Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The first time they fight, she nearly kills her.

She keeps telling that to herself, twirling the ring on her finger around and around and around and then some as she mechanically click click clicks through the hallway on too-tight heels and keeps a respectable distance away from her samefaced terrible trio trailing behind her.

I killed her. I killed her. I nearly killed her.

I nearly killed Utena Tenjou.

"Silly girl," she hears Big Brother say as her heart feels strapped against the front of her ribs; adrenaline threatens to make it shoot right through entirely. Her hair comes unraveled in one quick slice as her sword bounces back in what she'd meant to be a feint—really, at that moment she had wanted nothing more, nothing more than anything else in the entire world for it to run right through that black breast pocket she'd snapped off that white rose from, relieve the stiff limbs she'd built up in the past few hours just from thinking about when she would get this moment—and now strands are plastered to her sweaty forehead as he whispers, "Nanami, Nanami, you don't have to fight anymore" and she finally feels it all dissipate as she hides her face as deep into his rough, crisply polished jacket as she can and proceeds to cry her eyes out.

He's a true prince. And she knows Utena won't stand a chance against him next time around. Hell, she won't stand a chance against Nanami in all the time that lays between.

She'll make sure of that.

And yet she's still burning with shame as she feels the weight of nothingness pressing down against her own breast pocket, wiping away at her eyes, chastising herself for breaking composure in such an ugly manner and winding up almost halfway from the dueling arena when she starts, jerks her head up, and rushes back with her heart sprinting just as fast while Big Brother calls after her.

(It feels nice, really, to hear it: Nanami, Nanami, Nanami! Come back! Nanami! He asks for her. He searches for her. Perhaps she should run away from him more often. After all, it's not like he wouldn't come running back for her in the end. That's just how siblings work).

She kneels down to scoop up a forgotten dagger—the very one she could have easily thrust into that insufferable Tenjou—and watches the blade morph into a deadly rainbow under the sunlight. Fitting, really, for such an opulent heirloom. It's a beautiful thing of destruction—not that destruction is a beautiful thing, mind you.

She can hear Touga's footsteps get louder as he catches up.

It's just that sometimes the two coincide.

"Where did you get that knife?"

"Onii-sama, it's yours," she croons without meaning to, running a hand across the hilt just so she can feel the kanji grooved into the metal—Kiryuu, Kiryuu, Touga Kiryuu, one last time. She pouts. "And I know you must be mad I used it on the likes of her, of all things, but please, Big Brother, Big Brother, I hope you can find it in your generous heart to forgive me, all I ever wanted to do was protect your hon—"

"I see," he cuts in, and Nanami breathes a sigh of both admiration and relief. Oh, of course he sees! How wise, how telling, how incredibly typical of him to understand her intentions of pure, unadulterated, undying familial love before she could even finish her—

"I'll keep these locked away next time around."

And then Kiryuu, Kiryuu, Touga Kiryuu—slides out of her hands and she's forced to resort to clenching her own fists instead of the hilt, her heels chafing against her feet as she click click clicks her way back home.

She passes a rose bush in between. All the fragrance seems to do is build up an unrelenting heat between her scrunched up brows.

The flowers reek of that creepy rose doll witch bride Anthy Himemiya. They reek of that stupid, stupid, meddling, self-righteous Utena Tenjou.

And so she rips one—then two—then three, four, five blooms from their stalks and lets them meet the grinding tip of her heel until she leaves an entire square foot of dirt adorned with fragrant red shreds, considers trampling the entire bush as well, and then decides elsewise and runs off nursing her hand and cursing at herself because it completely slipped her mind that roses have thorns.

At least now she has an excuse for her wet cheeks.

Touga doesn't speak to Nanami the entire day after that duel, either sequestering himself in a locked up bedroom or occupying 5'7" of empty space near the table across from the dining room with a telephone receiver pressed against his ear. He keeps his promise, too; Nanami never crosses paths with that beautiful knife ever again. The cold, translucent wall of silence pulled taut between them as she chews on dinner nearly three feet across the table from him and his eyes wanders off into his own, secluded world stings and nips at her heart like frostbite, but she'd already known she'd have to pay a price, really.

There's always a damn price to be paid when things get tied up with Utena.

Attempts to catch his attention are bounced back off the wall. He rises, stretches, loosens a single button underneath his collar the same way he does when he teases the crowds of swooning schoolgirls in the courtyard (Nanami never understands why that of all things, is what makes them fan themselves—really, it's just that much more telling of how shallow and superficial and disgusting those vermin who swarm around him are)—and announces he's heading to the shower, which Nanami takes as at least a sign that he's ready to drop down the wall of painful silence somewhat and nods back all too eagerly.

The bleeding hand is never mentioned. The wounds mysteriously disappear by the time she stirs next morning anyhow, and she silently wonders if that rosebush was ever real. It haunts her for all of five minutes before Touga comes in to say good morning like the previous night hadn't happened at all, like he's back from his unsettling vacation with everything figured out, and Nanami's just fine with that.

But even if he hadn't, she's used to solitude. It's simply the inevitable burden that comes along with the burden of being the best.

Even her precious brother's precious game couldn't deny that.

And so she can't help but eye herself in her bedroom mirror, briefly catch one of the poufs of the sleeves of her discarded girls' uniform meekly peeking out of the bottom left corner behind her, and nod appreciatively, bracing her insteps to adjust to her new heels.

Yellow's a fabulous color on Nanami.

"I nearly killed her, you know," is her choice of greeting as she sits down for lunch with the rest of the council, then nearly gags as she unpacks her food and realizes the table reeks of roses.

"You say that like it's something to be proud of," Miki comments offhandedly as he pores over what looks like a set of math notes instead of eating. Nanami glares at him as he pinches the bridge of his nose. "You put the whole game in jeopardy by violating the rules."

She raises an eyebrow. "And? It's a game. Don't tell me what to do."

The smell of roses grows stronger as Miki releases his nose. "I—"

"Alright. Would you rather I say it? You were stupid."

"Excuse me?!"

"A wholesale idiot."

Miki fumbles through the pages of his book as he hurriedly sets it down. "Juri! Isn't that kind of—"

"Blunt?" Juri nods back curtly as she eases into her chair a little, as if the metal wire backing serves as a decent replacement for a cushion—but then again, Nanami supposes even a barbed wire fence can't tear through that girl's demeanor. "Yes. Since some of us here prefer to dance around the truth instead of getting straight to the point."

Nanami scowls. "I don't like either of you." She crosses her arms and tries to ease back into her own shell of wire framing.

(It's cold and hard and unfeeling and crushes up against her back like a persistent thorn. No wonder Juri likes it.)

"Too bad, princess. You're going to have to get used to us now that the End of the World's chosen you."

"Hey," She says sharply, setting her chair back upright, a single leg folded up to press against her chin. "There's only one person who's ever allowed to call me princess."

"Mm." Juri's unfazed—did she see this coming—? Hmmph, fine by Nanami if it means she'll know he's off-limits, although for some reason Nanami feels like she's one of the few girls in this school to never fawn or drool or sigh over Big Brother for reasons unknown—

"And has he ever done so yet?"

Oh, damn her.

Nanami becomes a tangle of limbs once more as she twists around to find footing—er, seating?—in her stupid thorn chair at this stupid rose table and decides she'd much rather sit at a much less weirder table tomorrow.

"I—he—good things come to those who wait," she finally manages to blurt out, trying not to choke on the flowery air. She grabs her water and writhes a little more until she's sitting cross-legged against the wire. She's still unable to find a posture in this damned chair to put her at ease.

Yes, she decides, melting an ice cube under her tongue, she's definitely abandoning this creepy table tomorrow.

"What…?" Miki stares blankly as he gets quizzical glances from both directions. "Nanami," he starts off slowly, as if trying to take back every word he's saying a little too late after saying it, "don't tell me Tsuwabuki's—"

She falls out of her seat this time.

"NO! What the hell is wrong with you?!" She plucks of specks of dirt out of the blazing yellow of her uniform. "He's ten!"

Miki waves his arms around in defense, most likely forgetting there's a math notebook attached to one of them. "It's not my fault he's the only guy you ever let trail around you except for—oh." He stares again, while Juri—damn her—has a hand pressed over her lips like she's trying not to laugh.

"…Touga?" he tries again.

She tries laying back against the metal again. Is it odd that she can still feel the faint pain as it crushes cold against her back again, but it doesn't hurt anymore?

"Hmmph."

"Nanami, that's even worse!"

She crosses her arms and scowls at him. "You know, for someone taking college courses, you're kind of an idiot!"

"Hey!"

"See, this is why I didn't want a new member. One more person to play babysitter for."

Nanami's glaring daggers move to Juri now. "Shut up! God, you guys are just as bad as Utena!"

"And what's wrong with Utena?" Miki protests.

Nanami kicks at a clump of dirt underneath her. "Oh, don't tell me you're on her side now! I thought this whole council was for fighting her!"

Juri frowns. "No, the council is for seeking eternity through the Rose Bride."

"Bride?" The word tastes strange in Nanami's mouth. Like it's oozing out of her. She doesn't like it.

She swallows the bitter taste down and recalls the flash of red twirling around in Utena's arms as she pulled out her sword.

"…You mean that creep Anthy?" she sneers.

"Hey!" Miki slaps the table, a streak of red shooting across his cheeks as Nanami silently files away this information for later use. "She's not a—"

"Enough! Time out corner, both of you."

Nanami turns a generous shade of crimson herself as she shoves away the hand that brushed against her cheek as Juri physically parted the two with outstretched arms.

(Damn, how long were her arms anyways?)

Miki blinks. "…Juri, there is no—"

"Time," Juri declares, sharply pointing to Miki's seat and then making a 180 to point to Nanami's, "Out."

They both grumble in protest (well—it's Nanami, mainly) and crumple into the chairs. Nanami makes it a point to turn hers away from the table so that both her back and her metal shell face the other two.

"I quit," she declares with a flip of her hair as she stares down at her heels.

God, she really hopes she can still keep the outfit.

"Fine," Juri replies coolly. "Take your ring off."

"I—fine!" She huffs and pinches her ring finger between two perfectly manicured nails.

But the moment she slides it half an inch upwards, the same afternoon breeze that wafted the roses to her nose bristles through her hair and makes her feel the weight—or lack thereof—of the choppy, sword-cut locks hanging desperately by their roots to her scalp. A hand runs through them of its own accord.

She can almost feel the broken metal and the crumbling, white rose petals fall down on her again as she in turn falls down to her knees on the field of dueling granite.

My prince gave me this ring.

Fingers slip through and out of her hair as she recalls the gauze wound tightly across Touga Kiryuu's chest; she'd run an apprehensive hand across it the other day as he winced slightly but planted a reassuring kiss on her forehead nevertheless and told her he'll be alright.

The gauze was brilliantly white.

That same day she had a dream of it crumbling away like the petals of a rose plucked mercilessly in the wind, and under the extraneous foliage, unscathed and renewed, lay Nanami's precious thing.

(She supposes once you've been at Ohtori long enough, the rose metaphors start to get to you).

"Ugh. Never mind."

She flinches reflexively right after she says it; she doesn't have to turn around to confirm the smug smile of satisfaction on Juri's face, nor does she have the willpower to go up and smack it off.

(Besides, are her arms even that long? She doubts it).

"The End of the World chose you!" Miki smiles knowingly. "It's calling out to you, isn't it? That's why you can't take it off."

Juri lets out an offhanded tch. "She probably just wants another chance to run Utena through again."

