He woke, as he always did, a minute before his alarm clock would go off. There was a brief sense of disorientation. The last thing he could recall was falling asleep in his darkened room – not his own room, but the room of that other version of himself, in the asylum.

Over the next few seconds the dream faded, blurring into the background of his consciousness. He sighed and ran a hand through his pink hair. It was unnerving, having these same dreams every night. Were he not otherwise in perfect possession of his faculties he might have questioned his own sanity, or at least his perceptions; but since with the exception of the dreams his life was normal, he thrust it to the back of his mind. It was Monday, and he had a busy schedule. There was no time to worry about such things.

He went through his morning routine, showering and eating a quick breakfast, before heading out to the bus stop with his lecture materials stowed in his shoulder bag. The morning air was brisk, something he hadn't been prepared for, and he shivered slightly, pulling his collar close to his neck as he waited for the bus to arrive.

"Fall… it's fall in the dream, too," he muttered, then frowned at himself for thinking about the dream. I shouldn't waste my time on it. Still, I… it feels as if there was something important I should remember. Something I wanted to recall before I fell asleep…

He was bothered by the nagging feeling, but unable to recollect whatever it was that had concerned him. When the bus arrived, he shrugged the matter aside once and for all, and delved into his lecture notes, reviewing the material in preparation for his morning class. By the time he had arrived at the university, he had completely forgotten the dream.

Despite being dreadfully busy, the day was uneventful. He taught, he attended a faculty meeting, and he accompanied a colleague to a lecture that he had no particular interest in, but had been roped into a few weeks back. This composed the morning and early afternoon of a dry, pointless day out of a dry and purposeless life. It culminated in his equally pointless work – he had been commissioned to work on the development of a perpetual motion machine, something thought to be impossible, but when it had been offered to him the idea of seeking a power that would last for eternity had intrigued him.

Yes, back then he had been eager. It had been just a few weeks after he'd started teaching that the job had been offered. Around that time, he had been haunted by a perpetual sense of loss. It was as if all meaning, all the warmth and human emotion that comprised life and gave it significance had been sucked out of him, leaving a gaping hole. He was like a man without a soul, a clockwork doll searching for purpose. When he was offered the job, he took it immediately. How strange, that it so quickly became a mirror of his life. He was convinced he could solve the problem, that if he could just find the right equation, just calculate its solution, he would be able to grasp eternity. In the same way, he was convinced that if he could only find that thing that had been taken out of him – something intangible yet very real that he had lost – his life would no longer be empty.

It was not surprising that the failure of one showed by its reflection the failure of the other. Gradually, after repeated dead ends in his research, he came to the realization that the project was impossible. Eternity was an illusion, as unattainable as the search of the alchemists of old for the philosopher's stone. What he had thought he recognized as a problem with a solution was a problem with no solution at all; just as in life, what he had thought was something precious that he had lost was in fact not lost at all; he had never had it to begin with.

But, like the project whose funding had not yet run out, he continued to run on the same tracks, cycling through his habitual routine every day, every week, every month, without purpose. Life, such as it was, was empty. Nemuro was indifferent.

That day he worked with his usual diligence, unvarying in his efficiency. At four o'clock he went out to get lunch, and the first ripple of change entered his routine.

He found that he did not desire to go to any of the cafes or dining halls from which he usually picked up his meals. He had the rare and rather extraordinary craving for something new.

Something new… why does that seem so important, just now?

He considered leaving the campus for collegetown – the busy city area where restaurants and shops abounded – but he rejected that notion. Collegetown was noisy and crowded. No, he wanted something closer, somewhere on campus. Then he frowned.

Something new… on campus? Now I remember. Mikage wants me to look for some recent change to the campus. Mikage… wants me to… Now, I really am starting to seem like a mental patient. Hunting down something for my alter ego?

He shook his head at himself. If that was the subconscious reason for the deviation from his usual habits, he should probably just forget the matter. He knew that these dreams he had were abnormal, but he had decided that as long as they remained just that – dreams, not affecting his daily life – he could ignore them. He did not want to make a habit of acting on whims based on the desires of some mentally unstable persona buried in his unconscious mind.

Forget Mikage Souji… I'll just go get lunch at the café in Goldwin Smith.

He turned his feet in the direction of that building, but walked only a few steps before he slowed to a halt, nagged by a lingering sense of discomfort. It was true he should not give in to bizarre fancy, but based on what he had experienced last night and every past night, he knew he would have another dream tonight, in which he, as Mikage, would be disappointed if he did not have some recollection of something new on campus.

It would only take a few minutes of my time… But should I waste it, for something so trivial?

It was the principle of the thing, more than the actual waste of time that he disapproved of. Acting on notions that had come to him in dreams was not rational behavior. He would have determined to ignore the idea entirely, were it not for that bothersome fact that he would have to experience Mikage's disappointment eventually. It gnawed at him.

"Nemuro, look for something new."

