When Saionji answered the doorbell to find Touga's sister outside, one day, she rushed in without waiting for an invitation. Somehow, he hadn't noticed it at the engagement party, but ten years had changed Nanami from a precociously dynamic girl into something akin to a hurricane of stylish superiority. She looked like a movie star, wearing an impeccably tailored and complexly-draped, voluminous black dress with a large pair of dark sunglasses perched atop her fashionably unkempt hair.
"What's going on?" Nanami demanded as she went, Saionji trailing behind her. "Where's my brother?"
"Hello, Nanami."
Touga leaned against the kitchen counter. He was dressed, and rather presentably, at that. To Saionji, who had grown used to Touga's general condition of collapse, it was a good sign. But Nanami had not seen Touga since long before his departure from Ohtori, and the sight of her brother in his current state gave Nanami pause, for a moment. Then she regained her former attitude of commanding assurance.
"I heard some talk about you being written out of the family inheritance. Tell me, what's this nonsense about?"
The room fell silent.
"Of course," she continued, "I couldn't have heard correctly. No one would disown my brother unless they were crazy."
That last word had hardly escaped Nanami's coral-painted lips before Saionji grabbed her by the arm and dragged her to the balcony outside, ignoring her stammering cries of protest.
"We need to talk," he hissed, slamming the door behind them.
She looked back in surprise. "You mean it's true? But that's impossible."
"Some lawyers from the estate came earlier," Saionji told her, recalling the visit. "They weren't happy when they left."
"What did they want?" Nanami asked, eyes narrowed.
"They wanted Touga to stop living here, and…"
Saionji didn't quite know how to continue. He studied Nanami warily. She was facing him squarely, arms crossed and hip jutting out in the manner he had been so familiar with when she was young. He was sure that, no matter what he said next, it was going to upset her, so there would be little use in trying to pretend that he could spare either of them from the outburst she was preparing.
"And they wanted him to be the person that you think he is."
She stepped back, perfectly-manicured nails biting into the crooks of her elbows. "What are you getting at?"
"Nanami, what happened after Touga lost that first duel to Utena?"
"He was disappointed. So what?"
"He was out of school for two weeks."
"He got over it."
"But to have been so shaken that easily—do you understand?"
Nanami's eyes glittered with anger and she gave her head a haughty little toss, nearly upsetting her sunglasses. "And where were you?" she demanded. "If you're so concerned with things that happened ten years ago. You didn't even see it."
Saionji glared back at her.
"Well," she said, "you can keep your past." She turned to go, a swirl of indignation and high fashion, then stopped and added, over her shoulder, "You can stay here and rot in it."
As he watched her go, Saionji clenched his jaw to keep from snapping back at Touga's sister. He didn't know what he would have said, only that he would have shouted it and that he would have regretted it afterwards. When she was gone, he went back inside the apartment, shutting the door behind himself carefully.
Touga was waiting for him, standing in that same spot by the counter and smoking, without the least bit of attention to the ashtray not a foot from his other hand, which rested on the counter's surface. Saionji wondered if he had stayed there the whole time.
"What happened?" Touga asked, turning his head slightly to exhale a cloud of smoke.
"Nanami left. I must have said something to insult her."
"So now you're protecting me from even my own sister? I should've known." Touga laughed.
Saionji rounded on him, slamming his hand down on the counter. "Don't you ever shut up?" he snarled.