Just the sound of those three syllables makes her whip back around, pushing her chin down against the metal framing of her still-backwards chair and scowling. "Don't be dumb," she scoffs. "I'm only doing this for Big Brother."

She looks down at her ring again, sliding it back down the half inch she displaced it earlier. She's still pinching it at the sides, unwittingly warming up the metal band as she thumbs across the petals grooved in on its surface. A single piece of substance in the middle of a game without any makes her feel at ease.

Her heart swells with pride. She's a princess.

"He's the only eternity I'll ever need," Nanami declares. She's ready to melt another ice cube on her tongue when she realizes the sun's already melted them all for her. She grunts in annoyance but tips the lukewarm water to her mouth.

"Hmm," she hears Juri mutter as she sets the glass down and watches as it sets itself ablaze with miniature rainbows due to something in science class she forgot the name of—no matter, Tsuwabuki should be able to tell her later.

"I think I understand."

"Understand…what?"

"—Refraction!" Nanami blurts out, tracing the rim of the rainbow cup with her fingertips, chest swelling with pride before it all rushes up to her cheeks and converts into heat as Juri stares blankly at her and calmly replies, No.

"You don't want a rose bride," she continues.

Nanami rolls her eyes and shoves her refracted rainbow to the side. "It took you that long to figure it out?"

"But in the end, all girls are rose brides."

She gapes. "What?"

Juri's torso slightly pushes against the table as she gets up. Does she know her topmost button is undone? Nanami feels like she knows. It just makes her face heat up even more.

"I can't really say it's been a pleasure, Nanami, but I'll see you later."

She finally releases her back from its thorny metal encasement as she takes leave, Nanami a flurry of agitated arms and indignantly stiffened legs behind her because how dare she, how dare she compare her to that musty, vapid rose-reeking doll with brittle cobwebs and rotten, dried petals entwined in her dull, lifeless hair.

Nanami's very much alive, thank you.

Not to mention that there's a pain shooting up her left hand that she won't dare admit because she's not even sure if it's real without any wounds to account for.

She just knows that she's really, really starting to hate the smell of roses.

"Hey" she calls out in vain, one last time as Juri's perfectly tousled curls shrink out of sight. "You can't just talk in your stupid riddles and expect me to know what you mean!" She whips around to Miki, thrusts her entire body across the table until they're almost nose to nose, glare to gawk.

"Do you know what she means?"

Mister Big Shot Child Prodigy simply shakes his head and sighs. "No. But I believe her. She's sixteen. She's the oldest on the council."

"Wha—" Nanami falters and shakes her head in disbelief. "Big Brother's sixteen!" she protests.

"She's older by twenty days," Miki casually shoots back as he shakes off whatever it is that Juri managed to leave behind in her chaotic wake—how does he do that so easily? Nanami's heart is still racing in an inexplicable heated fury—and returns to his notes. There's a stopwatch of some sort he's thumbing against, too, in his other hand; the numbers on its digital display keep shifting pixels up and down and up again. It's only on the fourth round that she realizes she's staring (not that Miki ever seems to notice, nose-deep in dog-eared leaflets of scribbled ink) and decides it must be for math and sighs and rips her eyes away.

"That's stupid," she mutters, more to herself than anyone, sliding back into her chair. "You're so stupid."

As expected, she gets no reaction. It kills her. She slumps against the table, so far off the edge of her seat she may as well be floating, and taps her chin.

"Hey, why's it called the End of the World, anyways?" She drums her fingers impatiently against the surface. "That's so depressing."

"Hmm?" Miki glances up and cups a hand on the side of his face in an almost symmetrical manner, eyebrows slightly furrowed in mild surprise. "Shouldn't you know, of all people?"

She frowns. She hates being out of the loop—especially if she's expected to be in said loop. "What are you talking about?"

"Only Touga-san's ever consulted with them—" He pauses as Nanami's mouth continues to open and shut like a fish out of water. "You mean he didn't tell you? I mean, I'd understand if it was because he wanted to keep you out of trouble, but considering you're a duelist now, and the President's sister, at that—"

"You don't know anything about my brother!" Nanami snaps. There's a vague, nasty sinking sensation in her chest, but she pulls her heart afloat with a single word. The more she says it over and over, the more she realizes it's a beautiful word, really. So fitting for a prince. For her prince.

"He wants to protect me," she says. "And moreover, aren't you a brother?" She points an accusatory finger at him. "You should know how it feels."

"Sometimes…" he mutters, "siblings protect each other in all the wrong ways." He blinks. "Or they do something for themselves, and fall back onto the other to claim their selfishness as selflessness."

Click.

(Why hasn't Nanami noticed that stopwatch before? Now it's becoming incredibly hard to miss).

She shoots out of her seat, one palm splayed flat against the table, the other grasping the entire circumference of her rainbow glass. A ring of heat sears into her palm, but she can barely register it. Her breath comes out in one concentrated, piercing exhalation.

"Don't ever accuse Big Brother of something like that ever again!"

Miki frowns. "I never said it was Touga-san."

"I…" Nanami's breath hitches in her throat.

He didn't.

You should really stop taking everything so personally, Nanami. A voice echoes and deflects off the walls of her brain. Not everything's an attack on you.

"Big Brother?" Her voice is small as she presses a hand over her lips.

Realization and recollection quickly makes it furl into a fist. It's not him.

"That damn Tenjou…!"

"What's this, gossiping about me behind my back?"

"Gah!"

She shrieks and slips onto the floor again as Speak Of The Devil poses in front of both of them and laughs, one arm in a cocky akimbo as the other slings a schoolbag over her shoulder.

There's a shadow lurking behind her that fills Nanami with the scent of withered roses, too. And Miki has the gall to wave at both of them.

"Hi, Miki!"

And they have the gall to wave back.

"I'll kill you next time around, you dumb boy-girl!"

Utena sighs. "Hi, Nanami."

The syllables sound so different—so crisp and assertive—coming out of her lips. It's like Utena owns her name.

She hates it.

Her face flushes as she gets to her feet. "Shut up. Big Brother's arm is still in that pathetic sling, you know that?"

Utena's eyes cloud over a little at that, and as Nanami recalls her several apologies prior, she almost feels the urge to take her words back for once—but then Utena shakes it off and frowns.

"Ah—he told me he'd be okay."

"You liar! When would he ever speak to the likes of you?!"

"Nanami—" Miki starts as he thumbs his stopwatch again.

"This morning, actually."

Everyone startles and turns back to look into the shadows; Nanami nearly forgot that Anthy has a mouth—and a sort of tediously unnerving, paradoxical sort of oblivious smugness that never fails to set Nanami on edge. And so she marches over with her hand at the ready—

—Until another proceeds to close in on it.

"Not this time," Utena snaps as her grip leads Nanami's hand back to laying limp at her side. She doesn't hesitate.

She's too stiff with shock at the fact that their fingers intertwine for a split second. Her body's buzzing.

It's only the pain streaking through her hand like a set of thorns closing in on her that brings her back to her senses.

And it's only then that she realizes she's infuriated.

"Wh—what the hell is your problem?!" she yells as she nurses her hand and inhales sharply.

"What the—my problem?! You're the one rearing up to slap Himemiya! Really—" Utena catches a glimpse of that perfectly uninjured injured hand and rolls her eyes. "Don't tell me that hurt…?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Nanami snaps, because for all her princeliness, Utena's hands are soft and pink and warm. No wonder she needs a sword to be able to harm people.

And yet Nanami already feels attacked. She's sure it isn't a coincidence.

"I'm going," she says brusquely, abandoning her untouched lunch at the table (maybe that stupid monkey will eat it—whatever, her appetite's been ruined anyhow) and clicking away with a heated heart threatening to sear its way out of her chest.

She's still infuriated.

She just doesn't know at who.

And that just makes her even more infuriated.

Especially since it's when she realizes—but doesn't dare admit, even to herself—that she had actually meant to aim her sword at that wall, way in the clear of Utena Tenjou's heart all along.

White's not a fabulous color on Utena.

It makes her look pale and withered and chalky. She nearly blends right into the blouse of the other girl leaning against her, who's clenching Utena's shoulders vehemently and pleading something through gritted teeth that Nanami can't quite catch in the distance.

The entire day feels like it's held up on tenterhooks. But the sun decides to shine through anyways and render the sky a brilliant blue, like some sort of cruel joke.

But at least Big Brother shows up to lunch for once.

"Onii-sama, onii-sama!" She throws herself across the table, a foot outstretched onto the edge of a chair in case anyone dares to steal her prince's seat in a vain effort to rack up popularity points.

—And, oh, yes, it's definitely happened before. But some afternoons, for whatever reason, the swooning schoolgirls suddenly gain the decency to admire from afar rather than swell up the seat capacity.

And this, she realizes, as Touga replies with a flippant "not now, Nanami," and walks across to that damn Utena's table, is going to be one of those afternoons.

She does technically have the option of taking to the council's table, but why would she?

They're all stupid.

The dining hall still mills and buzzes around like normal, but that's because they don't know. They don't know what's changed. They don't know that at half past eight the other day, Touga arrives at the mansion with a witch encircled in his hands, at forty five after leads her into his bedroom and creaks the latch shut, at half past eleven still hasn't let Nanami catch an ounce of sleep due to just how powerful a cocktail of hatred and confusion can serve as an insomniac agent.

She's become quick to learn that Big Brother has plans of his own desire and design, and that while she may not understand all of them, Touga Kiryuu is, above all, a man of reason, so whatever game he's playing must be to help him. Help them. Help her.

That's just what big brothers do.

And so she offers a stiff greeting to Anthy ten or so times after Touga instructs her to, and allows her dainty, doll-like slippers to sit alongside hers at the edge of the foyer.

She allows herself to lean back against the wall for what seems like hours and monitor her breathing, feel her heart strike against her nightgown until she watches the lights go off behind his closed door and she finally slips into her own bed.

She manages to spoon steamed rice into her mouth without a soul to talk to around her, a princess surveying her kingdom in her throne of pale blue plastic—she's never sitting in those damned council chairs again, so help her—until Keiko, Aiko, Yuuko—who have no decrees falling from Nanami's lips to mindlessly parrot, instead restlessly hover around their majesty. At one point Yuuko offers to chew her food for her. And then in the following point Keiko slaps her upside the head and apologizes profusely. In the end they decide to "keep watch" for any "suspicious behavior."

They wouldn't know suspicious if it slapped them upside the head, Nanami decides as she catches sight of Utena and that Utena-clinging girl striking each other and running off in separate ways as Touga takes leave with his witch trophy.

The bell rings as she waves off her posse to leave for class, but she stays right there, both hands cupped and pressing into the sides of her cheeks, forcefully squeezing all her breath out into one volatile gust that really fails to do anything except make her aware of how much air she's surrounded by—nothing but empty space and meaningless noise with a conveniently Nanami-shaped hole in the middle. A growing fire burns a hole inside of her chest.

He should have been sitting with her.

Not Utena.

Not this strange, white, shell of Utena, either.

A second bell rings, and she stuffs her utensils back in and leaves it all on the table for Tsuwabuki to haul over once his class ends, and click click clicks—except she can't really click, not really, when the entire world seems like it's made out of broken eggshells—away from the dining hall.

And then she promptly smacks into her in the hallways.

Nanami can barely hear the sorry slither out of Utena's lips. Her own tongue, on the other hand, is sharp and potent and ready to sting, but then her breath gets stuck halfway up her throat because she realizes, God, she's even worse up close.