For a few moments more, he debated with himself, weighing the illogic of such an action against the remorse he might suffer in a dream. He decided, finally, that preventing himself from suffering regrets – even if they were only dreamed regrets – was justification enough, at least this once. If it happened again, and he found influence from his dreams seeping into his daily behavior, he would have to do something about it; but for now he could spare the half hour it might take him to carry out this ridiculous search.

He went to the administration building and questioned the clerk at the information desk.

"Excuse me, but can you tell me if there have been any changes to the campus within the past six months? A new building going up? Or a new sculpture, perhaps? You don't say – outside the Johnson Museum? When was it—ah, just last month. That is perfect, thank you."

The clerk gave him a somewhat bewildered smile, but did not ask the reason behind his bizarre question, and Nemuro offered no answers. He left the building and set off for the Johnson Museum of Art.

So, a Japanese teahouse had been constructed out front. He had never noticed. He supposed it was because he had little time for art in his daily life; he had been inside the museum only once, and that was within the first week of his arrival at the university. The Johnson Museum was an architecturally interesting building, radically different from the very traditional brick buildings that covered most of the campus. Nemuro liked it for its clean lines and elegant simplicity. He paused out front, regarding the construction of wood and bamboo out on the lawn in silence.

That… is a teahouse?

He was not very familiar with japanese zen traditions. The walls of thin bamboo spiraling out served no purpose that he could discern, as they did not enclose a room – they were just walls, forming a pattern on the grass. At the center of that pattern there was a room, but it had walls of its own. Nemuro stepped around it, still looking for some purpose for the extraneous walls, and for the entrance. It turned out that along one of those unnecessary walls ran a walkway, leading to a raised platform and a low entrance that required one to duck in order to enter.

It was artistic, he supposed, but overall an extremely impractical design, and on the whole Nemuro preferred the straight lines and practical architecture of the museum. He crawled inside, feeling out-of-place, but deciding that he should have a good look at the interior so that his dream self would be able to describe it.

The teahouse was small, made of wood, and unremarkable. Nemuro made a note of the dimensions, sketching out the floor plan in his mind. This done, he left through the opening in the wall that passed for an exit, intending to go at last to find his lunch, but the sound of a vaguely familiar voice stopped him.

"… guess this must be the place, huh?"

He froze. That voice… where have I heard it before?

His skin crawled with the icy chill that rushed through his veins. It was unlike anything he experienced in his daily life, and while the analytical part of him immediately tried to pick apart the reason for his emotions, he moved around the teahouse to get a glimpse of the speaker.

Her back was to him, but the long pink hair and the slender figure were unmistakable. His eyes widened in shock. For an instant, recognition flashed through him.

"Tok—" As he spoke, the sound seemed to chase the remembrance away. She turned around, and he saw that she was no one he had ever met; she was just an ordinary young woman – attractive, athletic, with earnest blue eyes.

Or so he thought, until surprise crossed her features, followed quickly by puzzlement, and then rage.

"You!" she cried, balling her fists.

This accusation made so little sense that he momentarily wondered whether she was shouting at someone else, and turned his head to look for said person, but her next words brought his attention back to her.

"You bastard!" she growled, marching up to him.

"Have we met?" he asked coldly.

Instead of answering, she drew back her fist. Before he had even fully registered his surprise, she punched him hard in the jaw. The blow was strong enough to knock him down, sending his rose-colored glasses skittering over the nearby sidewalk. The woman grasped his collar and yanked him forward, her fist connecting for a second time with his face.

"I should beat you to a pulp for what you did!" she snarled. "You heartless jerk! How do you like being hit!"

"Stop it." He raised his hands to ward off further punches. "Let go of me."

"Not until you apologize for hurting Wakaba!"

"Who?"

"You heard me, creep! You keep your hands off her! Otherwise I'll—"

"You have the wrong person. I have no idea who you are or what you are talking about. Now release me, unless you want to visit the Judicial Administrator."

At this threat of being reported to the university authorities, she gave a frown of puzzlement, and her grip on him loosened. "But… I thought…"

"I'm not who you think I am," he snapped, sitting upright and prying her hand off his shirt collar. "My name is Nemuro, I am a physics professor here."

"A-a… professor?" she stammered, suddenly flustered. She blushed and bowed her head. "Excuse me, sir. Uh… how could you be a professor? You look like an undergraduate!"

"Looks can be deceiving." He picked up his glasses and cleaned them off.

The young woman rose and helped him to his feet. "Goodness, I'm sorry, professor… I just… I would've sworn… you look so familiar…"

"Do I?" He frowned, replacing the glasses on his face before he asked, "Who is it, this person I remind you of?"

"Ah… well, you see…" She appeared embarrassed. "My friend Wakaba has this guy she's been seeing. I guess you could say he's her boyfriend. But he's an abusive jerk. He just manipulates her, making her do what he wants all the time. He's really sneaky, and lately he's been trying to turn her against me because I'm her only ally. Yesterday she had a bruise on her cheek, and even though she denied it I know he hit her. I saw you and, ah… Heh, heh, well, it's really funny, because you don't even look like him, actually," she said, scratching the back of her head. "He's tall and has long dark hair, and you're kind of short and thin with light pink hair… almost complete opposites."

