"Adolescence Post-Apocalypse"
Two
"I Always Wanted It To Be Something Different; I Never Wanted to be Something Other than Me"
She got the feeling that he was important to her, somehow.
It wasn't familiarity, exactly. It was familiarity with familiarity. Sweating, breathing heavy, barely standing with her crutches, she looked at him. He had shoulder-length red hair, somehow shiny in the dismal weather of what she thought was a perpetual late Autumn, and the strands were straight as razors. His face, smooth features balancing the angular and the rounder, was handsome. His attire was rather strange, she thought. It was a militaristic get-up, like a ceremonial uniform. Black, stiff cloth; red accents with white stitching. He didn't have medals or anything like that, and his epaulets were hollow, but still. The color of it, the blend of the black and the red, it suited him.
It also made her aware of the fact that she was standing there in nothing but red tight shorts and a tank top.
Before she could speak, he turned to look at her, as if he had just noticed her there. His bright blue eyes pierced through the distance and she saw something stir in them as he looked her dead in the eye.
He sighed, wistfully. He was still for a moment. Then, he scooted over. She saw that he was sitting on the caterpillar – joined metal barrels, each painted a different color.
An invitation? A challenge?
Well, she had to rest anyway.
They sat in silence for a while. She was tongue-tied. She had many questions for this stranger, but she hadn't talked to anyone but the nuns for months and months and then, only about things pertaining to herself... she felt strange, sitting in the decaying playground with a man whom had come out of nowhere. She stared at her feet. Dirty, soil caked between her toes. She was self-conscious, perhaps for the first time since she had woken up without a name. The nuns had bathed her, cleaned her in more ways than she wished were possible. She hadn't worn anything at all before she could sit up. Easier that way, she had guessed - they wouldn't have to change her clothes then.
The tight shorts and the tank top were the reconstructions of whatever tattered rags she had come in with, riding the gurney into some kind of eternity from where she was dying. She knew that there was also a jacket that they hadn't managed to reproduce, but had mended. She wished she had it on.
"Hey-" he began.
"Hey-" she said at the same time.
Utena shirked from it. Better let him speak first. He was the guest, after all.
"After you." She said.
"How... I'm sorry, this is going sound like a stupid question, but... how are you feeling?"
Girl raised an eyebrow. Really? Wasn't it obvious? Her legs were aching something fierce, her ankles felt like they were trying to detach themselves sinew by sinew, her back was in agony from the way she had forced the pace; and on top of that, she was sitting next to a man she had never seen before. A man evocative of vague, unpronounced memories that she found painful. Must not have been very nice memories, then.
But he was waiting for an answer. His blue eyes were waiting for their due.
"Not complaining." She said, finally.
"You never do." He said, sending a shockwave through her, "How are you really feeling?"
"Who the hell are you?" she blurted out, "I don't mean to be rude, but who are you? How did you find this place? Where did you come from?"
He seemed to be taken aback, perhaps by her barrage of questions, perhaps by the sharp tone in her voice. Pain made her angry, angry at her body for making so much of it, angry at not being able to make it stop.
But he smiled and she froze where she sat. It wasn't joy or amusement that she saw, but sadness, more than could be expressed.
"My name is Touga Kiryuu." He said.
Then, he waited. For recognition, for the confirmation of something. She had nothing to give.
"I'm sorry." She said, "I don't even know my own name, so I can't tell you. The nuns here call me Girl, so you can, too. If you want."
There, again. That sadness. Who was this guy?
"How long have you been here?" he asked.
"Some months." She said, "I don't really know. I was in an accident, hurt pretty bad. I'm sure you can tell by the crutches."
"Utena, I-"
"Is that my name?"
His brow creased. Her heart was pounding in her chest.
"Excuse me..?"
"Utena. Is that my name?"
Touga nodded.
"Utena." She said, trying to see if the sound of it was familiar. It wasn't. She wondered if it would be again. Like riding a goddamn bicycle. "I am Utena."
"Utena Tenjou." He said, "That's your name."
Tears stung her eyes, threatening to overwhelm. But she had cried too much before that moment, in the moments leading up to that moment. She had none left in her, or so she quickly told herself.
"Does that mean..." she tried to keep her voice from shaking, "...you know me?"
"I..." he paused. What could he say that wouldn't break her like he was broken? The truth seemed too heartless an answer, and yet - "I knew you."
"Tell me." She said, looking away, "Tell me about me."
He did. He told her everything he knew, held nothing back. What they were, once and then almost again. The day he almost drowned, like he drowned every night in that dream, the sound of his passing following her down. About Ohtori Academy. About the times they had spent together, as friends, as an arranged couple, as enemies.
He told her about those little details that she knew were small fragments of herself. How she wore boys' uniforms. That he loved the way her long hair swayed when she was walking; the hair that wouldn't be long again. He told her of the day he had found her in a coffin, waiting to die with her parents, back when he was just a child.
She couldn't even mourn them now. She didn't remember them, and something told her she wouldn't, even if she hadn't lost who she was. She now knew that she had no family, or just no family left.
He told her the things that he knew that she did not, that she had feared for a while now that she never would learn. The things he didn't, that he couldn't say, she didn't ask about.
"Then who am I, now? Who am I to you?" Utena asked instead.
He smiled.
"You are my Prince." He said, "My long-lost Prince."
Utena couldn't help but burst out laughing. She couldn't stop herself. She knew that it was probably rude, that he was watching, but the way he had said it...
"Like that..." she tried to breathe, trying not to let her body rattle around by the coming chuckles, "...like that radio play?"
"Radio play?" he said, "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Never mind." She said, still chuckling. She found that she had forgotten, like all other things it seemed, how good it felt to laugh. She could feel her chest swelling with gratitude to this stranger, this Touga Kiryuu, for giving her that.
"And that's where I am now." he said, "Ohtori University. Sophomore year."
"You don't look like a student."
"Is that so?"
"You look more like an aristocrat. The wealthy and the powerful you read about in scripture."
"Aren't those always neck-deep in sin?"
"Yeah, they are. Are you?"
"Depends on what my sin is, I guess."
"Well is that-"
"Girl!"
Utena and Touga glanced at the narrow path to see one of the nuns running towards them, hands glued to the lifted hem of her skirt. Touga stood up then and dusted off his uniform.
"Well, it seems that our time has come to an end." He said.
Utena felt a familiar feeling start to claw at her. Despair. But they had only just met, and he knew everything, and he was, she had to admit, rather nice, and someone other than the nuns to talk to... not that she wasn't grateful for their company as it was, but he...
"Don't worry." He said, one hand gently trailing a rather deep scar on her left cheek, "I'll come back."
He walked into the treeline and disappeared just as the nun made it. Utena took the crutches, positioned herself, clenched her teeth, ignored the pain and stood up.
"You were gone for so long, Girl." The nun said, trying to catch her breath, "We feared you might've collapsed somewhere."
"You needn't have worried. I'd crawl back if that ever happened."
"You gave us quite a fright, Girl."
"Utena." She said.
"What?"
"My name is Utena."