Perpetually half-lidded eyes meet hers, with all the liveliness of a pool of stagnant water. Stray, disheveled hairs line her scalp and limply shadow the bags under her lids. She's unkempt—but not in the casual, carefree way that Nanami could tell was actually on purpose and part of her stupid prince persona. Rather, this time, she's simply forgotten how to take care of herself.

It's haunting.

This isn't Utena. She wants to scream.

And lord knows nothing's ever stopped Nanami from doing what she wants, so scream she does.

"What's wrong with you?!"

Nanami grabs her by the wrist, then convulsively reels back when she realizes Utena doesn't even hesitate. She simply melts against her, lifeless. It's unsettlingly familiar to Touga's own lifeless doll he brought in the other day. Except for the fact that Nanami could vaguely feel a pulse coursing through Utena's wrist as she stands there in that frozen moment, as people—stragglers and second-rate delinquents traipsing along to enter class past the bell—flow by like a river between them.

She's pretty sure Anthy doesn't have a pulse.

"I'm just being who I'm supposed to be."

Nanami bites her lip. It takes her a while to realize what's even being said, then even more of a while to realize Utena's the one saying it.

"Isn't this what you wanted?"

Nanami blanches as Utena stares back at her, stubborn, unblinking—it almost makes Nanami struggle to stifle a smirk because try as she might, some dregs of Utena still leaked through this withered shell. Her voice is edged with suspicion as she speaks. It almost feels normal.

Almost.

"You don't know what I want!"

Utena casts her eyes away to the linoleum tiles. The halls have filtered out so it's just the two of them now, making Utena's words dance in eerie echoes across the corridor (God, as if Nanami doesn't get that annoying voice reverberating in her head constantly already).

"You wanted me to be normal."

"Rrgh! No, you idiot!"

She swings her arm and slaps Utena across the face, watches her crumble downwards like a dying rose and sink into her billowy uniform, feels as her own heart plummets to her stomach.

"I want my life back to normal!" she yells as Utena feebly cradles her reddened cheek on her knees. Nanami scowls. Really, the nerve of her. Is it really that hard to give that bruise a rough swipe and get onto her feet and fight back? She twirls her dueling ring around and around in agitation as she stares at Utena's own catching the beams of sunlight streaming through the halls, facets of pink turning to yellow and purple and blue for a split second before fading away to their true color. It's the color of Utena's hair, almost—except that the hair doesn't catch the sunlight at all. Locks droop down limp and dejected, a dusty rose curtain behind which a girl huddles with her knees folded in on her chest and her chest folded in on her heart and herself folded in on herself; it seems like she could just contort her whole figure into a mass of mangled limbs and bury herself behind that coffin of locks for all of eternity.

That's why Nanami yanks her out by the collar before she gets the chance to ruin her life even more.

"You," she hisses through Utena's yelp, "I could care less about you. But you're affecting me. This normal isn't your normal for my normal."

And now—now damn Tenjou finally gets the nerve to open her mouth—except the words seem pinned to the underside of her tongue, in a desperate struggle to get out, get out, get out as Nanami's fingernails claw down and tighten their hold on that green collar.

(Her manicure is ruined, but at the ripe age of thirteen she's accumulated enough wisdom to know that some bold sacrifices must be made in order to get your way in this world).

At last, she manages.

"How's Himemiya?"

Her words usually slash the air impudently, smack with chivalry or self-important arrogance. But this time, they let a cold sort of anger seep into Nanami rather than the fiery hatred she's grown so accustomed to. It's melancholy, almost, as she hastily loosens her grip to glare daggers.

"You really think I'd keep tabs on that creep just because she's in my house?" she snaps.

Utena's lips press inwards in a taut line. "Knowing you—considering who she's with at your house—"

Her heart's drumming against her uniform the same way it almost burst through her nightgown three hours past her bedtime, cold shock surging up her arm into white heat as she reels it up to take another swing.

"You think he'd ever stoop so low to wring out favors from a wretched little dy—"

She tumbles onto the linoleum before she can finish. The sharp slap resonates in her ears as somewhere in the corner of her mind she registers that she wasn't allowed to say that word, anyhow.

(It's too big of a word to fit into your mouth, Touga had chided her. To which when she protested it was only four letters long, he merely said he hoped she'd understand later.

She hopes she can, too. She'd hate to disappoint him).

"Don't ever touch my Utena like that again!"

And now damn Tenjou gets the nerve to finally roughhand that bruise and get back to her feet; now there's torrents rushing through her blue eyes instead of those dead pools of water; and now she raises her voice not only above a chilling whisper, but well beyond a normal conversational range as she yells out sharply: "Wakaba!"

The syllables feel as sharp and crisp as Nanami's—does Utena think she owns her name, too? Utena probably thinks she owns the whole school by this point, Nanami supposes.

But she only supposes after the heat of the moment. In said heat, all that mattered was that she had been slapped.

And, Nanami realizes with a sense of slight disdain as she pulls herself up (by pushing against the floor with her palms, of course—the heels still hadn't been broken in enough for her to bounce back with her toes just yet), by the most unremarkable hand that could have ever mustered up the courage to guarantee itself a death wish, on top of that.

Copper hair, copper eyes, a girl's uniform that made her look younger rather than serving as a mark of her junior high status, the sleeves swirling upwards and outwards, puffed out like undercooked marshmallows—oddly fitting, really, considering her face had both the shape and the rotundity of a large, raw onion—the way her stray curls bob when she moves, which is also some sort of a bobbing gesture, is really the only thing that allows Nanami to recall that this is the girl she sees constantly clinging onto Utena, blowing kisses and always latching onto her through the loop in one of her constantly akimbo arms.

Well—one of the girls, Nanami thinks as she remembers the supposed engagement Utena's got herself tangled into. Well—one of the two girls among the many girls, she thinks again as she recalls the swarms that never cease to trail behind Utena, seas of pale green pleats and stark white poufs and forgettable faces that Wakaba could have easily sunk back into, and really, no one ever would have noticed.

(Well, Nanami wouldn't have noticed. But really, it's not like the two are mutually exclusive).

Utena's poor taste really can't be any clearer, she decides. Her upper lip curls up in disgust as she snaps her fingers in front of Wakaba's eyes to get her attention, because really, if she hadn't done so, she swears the girl would have been making goo-goo eyes at pale coffin Utena all day long, and neither of them would have been able to tell because the light streaming in through the rippled stained glass windows always made the halls seem like they were caught in the middle of a sunset.

"Hey!" she growls at her, "Do you know who I am?"

Her brows instinctually knit together, but the contempt seems more empty than anything. Oh, don't get her wrong—there's a list, at length, composed in her mind of all the stupid people in her stupid life she'd love to wear out eardrums for—but the witch, the boy-girl, the pianist, fencer, prince's rival—they're all somebodies, and Nanami is a thoughtful person: each of her insults and interrogations are specifically tailored for them and them alone.

It quickly proves difficult to fill yourself up with hate for a nobody. Those two are mutually exclusive. And it quickly proves boring to indulge in gossip about someone if no one even knows said someone. So she decides she'll let Wakaba off easy.

And then she huffs at Nanami and rolls her eyes at her and the whole plan comes crashing down.

"Uh, duh! Who wouldn't?" she snaps. "You're that council president Kiryuu's sister! But even your stinking titles won't save you in the end if you even dare lay a hand on my Ute—"

"Wakaba." Utena desperately tugs her by one of her marshmallow sleeves. "Wakaba, please."

It's like Utena knows what Nanami is capable of, knows Wakaba's not ready for it the same way she is—and that admission, no matter how subtly delivered, can't help but elicit a grin from Nanami's face until she catches it and hastily crams it back inside of her—because really, how indecent, it makes her stomach feel even more knotted than it was prior was she tries to figure out why there's that tug of satisfaction yanking at her when the worst of her, of all things, is acknowledged—as she watches the struggle unfold.

She watches Wakaba slip out of Utena's limp grip and then proceed to slip behind her, a fist curled up against either one of Utena's sleeves, rattling her uselessly as Nanami huffs at the thought of how even at her weakest, frailest, most transparent point, Tenjou still ends up being a shield for someone. Well, either that or Wakaba's just an idiot. Nanami's vying for both, really.

"She slapped you—you idiot—and your nerve—all you're able to do is tell me to back down? Not her? You're just gonna let the whole council and then some walk all over you, are you? Is that the new Utena—? Hey—! Hey, c'mon, I swear if you don't open your mouth I'll ditch you! I swear! Although—" a raspy breath shoots up out her mouth halfway before she pushes it back down, and Nanami can swear it's a sob that was building up in Wakaba's chest, as her voice dangerously increases octave by octave second by syllable— "Although I guess I can't even do that right 'cause this isn't even you!"

Her bottom lip quivers along with her sentient curls as she digs her nails into Utena's shoulders, and Nanami stifles a yawn, almost, because she's been there done that seen that lived that and could probably just go to class, but a part of her wants to know what the waterworks will be like.

Another part of her wonders if they'll be enough to wake up Utena.

And yet another part of her tells her not to clench her hands so tightly. Her own nails feel like thorns folding in on her palms.

But instead, Wakaba simply sniffs indignantly despite the pools welling up and threatening to drip off her lashes, straightens her back as her scowl deepens so she looks like she's wearing two backwards jigsaw pieces of emotion between her teary eyes and the blazing fire behind them, and buries her face into the nape of Utena's neck as she quietly declares, "I hate you," and Nanami raises an eyebrow.

Now this—this was something she could consider indulging in.

"I know," Utena says.

And just like that, Wakaba instantly unburies her face and stares straight ahead into the curtain of pink hair she's wrapped around herself. "Wh-what?!" The sob comes out this time as a hiccup, then a whine, and then the waterworks start pouring out with much more gusto than Nanami could have ever expected out of a samefaced nobody from the endless sea of vapid marshmallow schoolgirls that Ohtori had to offer. Damn, this Wakaba girl's really go big or go home, isn't she? And if it isn't for the fact that she's blubbering like a baby as globs of sticky tears puff up her eyes, Nanami supposes she can almost respect that.

Almost.

"No—" sniff "—No you don't!" She scrabbles to swipe at her eyes as she grabs hold of Utena's shoulders again, but there's really a futile attempt if anything, since the tears keep leaking out and dribbling down her flushed cheeks regardless.

"Utena—Utena, I love you!"

Schoolgirls say it so often in their giggly little cloisters across the courtyard that Nanami's not even sure what it means anymore. It's disgusting, really—they can barely manage to timidly skirt around the premises of the guys they like—so they steal kisses and hugs and exchange countless I love you's from pigtailed silhouettes instead.

How does it feel to give away love with such sheer abandon that by the time it's all over, you end up losing both what you wanted and what you needed? Nanami's not sure she's ever seen one of those vapid schoolgirls walk through the halls without their elbow interlocked in another's.

So Wakaba's simply Utena's in that way that anyone and everyone who's beneath Nanami is to one another—except for the fact that Tenjou says so ardently time and time again that she's come here to find a prince.

And then there's Himemiya Anthy, the marionette, the cardboard cutout in Big Brother's bedroom, that Utena has the nerve, even now as she's curled up in her own coffin, to ask her about.

Utena's a special case—she can't imagine how the equation would work out if you jab in three instead of two. The damn calculator's broken. She bets even Miki can't figure it out.

It's why Nanami prides herself in sticking to one, and a one that she'll know is bound to be hers for the rest of their lives, on top of that.

She's truly wise beyond her years.

"—The whole school loves you!" Wakaba protests, her cheeks still a generous shade of pink as she puffs them out to pout. "How could anyone hate someone as cool as—"

The second her eyes stray off to meet Nanami's, she shuts up instantly (it's no surprise, though, really—she knows she has that sort of effect on people).

