own explanations on why this is all happening. But if there are any questions about the fic, I'd be happy to answer them. =)
Until the next part, then… which I predict will be out within another month or two. == I've got another few un-updated multiparts on my hands, so I have to get around to finishing those as well…
Thanks very much for reading, and don't forget to leave a review! ;) Go on, make my day.