He raised an eyebrow. "Are you nearsighted? And colorblind?"

"For just a second, I swear I recognized you. I was convinced you had manipulated my best friend into hating me. I don't know why I thought that… I guess that's a lame explanation, huh?" She laughed nervously.

Nemuro did not laugh. He was strangely unsettled by her words, and wanted to escape the discomfort that this bold, achingly familiar woman instilled in him.

"So it was an honest mistake," he said flatly. "I understand, and won't press charges. Good day." He turned and headed back to the arts quad.

"Uh… thanks. Sorry, professor!" she called out.

She tried to say something more, but he moved out of hearing range and retreated into the closest building in order to avoid further contact with her.

That woman… something about that woman… frightened him. He could not explain it. It tugged at the edge of his consciousness, confusing his thoughts, fraying his sanity like the incessant dreams of the asylum did. Only…

The dreams always faded away, but that woman was startlingly real. Whoever she was, he did not want to know her, did not want to remember her…

Remember… What was there to remember? He had thought she was a stranger.

Mikage… do you know who that pink-haired woman is?

(later
that
afternoon...)

"Utena!" Wakaba burst out laughing at her. "That's so terrible! I can't believe you did such a thing."

"Yeah, well… it's not like I meant to make that kind of mistake," said Utena.

Wakaba shook a finger at her and scolded, "Utena, you really should be careful. It's almost a lucky thing you beat up some random professor. What if it had really been Daron you'd attacked? I'd be super-duper mad at you, but besides that, you could have been badly hurt! You may be strong, but guys are bigger. Daron could—"

"I've taken out larger guys before. They tend to underestimate me," said Utena. "Anyway, this guy was short. He was about my height, slim, with purplish glasses and black gloves on. Clearly not an athletic type… which is part of why I feel so bad for beating up on him," she added in a mumble.

"He'll probably have a black eye when he goes to teach tomorrow, and all his students will wonder where he got it from," Wakaba said, giggling. She stopped, and her eyes widened. "Wait a minute – you said he's got purple glasses, right? Does he have pink hair? And is he young? And handsome?"

"Er… Yeah, I guess so. Why?" asked Utena.

"U-ten-a! Clueless as usual! The guy you knocked down is Professor Nemuro! He is the dreamiest professor on campus!" cried Wakaba, adopting that look of reverence that came into her eyes whenever she spoke of people at the upper tiers of the social ladder. Celebrities, her boyfriend, and the most popular students on campus could bring about that starry gaze. "He's a boy genius who came here when he was only eighteen, and he's already respected by all his colleagues as a brilliant scientist! If he didn't teach physics, I'd have taken his class just so I could meet him. Utena, you are so lucky! But then you not only met him, you beat him up! Only you would do something like that!"

Utena smiled and scratched her head sheepishly. "Look, it was an honest mistake. He seemed sort of cold and unfriendly, actually—"

"I would be too, to someone who'd just punched me in the face for no reason!" exclaimed Wakaba.

"Right, right, point taken… Still, he did let me go without demanding a better explanation or getting me into any trouble, which I guess was pretty nice of him."

"I'll say!" Wakaba glared at her.

"Ummm… Yeah, I guess I really botched it, didn't I? I don't know where I got that weird idea about him… For a minute, I was sure I recognized him, though. He seemed so familiar…" Utena's eyes unfocused as she murmured to herself, "Something about… roses. Black roses…"

"Utena!" Wakaba's cry jolted her back to reality.

"What?"

"I have the perfect idea to make up for this! You're right, roses or something would be nice. We should get some and bring them to his office and apologize."

"Don't you think that's a little much?"

"No! Of course not. How could you think of just leaving matters like this! You have to do something to make it up to him, after beating him up like that. You can take your best friend, me, with you. Then I can get to meet him, too!" She giggled.

"I guess so…" conceded Utena, seeing that she would get nowhere arguing with Wakaba. Besides, she did owe the professor something, she supposed, though she wondered whether he would really appreciate roses and a visit.

Wakaba was delighted at the prospect of meeting him, and it took some effort on Utena's part to convince her not to set out that instant for his office.

"We should at least find out when his office hours are, so we don't disturb him while he's working," Utena pointed out.

Wakaba pouted, but agreed to the logic of this. They looked his name up on the university homepage and found that he had office hours on Thursdays, so it was agreed they would see him then. Utena, rather reluctantly, promised to bring roses.

The matter agreed upon, she promptly put it out of her mind in favor of other things – classes, fencing team, homework, and the occasional pause to recognize the sense of emptiness inside her and wonder yet again when she would find the elusive thing that she was looking for.

(Author's note: Just for the record, I don't typically write serious fanfiction. I go well out of my way to avoid it, actually, because I have a hard time writing characters that aren't from my own head. If you notice out-of-character behavior, please inform me, and I will do my best to fix it.

Whetheryou find the story interesting, surreal, amusing, or just boring, please let me know! All feedback isvery muchappreciated!)