"The President," Wakaba murmurs.

Nanami starts. "What?"

A lightbulb seems to go off in Wakaba's head as she finally lets go of her iron grip on Utena's shoulders and shoves her flimsy shield aside, leaving her valiantly, stupidly exposed. "The President!" she declares again, brows knit insistently.

Nanami scowls as jealousy rears its ugly yet painfully inevitable head once more. "I know that much, you idiot, what about him?"

Her hands are back on her shoulders again now—God, Nanami supposes that girl will die if she isn't rubbing her torso all over Utena's back every two seconds—but instead of retreating behind her again, in one swift act of incredibly pointless valiance, Wakaba pushes Utena to the back and becomes the shield in her place.

"You—you damn Kiryuus really have it in for her, don't you?" she yells, the tame expletive tripping clumsily out between her teeth like she's never cursed before—and by the looks of her, she probably hasn't. A finger jabs out in her direction: no French tips, no glossy lacquer, just a small sliver of dirt peering out beneath a lopsided nail; and Utena simply looks on miserably, as if silently telling Nanami, Please don't do anything to her. She's not one of us. She has no idea what's going on.

Which, of course, she telepathically responds back to with an irritable glare, is a complete and utter lie.

None of them know what's going on.

"You're probably just jealous," Wakaba huffs. "And then you made it your business to go along and break her. What's wrong with you?!"

"She did this to herself!" Nanami snaps. "And you don't know a thing! This is none of your business!"

She steps forward as Utena wraps her fingers around her wrist. She either doesn't notice or doesn't care.

"You listen here, Miss President's Sister—"

"Wakaba—" Utena pleads.

"—Anything that hurts my Utena is always my business."

The words are there again—she's hers, he's temporarily out of the picture (oh, believe her—Nanami's heard all the rumors and then some about this homely onion girl chasing after Saionji Kyouichi), love is so meaningful and universal to the point it turns stale and trite and stretched out too thin, et cetera. But there's some sort of fire blazing in Wakaba's eyes; the kind that rises up aggressively and licks the tips of her eyelids, makes her hair come slightly undone as copper wires bounce out of their perky little bow just enough to render her slightly different from the sea of samefaces, and fills up the gap between her words with meaning.

She likes Saionji. She loves Utena.

Nanami smells a nine-billion-fold-curry recipe for disaster.

She also happens to catch a whiff of apricots and lemon tea as she realizes that Wakaba is way too close to her and takes a terse click back.

(Although she has to admit—she's thankful to not have any roses to gag over again).

Wakaba whips back around and sighs. "Excuse me. I've got another bitter Ohtori snob to set straight—"

"Wakaba!"

A nervous laugh escapes her and echoes through the empty corridor. "Or…at least talk it out about." She wraps both her arms around one of Utena's. "Let's go."

Utena doesn't go. Rather, Wakaba resorts to dragging the entirety of her limp body behind her with her arm as a leash.

This isn't Utena.

Her head throbs, her heart seethes, her blood boils, and her tongue restlessly flits behind her teeth. The universe has decided to turn tides against her, and she's pretty sure it isn't Tsuwabuki's doing this time around—although, believe her, she'd love to have someone to blame it all on. What's the use, after all, of complaining about something you can't even see? If you couldn't make it out for yourself, you couldn't show it off to others for attention. That's the principal rule of griping.

She'll have to make do.

"Utena!"

She turns around; Wakaba doesn't. It's almost like she isn't there.

It's almost like Nanami wants it to be.

Acid's ready to drip off her mouth, or at least she thought it was, since it always is. But now—now her tongue feels like an endless desert. And so when it comes down to the actual moment, all she can manage to heatedly, snappishly mumble out is, "Your weirdo bride's doing pretty alright, I guess," even though she's probably not.

After all, she never is, is she?

But then Utena gives her something in that eternally orange hallway, something that even Wakaba couldn't elicit out of her, and yet it feels more like a punch in the gut to her ego than a stroke.

She smiles.

"Thanks, Nanami."

And then she walks out of the sunset as Nanami walks deeper inside of it to head to math class.

As expected, the teacher is livid and nothing makes sense—in general, really, not just in math. Just especially in math, she decides contemptuously as she gets called on to answer a particularly hefty problem to make up for her poor attendance. Numbers should be illegal.

She answers negative three and gets it right completely on a fluke, yet she feels oddly proud as she gives the students gaping in a circle around her a smug smile and returns to making meaningless swirls on her otherwise blank paper with a mechanical pencil.

Perhaps life isn't about knowing how to solve your problems. It's about knowing how to guess and guess and guess until they fold in on themselves and everyone thinks you're a genius when you're really not—except in Nanami's case, where she really is a genius. By the way things go at Ohtori, after all, guessing's just as good as knowing. It essentially is knowing.

Perhaps that's why Nanami has a hunch that Big Brother would come back home the next day with his hands empty, his bedroom wide open with the sheets tossed on the floor and carelessly forgotten, while she liberally sprays a spare bottle of perfume all over the tables, walls, bed, anything really, to drown out the smell of roses.

She runs out by the time she gets to the dining table, and scolds herself for not making sure she had spritzed the crumpled sheets on the floor when she had had the chance. It's only then, with sweat plastering stray hairs of her unraveling braid to her forehead that she can even muster the courage to look into Big Brother's eyes, because she guesses—she knows, that they'll be horribly empty.

So she doesn't look into his eyes in the end. She simply slips into the study, where Touga's sinking into the back of a solitary chair in the dead center of the room, and stoops down to kiss him on the forehead.

"It'll be alright," she says, and despite the fact that she can't really believe that in theory, she manages to channel such sincerity into those words from the reserves of love that she hasn't given away with abandon like the others, the love that she's saved up for him, her prince, special words for special ears only, that her own chest is beginning to swell a little with confidence as the words leap off her tongue.

And even when Big Brother doesn't say anything back, simply nods as Nanami watches the sunset—the real sunset—stream in through the windows and almost give the two a spotlight of their own in an otherwise painfully desolate room, she feels powerful. She feels responsible. She feels like she's taken on Big Brother, in the way that Big Brother's taken on that strange, withering misery of Utena. It stings her heart dearly, of course, but now that he's hers and hers alone, things would naturally fall back in order since this was the way things were supposed to be.

They had gone back to the beginning, and yet they really hadn't.

"I'll be President of the Council," she decides aloud, making her way to the door to admire how the sunset melts into moonlight which in turn melts into his hair and skin and almost makes him look like a silvery ghost. "To fill in while you get better."

And then he says it this time—and Nanami's heart and cheeks flush with pride as she slips out to go to her own bed.

"Thanks, Nanami."

Her sheets smell like apricots as she cocoons herself in them and tries to drift off until her mind wanders across something she can't guess her way out of, and her stomach jumps up to her throat as she fears it's the reason for the desert behind Big Brother's eyes.

Her perfume hadn't been able to reach her nightstand. It still reeks of roses.

Anthy didn't even go into her room.

You really think I'd keep tabs on that creep just because she's in my house?

The air's starting to suffocate her.

Knowing you—considering who she's with at your house—

She feels raw and exposed as she thrashes out of bed and bolts out the door, sheets sprawled on the floor carelessly behind her. She doesn't slip into the study this time—she can't—she bursts in with her nightgown billowing violently behind her. It takes a second or two to catch her breath.

Lucky for her, it seems like Touga has all the time in the world.

"Big—Big Brother…" she pants, a palm placed gingerly on her sticky forehead. "Yesterday…what did you do with Anthy in your room?"

She tries to calm down in the excruciating silence that follows, shoving her stomach back down where it belongs, timing her breathing with the slow, hypnotic way Touga's hair drifts like a pendulum in the breeze of the open window.

"I hope you'll understand later."

He doesn't speak after that; he refuses to. Or perhaps it's so quiet that Nanami can't make out a word of it anyways. She fills in the silence with a resigned sigh.

"I hope so, too."

She flips through a dusty dictionary she lugs out of a forgotten corner of a forgotten bookshelf at half past one in the morning and runs her fingers across the flimsy, curled up pages until she reaches dyke, does a double-take, and nearly slams her fingers shut between the book.

He's right. The word is too big for her mouth.

She feels sick.

The next time they fight, she almost gets killed.

Or at least, it very damn well near feels like it.

The heat of the afternoon is scorching as her heels click across the arena. They still chafe against her feet, making each step feel like she's walking on daggers, but now she knows.

It's just a part of growing up.

And in the midst of the chaos, she can even catch brief glimpses into the future, bounding over Utena's slashes and thrusting her sword in all the right places—or damn well near all the right places, which is the same thing, really.

She would win this. She would surpass everyone.

She would loom over everyone else, stately, regal, solitary, cold, indifferent—break through this ugly, artificial egg she's been crammed into, this sick excuse of a life built on vermin stomping and hissing and spitting on other vermin when everyone's really just as equally shallow and hideous and drowning in misery in the end.

She has to break through the surface—or die without ever being born. She's all by herself now.

And yet, yet Utena has the gall to say that Nanami's been set up for this, and out of the corners of her eyes the cars go blind to her, and all she can see is him—Big Brother—no, Kiryuu Touga—and yet still, no, not even a Kiryuu, just Touga, Touga, Touga, empty beds, empty acts, stolen, rejected class transfer requests raining from the sky like crumbling rose petals, and so Nanami decides as she knocks her off balance, watches her tumble onto the floor and spill down in a waterfall of tangled pink hair and sweat-soaked boys' clothes, that she wants nothing more than to run her sword right through her.

She's going to kill Utena Tenjou.

So she delves in and charges, arm reared back at the ready because, really, swordfighting is nothing special—it's just petty schoolgirl slapping on a much deadlier level—and she wants to feel the knife's weight as it slices through, watch the world around her unravel into withered white petals until she's the only one left, because she's not a princess anymore. She's a queen.

But she's come to claim the crown too late.

In just one slash, her world comes crumbling down, that much is true, at least—but the petals are all painted pale yellow.

As the bells toll out their somber song, her insides feel like an ugly shade of green.

Everything's distant since it's all falling to pieces, but she can still register Utena asking if she feels better now. And she responds by promptly crying her eyes out.

Again.

She regrets asking for the world to fall apart. She assumed she'd know how to put it back together better than ever. But now that her throne's been toppled, she can't even build herself a flimsy folding chair.

Instead, she's left staring at skid marks and the wreckage of a red car gleaming rainbow under the sunlight—except it's tinted slightly, like the whole thing's been dipped in blood.

And when the sunset ekes out the last of its rays and the sky darkens and starts to cool the hot trails of dried tears on Nanami's cheeks and she finally has the strength to trudge home (although she's not sure really, if she can call it that anymore—or if she was ever supposed to call it that in the first place), gasoline still stings the inside of her nose.

She decides she preferred the roses.

She remembers being told as a child not to breathe in petroleum—it creeps up through your nose and poisons your brain—but so secretively and so slowly that you don't and can't even notice it. You can't tell the difference because the poison ends up becoming a part of you.

She decides she's never going to drive a car in her life—not if she can help it.

She lugs out a dictionary again and looks up refraction.

The fact or phenomenon of light, radio waves, etc., being deflected in passing obliquely through the interface between one medium and another or through…

She lets it slide off her bed and thud onto the floor. It doesn't make sense. Nothing makes sense. Nothing ever made sense.

And when she gets up to look in the mirror, what she sees doesn't make sense, either. She undoes the braid strapping her bangs up from her forehead, and watches them drop down and sweep across her eyelids. She checks the chopped tuft from what seemed like ages ago: still there, still making her keenly aware of every root on her scalp. A hand traces over her chest, like she's splicing it in half along the black strip of fabric snaking its way down the middle, until it comes back up to her neck, trembling, and slowly makes the collar come undone.

It was chafing against her, anyhow.

She doesn't look in the mirror the next day when she slides into the dusty white poufs she had so long abandoned in the depths of her closet.

Her tie is probably crooked. She undoes the whole thing and slips it into a knot again as she skirts pass the dining hall. It still smells vaguely of apricots. The other half smells like mothballs.

She's only left the place in favor of dwelling at Headmaster Akio's for a little under three days, and yet it feels like the walls and tiles and doors have all decayed and crumbled and been patched up with musty cobwebs like a relic from the past. Or last month's Jimmy Choos.

But if "revolution" means consorting with some willowy sleaze who dabbles in making love to a cardboard cutout—to his cardboard cutout at night, then…

Nanami reels and almost impales herself with the edge of a nearby table as she recalls with haunting clarity how the one moment Anthy had shed off those bottlecap lenses, knocked that vapid smile off her face, let her hair stream down in a shining waterfall over the melting couch, and posed with her limbs elegantly, elaborately twisted like some tormented butterfly or maybe even one of those colorful, far-flung goddesses of her own home country, it had to be like that.

Talk about wasted potential. Anthy Himemiya could have been beautiful, really.

Instead, she's a nightmare—quite literally. Even today, Nanami wakes up with her gaze seared into the backs of her eyelids, cold and impassioned and aloof and desperate all in one breath. It's like a thousand years are sitting restlessly inside of her, finally managing to bleed out painfully bit by bit as Akio presses his thorny hands into her naked sides under a starless sky.

And how many times have Nanami and her posse slapped her, pulled her at her hair, and kicked her down into the dirt without even realizing that thing they were tormenting was nothing but a painted corpse, and the real Anthy's been buried five feet under the soil all along?

It makes her sick. Nanami hates being out of the loop.

But now, the one time she is in on the details, she hates it even more than going without—namely because of the infuriatingly oblivious world that continues to mill restlessly around her.

You see, Akio Ohtori confides in Nanami the day he takes her in, leaning across the coffee table with a slender, satiny elbow propped up in between his chin and his knee, my true dream is to turn the chairman's residence into a harem.

She blanches. "What?"

Just kidding.

He seems genuine enough initially. And his house, to Nanami's surprise, doesn't have the faintest hint of roses in it. Instead, it smells like high-end perfume and herbal tea and crisp silk—the unpackaged kind that's been sitting in a box for years, collecting a fine layer of dust on top but so slowly that it's far too easy to miss. All you can see is the kaleidoscope of colors dancing across its gilded surface. The planetarium stings slightly with the stale smell of gasoline, but she doesn't mind. She's getting the bed, anyhow.

The place turns into an entirely different world at night. Stars dance across the walls as she undoes her braid and kicks off her too-tight plastic heels and draws and then steps out of a hot bath feeling soft and warm and fragrant. Her nightgown billows majestically. The sheets she melts into are smooth and soft and velvety—

—And of course, smell like roses. Empty, frustrated tears prick the corners of her eyes like thorns.

"Does everything always have to have some sort of sign of that creep on it?!"

Utena blinks back at Nanami as she proceeds to kick the sheets off, bury her face into her pillow for a few seconds, and then give a resigned sigh as she yanks her blanket back up and wraps herself around in it.

"Hey, it is her bed, you know."

Nanami sniffs. "I hate roses."

"Yeah? Then go crash on the couch," Utena retorts sharply enough to make Nanami wince. She watches huffily as Utena eases herself into her own bed glares up at the glassy ceiling, fake stars reflecting back against the surface and kissing her cheeks and forehead and lips with small freckles of light.

She turns away again the second their gazes meet.

"Really, you're lucky Akio even took you in after you pulled a stunt like that."

Nanami scowls at the starry projections lazily sliding their way across the dark walls. "It's none of your business to tell me what I should and shouldn't be grateful for," she mutters into her blanket.

"Maybe it isn't. But Nanami…you don't seem like you've ever been grateful for anything."

"Shut up," she snaps, shifting restlessly across the mattress before finally thwacking her back against it in resignation with an irritable groan. "This bed's too stiff. It's making my back sore."

As she glowers at the ceiling, she can hear Utena sigh. "Case in point. I don't think I've ever seen you happy unless you're making others miserable."

That's it. Nanami whips around to meet her, kneeling on her bed and clawing at a pillow, digging her nails into it so ruthlessly that a small part of her wonders if the silk cover will unravel at the seams. It's better than her unraveling, she supposes.

She's dangerously close.

"I told you, shut up—!

"And you're so set on keeping whatever it is you have safe—" Utena interrupts, gaze still locked on the ceiling, "—your popularity, family, reputation, whatever—that you can't even find the time to enjoy it." She taps her chin, eyes finally falling back to stare tenaciously at Nanami's.

"I don't know. Don't you get tired stalking around like a watchdog half the time?"

"Utena Tenjou," she hisses, "if you don't shut your damn mouth—"

She finds herself surprised and somewhat hurt when Utena's eyes go a bit wide in shock as she hears Nanami snap out her full name—what, had she not expected Nanami to know it? After all the hell she'd put her through?—and stumbles on her thoughts for a minute before letting them out, slowly, tentatively. "I…I'm just saying. Sometimes you have to appreciate what you have."

She's close. She's so dangerously close.

"You…you don't know how lucky you are."

And then she's reached it.

And then she's gone.

"YOU DON'T KNOW A THING ABOUT ME!" she explodes, tossing her pillow across the room, her mind far too seething and scrambled for her to aim it at Utena. Instead, it slides across to the other illusory wall and catches a shower of fake stars as it thumps against the sky and falls. "THE ENTIRE DAMN WORLD'S BEEN OUT TO GET ME SINCE DAY ONE!"

Utena startles. "Nanami—"

"QUIT TELLING ME WHAT TO DO! DON'T YOU THINK IF I KNEW WHAT TO DO, I'D DO IT?! COULD YOU MAYBE GET IT PAST YOUR THICK SKULL FOR ONCE THAT YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT'S GOING ON INSTEAD OF STICKING YOUR DAMN NOSE INTO EVERYTHING LIKE SOME SMARTASS?!"

"Nanami—"

"I HAVE NOTHING!" she screams, until the last syllable reverberates across the room's cosmos and bounces back to her ears. Bounces back against her careening heart.

She's known it all since yesterday. She's known it all through today. Perhaps she's known it since the very beginning, too—

"I…I have nothing."

—And she was always just too scared to admit it.

"Nanami!"

She can't see Utena—she's too busy burying her face into her cupped hands (yet another painful reminder—there's no chest of crisp linen to soak up her tears for her anymore) and mewling like a lost kitten. The only world she wants to be in for the rest of her life is the one of eternal darkness sealed behind her eyelids. When you can't see things, they don't hurt as much.

But the darkness melts away, and all she can see behind her eyes is him. She wishes she didn't have a brain. What if she were like Anthy, just a pretty doll with eyes that aren't really hers, that just serve as a tunnel for other people to see the world through?

It's probably far less painful, she decides, to have absolutely nothing inside of you when you get run through. Then you wouldn't have to worry about spilling out your entire self onto the floor in a messy puddle that you'd have to rely on someone else to clean up for you. But in the end, they don't lay a finger on it.

They just watch you evaporate.

"Nanami."

A hand touches her shoulders and suddenly Nanami's very much aware of her innards—they're all blazing incongruously inside of her.

She still doesn't get how Utena's so soft. Shouldn't her hands have been riddled with calluses and hardened with the grip of battle by now? Maybe she just uses really good lotion—except for the fact that Nanami knows Utena isn't that kind of person.

Then why does she smell like roses?

Or maybe that was just her and her stupid witch bride blankets. Or maybe everything and everyone ends up smelling like withered petals if they've been at Ohtori long enough.

"Sh-shut up," she manages to mutter, stifling a sniffle, trying to make herself look less pathetic so this damn girl would just leave her alone. "Go away. I hate you so much."

Utena's grip only tightens; there's virtually nothing but a thin veil of nightgown standing between the two actually touching now. She bites her lip.

"Well—maybe you would hate people less—and people would hate you less—"

Nanami gives her eyes one final swipe and promptly shoves Utena's hand off. "No one hates me," she declares with nasally n's and rounded t's through a stuffy nose. "You're an idiot."

"—If you actually opened up to them for once," she continues, pointedly ignoring her. "No pranks. No snails in pencil boxes. No…" she twirls a finger in the air vaguely. "…explosive personality-switching Indian curry that blows up the entire classroom."

"Hey!" Nanami protests. "I didn't mean for it be that hot. It was supposed to be a hundred fold."

Utena laughs. "Right, like you wouldn't jump at the chance to make me drop dead before lunch. You hate my guts."

"That doesn't mean I'd kill you!" she counters, much more shrilly than she intends before drawing back and scowling. "I—I mean. No one would have the guts to do that."

"I don't know," Utena muses. "I'd vouch for Saionji."

"I meant just killing someone in general, you dummy! Not everything's about you!"

(Although, personally, she'd vouch for Saionji as well).

She sighs as Nanami excuses herself to snatch up the pillow she'd projectiled across the room prior.

"If only you'd practice what you preach."

Nanami raises an eyebrow as she watches Utena just look back smugly. "I…whatever," she says, shaking her head as she crashes facefirst onto the mattress and flops around. The bed wasn't actually hard at all—it's cold and smooth against her back. But that just makes her scared that the thorns are simply really well-hidden.

"I'm…" she yawns widely. "I'm too tired to figure out what that means. It's late." She proceeds to curl up fetal style and turn her back against Utena. "Shut up and go to bed already."

"Mm. Long day?"

"…Yes."

Utena sighs again. "I'm sorry."

Nanami clenches her teeth so hard her jaw hurts. That's really, really the last goddamn thing she could have ever asked for at this moment.

She snorts. "Your sorries don't mean anything," she mutters bitterly. "You don't even know what you're sorry for."

"No, no, really, Nanami—you're right. I have no right to tell you how to feel about this. Should've just minded my own business."

"What the hell?! God, some nerve you have!"

Utena lets out an unintelligible stammer. "I—you—what?"

"Really—you act like you care and then you just turn around and tell me you actually don't? What am I supposed to believe?" She scoffs. "Idiot."

"You…want me to care?"

She crosses her arms, still refusing to face the other way. "Well, do you?!"

"Hmm. Well, I guess if I loved you, I'd care—"

Nanami ends up sliding straight off her bed at that. She scrambles back up and glowers at Utena. "What the hell are you saying?!"

"What the—calm down, not like that!" She folds her knees up to her chest and rests her chin on them, feet tapping away against the mattress in thought. "And—" she hesitates. "If I hated you, I'd care, too, but in a different sort of way."

Nanami narrows her eyes. "Yeah? So, do you hate me?"

"Well…" Utena stares at her feet. "As much as I'd like to say yes, I don't think I can."

"What, too high and mighty to have any enemies, Mister Prince?"

Utena rolls her eyes. "Shut up. Look, I don't hate you."

Nanami's heartbeat proceeds to increase exponentially. Then does that mean you…

"And I think it's obvious I don't love you, either."

She sighs. Oh, thank god.

But her face is still flushed, and it's growing slightly sweaty. She just lays still and prays the dim light doesn't betray her.

"But it's weird." She taps her chin. "I still care. Guess there's exceptions to everything, huh?"

"I'm talking to a girl prince," Nanami says dryly.

Utena just smiles back. "Yeah."

Nanami has to turn away again.

"It's a long story," she mutters.

"We have all night."

She grits her teeth. "Alright. If it'll finally get you out of my hair."

"Right. Not like you want to get it off your chest or anything."

"Right!"

"Right."

Nanami licks her lips. "…Right. So." She tries to rub the sleep out of her eyes. "Mm. Keiko and Yuuko and Aiko were giggling over some dumb compatibility test in some dumb magazine when—"

Everything plays out twice as painfully in the rehash. She turns away again, cocooned in rose-scented sheets, yet shivering regardless and prying each word from her dried out tongue with excruciation.

I have nothing.

"Life's not fair," she breathes out, still glaring at the glinting mass of stars on the wall as she wraps up her tale.

She bites her lip as she's met with utter silence in the cool darkness, and turns around to steal a glance at Utena—and she isn't looking back, thank god for that. Looking at that unyielding smirk and those unbreakably steely eyes head-on never fails to make her boil with uncontrollable anger.

Sheets drape around her like a makeshift ballgown, a hand slightly brushing through her hair as it coils and coils and coils around her in endless circles of luminescent pink. She doesn't move. She doesn't blink. It's like Nanami's perusing a painting. Under the blanket of night she doesn't have to look at Utena—she can just look through her. Around her. The outline of Utena. And that makes her significantly calmer as she waits for an answer.

She supposes she doesn't hate Utena's guts. Sometimes. That sometimes being when she's curled up in luxuriously satiny, pale green sheets as she stares into the abyss up above and it stares right back at her, kissing her collarbone and cheeks and stray strands of pink hair with small speckles of stars.

She supposes that's an Utena she can tolerate. Sometimes.

"I see…so that's how it is," she finally says, breaking out of her picture frame, shifting her weight around to look over at Nanami—to which she promptly responds by turning around to her wall again, only being able to hope that the stars over there kiss her as delicately and brilliantly as they do Utena.

Nanami does deserve it after all, doesn't she?

"I'm an only child, so I don't know what to say…"

Nanami bites back a don't say anything at all, then, and swallows it down like a razor down her throat, because damn it all, she may be mean, but she's not that mean.

"It's fine," she snaps back instead. "Just leave me alone."

And for a lingering moment, she's scared Utena actually will leave her alone. But then she starts prying again: "Cheer up. Nothing's probably changed, you know."

(Well, at least she's sure one part hasn't changed. Utena minding her own business? That's about as much of a rarity as a rose without thorns).

And yet the next time she wraps herself in those satin blankets again, literally everything's changed. It's like someone had plucked out her eyeballs, dusted them off, turned them upside down, shoved them back into her sockets, and snickered as she ran around trying to make sense of it all and ended up taking a nasty fall.

The world was no longer rose-colored.

It never really was.

"You two sleep facing each other like this every night?" She twists her blanketed feet around, watching their outlines contort the fabric from the inside as her own stomach does likewise. "That's so weird."

Utena frowns. "What's your problem? You grab someone else's bed and then complain about it…"

You don't know, do you?

She slides out, looks through the sheet of glass overlooking the academy, and wonders how much of a fall it would be. Not that she wants to fall—far from it, she may be messed up but she's not a damn idiot—but rather wants to know how high up and isolated this stony prison is from the rest of the ants crawling below it.

They don't know, either.

"Yeah, well, she's probably glad I took it," she hisses out through gritted teeth, wondering how she's never noticed how remarkably like dull, wet clay the campus looks under the overcast night sky. She supposes it makes it all the easier for Akio to mold and twist it and pinch it between his spider-leg fingers to his heart's desire. "Gives those two an excuse to sleep together."

"Yeah," she hears Utena murmur, her voice unusually soft as it breezes through the night air. "Those two really are close siblings."

Nanami wants to cry.

There she lies again, with stardust streaming across her face, a hand over her forehead, one leg folded up towards the ceiling while the other lies straight as a board, endless pink locks looping around and around and around and around again as she gazes upwards, lost in a world entirely different from this one.

And what Nanami would give to join her. She doesn't even care at this point. She just wants out. Life is too hard. Especially when you realize that what you've ever even had of it so far was never real in the first place.

"You really are dense, aren't you? No wonder you can stand living with that perver—"

"I wish I had a sibling."

She wasn't listening.

Of course she wasn't listening.

It's always the incredibly brave who end up being incredibly stupid. Probably because you can't be brave without being stupid.

That was just an act.

The words hit the glass and bounce back into a million shards that fit perfectly inside the little crevices of the rose signet shimmering across her ring finger.

You think I'd associate with someone like that for any other reason?

Her hand touches the window tentatively, which is, for some reason, ice cold despite the warm, muggy, wet clay night.

"Someone like that…"

I wish I had a sibling.

"You don't," Nanami mutters to herself as her schoolbag slips and slides between both her hands while she creaks the mansion door shut. The last thing she sees is the bedroom—the bedroom that probably still reeks of roses because she'd never gotten around to spraying it.

The door's latched shut.

"You really don't."

(Though truth be told, she'd almost said, I wish I did, too).

She tries again the next time they cross paths. Maybe she was just too half-asleep to bother to listen.

They're all tossing around a shuttlecock in a lopsided triangle on the courtyard—they constituting of Miki and Juri as well. She remembers the first day she joined, the first day she'd sat with them in those thorny chairs the day she'd almost killed Utena Tenjou. She's right back to where she started.

Square one looks so much more different now though, with a new pair of eyes to see it through.

She wants to tell her to stay out, be safe, get some damn common sense knocked into her and realize that she doesn't need to stay with Akio or protect Anthy or dice up any more roses—the only thing she needs to do is get the hell out of here.

Instead, the first thing that comes out of her mouth as she yanks the shuttlecock out of the air is, "Are you stupid?"

Nanami can't help it; maybe she's just a little jealous, even if she's come here entirely out of good will. Utena had stumbled rudely into the walls of Ohtori. She'd slashed recklessly through the samefaced students and council (and math finals) alike to carve out her own story here. And now she seems at peace, tranquilly, contentedly, stupidly playing badminton and making small talk to two former enemies, letting out a tinkling laugh that never deserved to sound so silvery from someone who was teetering right on the precipice of imminent destruction.

She supposes Utena can make anything look and sound hopeful. That's what makes Nanami hate her even more.

"You'd better stay away from the chairman—" she snaps, launching the shuttlecock right between Utena's eyes—and damn her, of course she catches the stupid thing with her racket in one fluid motion without a moment's hesitation— "and Anthy Himemiya. For your own good."

"Yeah," Utena snorts, still idly balancing the shuttlecock with her racket, "thanks for the advice."

"I—" she falters as she swipes the shuttlecock back and her chest starts hammering, as her whole face starts burning up. "I'm serious! You're always so meddlesome—you're so dense!"

"Aren't you being meddlesome by giving me advice?"

She registers her shoulders slumping, but she doesn't feel like she's the one doing it.

She doesn't get it. She never will.

No one's going to kill Utena Tenjou. She's going to end up killing herself.

And Nanami doesn't want to cry now. She knows she's going to cry.

Her tears used to be reserved for one person only. They were a precious thing; the rest was all crocodile's work—so she supposes that she isn't allowed to cry again, ever. And she was so damn close to succeeding, too, if the world around her world hadn't insisted on being so vehemently out to get her.

She'd only ever broken the rule three times.

And all three times had been with Utena Tenjou.

"Talking to you makes me do crazy things," she manages to blurt out before she turns away to hide her burning eyes inside of her burning face. The steady thump of the shuttlecock continues on behind her. As expected, her heart's horribly out of sync with it.

"Well, blood-type-B people like me tend to be stubborn in conversations."

Nanami freezes up. Oh, damn her. Of course she's type B.

"…Yeah," she says hoarsely. "Me too."

And when she turns around, she sees the looks of confusion briefly flash across Juri and Miki's faces before they're forced to give into the game again, sees the corners of Utena's mouth twitch slightly as she serves, and realizes she's back in the loop again.

She loves it when she knows something that others don't. She hasn't been able to enjoy that feeling as much in light of recent events.

The world's far too big for her eyes—and she's grateful she can shrink it down to this small, sunny chunk of grass, even if for a moment.

Does she even know her blood type?

Nope, she can almost hear Utena say as she bounces the shuttlecock back across the turf, and Nanami can't help but allow the corners of her own mouth to twitch. Just a little. Nothing noticeable.

And maybe, Nanami speculates desperately, Utena's smarter than she gives her credit for. Maybe she won't end up running herself through with her own sword. Maybe Ohtori could have one happy ending, after all.

It's just a shame it couldn't be Nanami's. But she supposes she can settle for the next best thing.

"You're all idiots," she mutters before she lets herself get lost in the game.

The calm always comes before the storm, and said storm always leaves destruction in its wake, doesn't it?

And yet Nanami wakes up, oddly at peace as sunlight slants through her windows and her dreams slip away from existence.

They were strange—something of clashing swords and booming choruses and crumbling roses. Although not too strange, she supposes—she did use to be on the student council after all, right? And didn't their games have all of those little bells and whistles? She can't seem to remember for sure.

Maybe being on the council was part of her dreams, too. She's had weirder.

It feels like while the maids were cleaning, they'd gone in and scrubbed her mind clean, too. The house is immaculate as she eases her way into the dining hall.

The air is sweet and smells like roses. She sucks in a deep breath of it and smiles.

"Big Brother!"

He's at the far end of the table, melting into his seat with a leg draped over one of the wooden arms as he smiles back—although it's not really back, technically—he had a small smile playing across his lips the whole time.

"Hello, Nanami. Could you get us some tea?"

"Us?" she scans the room and stops at another occupied chair before she nods.

"Ah."

The former vice-president (or was it vice president? Secretary? Treasurer? Whatever, it's not like it's important for Nanami to break her head over who's doing what in those frivolous duels) sits in a chair right next to Touga—though he's not nearly as comfortable in it. Saionji acts stiff and perpetually startled, as if the seat's pushing right into his spine like a row of thorns. Nanami frowns, turning back to Big Brother.

"Are you sure you don't want anything else first? You haven't had breakfast yet, have you?"

That's when she notices that not one, but two of Touga's buttons have come undone, leaving almost eight inches of naked chest to glisten in the early morning light.

"I'll be fine," he says, hands darting to seal up his skin as if he's suddenly realized he has a guest over (or perhaps it's the converse, Nanami wonders as she flushes slightly with embarrassment—had she been staring?). "My hunger's already been sated."

Nanami blinks. "What?"

"God," Saionji mutters as he slaps a hand to his forehead. "Do you really have to put it so weirdly like that?"

Nanami notices he has an undone button, too. His face is also a generous shade of crimson that rivals Touga's own locks. Touga just stares back at her, unblinkingly unfazed.

"You'll understand one day, Nanami."

She notices that he doesn't hope this time—she simply will understand. It's inevitable.

She supposes that's somewhat comforting in a world where most things outside of her own life make no sense whatsoever.

She smiles weakly. "Of course."

The tea ends up being too bitter (trust her, Saionji makes sure she takes note of that), but Big Brother doesn't seem to either notice or care. He lifts the cup up to his nose before lowering it down to his lips and then back onto its saucer.

"Nanami, have you ever had rose hip tea?"

"Ah…" she trails off uncertainly, a finger pressed against her chin as she makes fleeting eye contact with Saionji, and Saionji only looks back hopelessly and shrugs, as if to say, You expect me to know what's going on in that brain of his? He's your brother.

That's when she realizes that her blank slate of a mind isn't as spotless as she'd thought.

My brother…

She remembers how someone had told her how they wished they had a sibling—that they always seemed to know what the other was thinking. She bites her lip.

"I—no, Big Brother," she says finally. "I've never had it."

"Hmm," Touga simply muses, draining the rest of his cup while Saionji looks on in horror—"How can you stand that stuff without any sugar?"—and sets it on the table with a definitive clink. "You should try it some time. It aids your immune system. It helps you fall asleep. It fights heart disease."

Nanami shifts uncomfortably—she can't bring herself to ask why. She should know why. That's just how siblings work.

"That's…good."

Touga nods. "Roses aren't just there to smell good and look pretty, you know. Even the wilted ones can be used as fertilizer. There's tea. There's rosewater. There's jam. Or you can just eat the petals raw. It's fascinating, really. A rose could be used for whatever you'd like. It doesn't matter how it used to be before."

"Rose jam sounds disgusting," Nanami clips in decidedly, although she really can't recall why.

Saionji frowns. "Hey, why do you know so much about roses?"

"Why don't you?" Touga shoots back. "Miss Himemiya does work in the rose garden, doesn't she?"

"That's a girl's job," Saionji says, wrinkling his nose. "None of my business."

"Moreover, it's Anthy's job," Nanami sneers as she makes her way to the door. "No one in their right mind would stay cooped up in a stuffy garden all day unless they were a loser with no friends."

"Word has it she hasn't touched the roses in three days, actually," Touga says. "Nanami, have you even seen her on campus recently?"

She frowns. "You mean, like, in the halls or lunch or something? No. You can never tell with that creep, though," she mutters, crossing her arms. "She's like a ghost."

Saionji pinches the bridge of his nose. "But I haven't seen her, either, come to think of it. Is she gone for good?"

Nanami's gives a sharp, instinctive laugh. "Maybe she finally got a life. Maybe she ditched that chairman and ran away with her Ute—"

She stops short as her blood runs cold.

Saionji blinks. "Ute…?"

Nanami blinks back before shaking her head. "Yeah, yeah—hang on, I'm trying to remember the rest of the name," she snaps.

"You usually don't bother remembering anyone's names," Saionji mutters. "You called me Seaweed for a month."

Nanami rolls her eyes. "I was five. And if I do remember her, she must be important…" She paces near the door in a frenzy. "U…Ute…Ute…"

"Don't break your head over it, Nanami."

She stares helplessly at Big Brother and sighs.

"…Right."

Do you know? Do you know?

As she slips out through the door, she can't bring herself to ask. She can hear Saionji's chair sliding across the wood towards Touga's the second she leaves. Her stomach feels like a hollow, bottomless pit.

She thinks she understands why.

Miki's idly flipping through his scores of sheet music as she tromps towards the piano and slams the door behind her.

"What happened? You were in such a good mood yesterday."

"Nothing makes sense anymore, that's what happened," she snaps. She plops down on a bench, crosses her legs, and scowls while she twiddles her thumbs. "You…you know Touga has a thing for Saionji?"

Miki blinks before slowly setting his sheet music back on his stand. "You…you called him Touga."

She scoffs. "Is that really the only thing you got out of that?!"

He sighs. "I'm…not too surprised," he admits. Nanami notices that he pointedly stares straight down at the piano keys while he says that. That his cheeks are burning bright pink as he finishes saying that.

Nanami does not want to understand that.

She shakes her head and sighs back. "I don't know if I should call him Big Brother anymore. Shouldn't we know how the other feels? Shouldn't we have some sort of mind connection? We don't even look the same," she murmurs.

Miki laughs. "Kozue and I are twins. We have to look the same."

Nanami looks up hopefully. "Do you ever know what she's thinking?"

Her heart sinks to her stomach as she watches his smile fade and his eyes cloud over slightly. "I…used to," he says after a moment of absolute silence, as if he's carefully choosing every syllable. "I think."

"I used to, too," Nanami sighs. "I think." She snorts. "Honestly, I think I know you better. Could you be my new sibling?"

He laughs again, but he shakes his head. "No." His fingers absentmindedly wander around the keyboard and pluck out weird, twisty, nine-finger chords in a way that only Miki can do without even trying. "I think that means we'll end up growing apart some day, too."

"Mm." Nanami taps her chin. "Or if you want, you could be my boyfriend."

The chords slip up into clashy minors and Miki nearly slides out of his seat. "Ah—what—?!"

"Hey—!"

She puts a hand on his back; the other one closes over his wrist as she guides him back to his keys, and for a fleeting moment, their palms end up pressing against one another's.

She traces his profile through the halo of afternoon sun that glows around him. He's a prince—he sits straight as a board on the wooden bench, stuffed inside a suit of crisp, golden-badged linen with his lithe fingers splayed gracefully over the piano, like he'd been born with it. And here they were, merely inches away from one another, with the second right in the arms of the first as her hair brushes against her blazing cheeks and falls in perfect little tousles right across Miki's shoulders.

She should lean in, but she can't. Miki's hands are soft and pink and warm.

They painfully remind her of someone else's.

She wrenches herself apart and makes a beeline for the door.

"…I was kidding," she mutters. She watches, miserably resigned as Miki just looks on with the gaping mouth of a dead fish before he shakes himself out of it, gives a jerky nod, and drowns himself in sheet music to flee the moment.

He tries so valiantly that it's annoying. They both know what the keys are going to inevitably spit out in the end.

Nanami scowls. "You ever think about playing a different song?"

Miki hums. "All the time, actually. But this is the only one that ever feels right to me."

The last thing she sees as she storms off is the ring in a chokehold around Miki's finger, catching the sun like a kaleidoscope as it dances across the worn-out keys with him.

"Weirdo."

Of course she's with Anthy Himemiya when it happens.

Of course it's because of Anthy Himemiya that it happens.

That batty, vapid nutcase just never gives her a break.

They collide in the sunset hallway as Nanami racks and racks and racks her brain and begins to realize with horror that it's not a blank slate—it's more like Swiss cheese. Some unfinished jigsaw that was still put in the box and shelved for sale regardless.

She shoos away Tsuwabaki. She calls off Keiko, Yuuko, and Aiko. She doesn't want anyone else in her world except for her. Only she knows that something's up. Everyone else is a complete and utter idiot.

And so clashing into another world entirely reminds her just how cruel and unfair life can be.

Nutcases aren't allowed to suddenly look beautiful the moment they let their hair down. They aren't supposed to look smart the moment they cast off their bottlecap lenses (which doesn't even make any damn sense—aren't glasses supposed to make you look smart?). And they most certainly aren't allowed or supposed to be the reason Nanami's a furious, stammering mess as she tries desperately to string a coherent insult together and—oh, god, is that rouge dusting her cheeks? Does Anthy Himemiya wear makeup? Had she always worn makeup? Does she just look like this? What the hell is she getting dolled up for anyways?—she has to tamp down all her questions and broken syllables before she can finally manage to blurt out a "I—you—garden—gone—I thought you were expelled!"

She simply beams back at her—weirdo. "If that's what you'd like to believe!"

Anger pricks the corners of Nanami's eyes as she desperately tries to bite it back down. "I don't want to believe anything! I wanna know!" She jabs an accusing finger at Anthy's cardiganed chest. "You—you know something's up, don't you?"

"Hmm," she muses, looking up at the brilliantly clear blue sky. "Well, things are always up here, aren't they?"

"Rrgh! God, I hate you!"

"Oh, my! I'm terribly sorry about that."

She sniffs. Heat's building up against her eyes—and she's so, so tired of doing this all the time.

"Nothing you ever say makes any sense! Just be straight with me for once!"

Anthy simply shakes her head sadly and tsks back, as if in mild disappointment.

"I'm afraid I'm incapable of being as straight as you'd like me to, Nanami."

She blinks. "The hell is that supposed to mean?"

Anthy idly shifts the weight of her suitcase from left to right to left again. "Think nothing of it."

"Where are you headed, anyways?"

"Out," she chirps pleasantly.

"Jeez! I know that much, I'm not an idiot! Where?"

She hums—it sounds like a nightingale. She smells like fresh roses. Nanami wants to die.

"I have a feeling you should know."

She slaps her forehead. "Your damn feelings are wrong! What am I supposed to guess?! That you ditched the chairman and ran off with—"

Ah.

Shit.

"U…Utena," she strains out, as if she's scared she's gotten it wrong—or that she won't be able to remember it again—or that Anthy's going to laugh at her like she's an idiot, because she is, she really, really is, damn her, try as she might not to admit it.

—And Anthy does laugh, but it's so light and airy and free of malice that it doesn't really seem to be directed at anyone or anything at all.

"Would you like your brother to remember as well?"

"Shut up," she snaps, and the anger flows loose at the last syllable and the tears come dribbling down her cheeks.

Anthy's expression softens instantly—which is strange, considering it's already soft by default in the first place. Now it just looks like her eyes and nose and lips are all just going to sink right into her face and blur out of existence.

"I'm sorry, Nanami. I really am."

"Like hell you are," Nanami scoffs, swiping at her eyes. "Are you the reason I can't remember anything? Are you the reason everything happened in the first place? 'Cause congrats, I guess," she spits. "You got back at me good. You ruined my whole life."

"Ah—I hate to disappoint you, but that was Utena who changed the world, not me."

Nanami snorts. "Revolutionized it or some crap?"

"Yes."

She scans the rest of the hall—it's full of monochrome skirts and vests and sleeves and ties and empty laughter. But she isn't disgusted by it anymore.

She feels sorry for them.

"Doesn't seem like anything's changed," she mutters. "Isn't revolution supposed to be like, instant or whatever?"

"I see you paid attention in history! That's good."

"Hey!" She scowls. "You trying to say I'm not smart or something?"

"I'm running late. I hope I'll see you again, Nanami!"

"What the—" She stumbles as she reaches out to grasp at the wispy, rosy air fluttering around Anthy. "Stop! Where's Utena?! Does that mean she's not dead? She's not dead, right?! You can't just leave me here!" She pulls at her hair in frustration. "You might be out of your mind, but you're the only one here who knows what's going on!"

"I hope you paid attention in writing as well," she calls out behind her.

Nanami groans. "Anthy, please!"

And then she blinks to ebb out the last of her tears.

And then Anthy Himemiya is gone.

"What—where—" She scans the hallways. They're nothing but a sea of dull orange. Teachers still clip through with their noses pointing towards the ceiling. Students still mill around gossiping, blanketed in ignorance.

Nothing's really changed. Except for the little places where it has.

She sighs, pressing a hand against her eyes. "Typical witch."

She paces around in agitated circles, deeply regretting the fact that she'd thrown out her yellow heels. Their reliable click click clicks would have done wonders now—she needs substance more than anything. Nothing makes sense. And nothing had probably ever made sense in the first place. She was just too crammed up in her shell to notice.

She still can't believe she'd forgotten Utena—although she supposes that's because of some stupid spell or charm or whatever—although according to the witch, it's Utena's fault that Nanami didn't know Utena. Which doesn't make any damn sense.

She pinches the bridge of her nose and scowls. "I wish I was expelled, too."

"Someone got expelled?!"

"Gah!"

Nanami sighs as she meets the coppery eyes of a baby-faced onion. Of course—since Utena's not around anymore to spin Nanami's entire world on its head, her stupid girlfriend has to take the lead and—

Wait.

If anyone wasn't able to forget, maybe even know where she's gone, it has to be—

"Hey—you!" Nanami barks at Wakaba. "Where's your friend?!"

"Hmm? Daiya?" She quirks her eyebrows in up in confusion. "Dunno why you'd want her, but she's out back near the garden. She really loves the roses there—" She puffs out her cheeks and sighs. "kinda blows no one's taking care of them anymore, huh? You think that Anthy would've—"

She groans. "Ugh, not her! Your other one! Your, uh…" The words cling clumsily to her tongue, unpolished and unfamiliar to her. "Euh…" She clears her throat and lets them ooze out with contempt.

"Your best friend." She tries to coax out a smile right afterwards to ease the awkwardness, but it comes out stiff and flimsy and Wakaba just snorts and topples it right over.

"What, are you on a friend shortage or something? I'm not gonna say it's you." She waves a hand in the air in some vague slicing gesture. "I don't wanna be a recruit in your army of snobs."

She explodes. "NO! UTENA!"

—And of course the hall erupts into silence right at her last syllable. Anthy. It's Anthy's fault. It's all Anthy. She reminds herself to slap not her this time, but Utena across the face the next time they meet for her horrible taste in entourage.

When they see each other again. If they see each other again.

"…Who?"

"No," she mutters hoarsely at the absolute cluelessness in Wakaba's eyes. The fire's all gone. There aren't even any stoked coals left glowing amidst the ashes. There aren't even any ashes left. And the only source of the embers is gone.

That means she's alone, she realizes as the throngs of students turn back to their own business and push against her and down into the sunset.

Nanami hates being alone.

"Don't—don't play with me," she hisses—or at least tries to. The sentence ends up quivering microscopically at the last word.

"Uh…" She watches in dismay as Wakaba taps her chin and frowns. "Nope. Not a bell."

"The—she—" Nanami sputters through clenched teeth. "You know!" She spreads her arms out. "Love of my life, my prince, my boyfriend—"

Wakaba gasps. "Woah! No way, do you finally have a crush? I mean—" She sidles over, jutting an elbow uncomfortably close to Nanami's chest as she raises an eyebrow and whispers smugly, "—it's about time, you just keep rejecting each boy after the other if they aren't Mister President—really, you have any idea how many girls are jealous of all the cute guys you could score? Shame you just take it for granted—"

She unceremoniously shoves her aside, cheeks blazing as she (pointedly) crosses her arms over her upper torso. "Not mine, you idiot! Yours!"

"How can I have a crush on someone I've never even met?"

"You…you really don't remember her," Nanami murmurs. She presses a hand against her forehead. It's warmer than it should be but she doesn't really notice nor care. She's burning all over at the moment. "Don't…don't tell me you forgot about Utena."

Wakaba frowns. "Am I…supposed to remember?"

"Yes!" Nanami snaps. She shakes her head. "Yes. God—it's just not fair," she says, voice cracking as she starts pacing again. "Fucking Anthy—"

"Oh my god! Who knew the president's sister had such a crude mouth?"

She sweeps around to glare at her. "I'm not his sister!"

The tears don't come this time around—the anger and frustration and feverous forehead just burned them all away. She feels like an endless desert.

"Who does that damn girl think she is, anyway?" she growls. "Thinks she can just waltz in here with her stupid sword and stupid boy-girl getup and stupid self-righteousness and turn my whole life upside down and then just break out again? Without telling me?" She grinds her blunt heels (if they can even be called that—it's either stiletto or no-go for Nanami) down into the tiles. "Without even listening to me." She scowls. "Don't say I didn't warn her that she'd end up dead. She'd better not be dead. God, if she's dead, I'm going to kill her. Idiot."

"Uh…are you…" Wakaba trails off uncertainly and puts a hand on Nanami's shoulder. "Feeling okay? You need someone to take you to the infirma—"

"You're sitting with me."

Wakaba blinks. "What?"

"Lunch," Nanami decides, grabbing her by the wrist and yanking her to the exit. "You're sitting with me."

"Hey—! Wait a second—!"

"We need to talk. I need to know how this works."

"But…Daiya doesn't—"

"I don't care," Nanami snaps. "Are you too dense to see that she's a stand-in?"

"What the—What's wrong with you?!" She pulls back and huffs, arms akimbo.

God, Nanami hates that pose so, so much.

"You treat people like they're cardboard cutouts!"

"It's because they are," she replies coldly. Wakaba looks like she's on the verge of tears.

(Nanami is, too).

She sighs, rubbing vigorously at her temples. "You don't get it, do you?"

Wakaba sighs back, rubbing the nape of her neck. "No."

Utena was the last person Nanami knew who made it her business to drag other people into her business. And Nanami isn't sure she's quite ready to have a sword run through her just yet.

She feels empty, but she doesn't think she'll ever be empty enough. She'd be an oozing mess.

"Whatever," she mutters, making her way to the exit. "You don't have to come."

And the last thing she expects is her own wrist to have a hand close in on, but of course that's the first thing that happens. She turns around and meets Wakaba, curls bounding and eyes ablaze as she gives her a wink and a lopsided smirk with a finger pressed against it.

"Don't worry. I'm good at lying. No one ever suspects a face like this."

"Wow. You must really love this Utena, huh?" Wakaba tucks her legs into her chair and leans forward against the table. "What's he like?"

"She," Nanami replies brusquely as she tears open a packet of sugar to dump into her tea. "And I hate her guts. Sometimes."

"I—" Wakaba's eyes widen as she sputters. "Oh."

Nanami watches with fascination as she turns sheet white and then rosebud pink in rapid succession before pulling slightly at her topmost curl and frowning.

"I…didn't know you swung that way."

Now it's Nanami's turn to burn scarlet. "What—?! No! I don't love that brat!"

Wakaba rolls her eyes. "I mean, it does explain why you don't want all those guys that are literally lining up right outside your doorstep to date you! You're too busy swooning over the girl of your dreams."

"SHUT UP! God, d'you have an off switch or something?"

Wakaba juts a finger at her chest. "Look, miss president's sister—"

"Nanami," she clips in tersely.

(She almost bites back a please, of all things. She's that desperate).

Wakaba slides back into her chair. "Hmmph. Nanami. Look, you wanna be my friend, you gotta deal with the overbearing, obnoxious side of me too. It's a package deal. Take it or leave it."

"You're not my friend," she mutters. She catches sight of the rice piled up inside Wakaba's bento box—it's in the shape of a heart, and it makes her curl her upper lip in disgust. God, what a cheesy loser.

She doesn't seem to notice as she digs in. "Then what's the point of this…" She scrunches up her eyebrows. "Date?"

The teacup clinks back onto its saucer in frustration. "Utena, you impossible blockhead."

Wakaba sighs. "God! This Utena again." She crosses her arms. "If you don't love her, then what's the deal with you two?"

"I've got a bone to pick with her," Nanami says simply.

"Oh…you two got in a fight?"

"I…" She frowns. She supposes she should spare the recap—she's already burning too much daylight as is. "Yeah. One fight," she mutters bitterly. "That never ended."

"So…you want revenge."

"Yes! I mean—no! I mean—I don't even know where the hell she ran off to!" She violently shoves a forkful of food into her mouth. "She—mmph—she could be anywhere! Ohtori might seem big enough for you giggly, sunshiney little ditzes but it's huge out there—and I've already wasted a week here because of that stupid witch—"

"Nanami."

She blinks. As rude and homely as she is, Wakaba doesn't say her name like she owns it. It's more like she's borrowing it to see how it weighs on her tongue.

Nanami's not sure what to make of that.

She narrows her eyes in suspicion. "What?"

"Uh…" Wakaba drums at the table restlessly. "Where do I come into the picture? Or are you just tired of having lunch all by yourself 'cause everyone's too scared to sit with you?"

She scowls as she slumps down facefirst onto the table. "God, I hate you."

She beams. "Package deal!"

"Ugh." She straightens up and puts a hand to her forehead. "Look. Even though the whole damn school was drooling over her, there were only two people who ever knew her better than I did." She puts up two fingers and ticks the first one off. "Anthy Himemiya—"

"The rose tender!"

"—and you."

Wakaba deflates and shakes her head. "That can't be right."

Nanami groans.

It is! Is too is too is too! Anthy Himemiya, I'm going to kill you.

"Yeah?" she snaps. "And how many baby-faced onions are in this school?"

Wakaba glares at her. "Hey! I'm not baby-faced!" And then she pouts as if that would make her seem like any less of a toddler.

Nanami tilts back in her chair. "Right. Do yourself a favor and lose the ponytail."

She whines. "But it's cute…"

"Saionji tends to prefer his me—ahem—girls with their hair down loose."

"I—I—!" Wakaba gapes at her. She's white as an onion again before she pinkens up furiously, pouting down at the table and fiddling with her curls. "It's that obvious, huh?"

Nanami smirks. "Painfully."

"Hey, don't laugh at me!" She yells shrilly. "I can't help it—I'm a hopeless romantic! The heart wants what the heart wants!" She sighs, cupping her rosy baby cheeks between her hands. "He's so tall and dreamy—"

"And so out of your league," Nanami mutters offhandedly.

Wakaba sticks her tongue out at her. "At least he's real."

Nanami slams the table. "Hey, Utena's real! She went here! You were her best friend! You couldn't even go a damn second without rubbing your torso all over her sweaty back, you dolt!"

"I never said I was talking about Utena."

She didn't.

God, Nanami seriously had to stop falling for that.

She tries to ignore her burning cheeks and throbbing forehead. "Whatever. I won't have to put up with your package deal anymore by tonight. I'm out of here."

"Wh…" Wakaba leans in again, looking carefully at either side of their table before lowering her voice to a whisper, not that it does any good—even her whispers sound like an opera.

"What do you mean…?"

"I'm," she says, jabbing the table, "out. I'm sick to death of this place. It's a set of flowery, bleeding prison bars."

"Ooh, poetic."

Nanami grunts. "Can't believe she got to head out before I could. The nerve."

Wakaba cocks her head and grins. "Oh, Utenaaa…"

She glowers. "Shut up. Look, the headmaster has a car. Bright red." She scrunches up her nose. "Stinks like motor oil."

"Mm, pretty sure all cars are like that."

"Whatever. This one, then—it really stinks. It's always parked out back near his stupid house-observatory thingie. He always leaves the keys inside of it for some reason, too."

Wakaba's jaw drops. "You're gonna steal the chairman's car?!"

Nanami leaps out of her seat as they manage to actually receive some curious murmurs from the passersby and slaps a hand over Wakaba's mouth. "Shut up!" she hisses. "Tell the whole world, why don't you!"

She peels it off and Nanami grimaces slightly. Wakaba's hands are surprisingly rougher than she expected. She raises an eyebrow up at Nanami.

"You even know how to drive?"

She scoffs. "I'm thirteen! Of course not!"

"Didn't think this through, did you."

She didn't.

She scowls at her and then the table and then some scrawny, pale-faced schoolboys strolling along the edge between the dining hall and the hallways and back and sighs.

"What…" she strains out, "about…you?"

Wakaba taps her chin. "I backed my mom's station wagon out of a garage once."

She shoots up. "That's perfect!"

"—And I crashed it into a tree. Never heard the end of that."

"I…" She deflates and blinks, considering getting a faceful of bark in comparison to staying another day inside of this dark, stuffy shell.

She'd much rather have the former.

She shakes her head at her. "Good enough."

Wakaba laughs. "Why? You want some last-minute driver's ed before you bail?"

Nanami raises an eyebrow at her. "No. You're driving me out of this hell hole."

"What?!"

"Hey—tone it down," Nanami grumbles through gritted teeth. "They're starting to stare again."

"Since when am I driving you?! Look, I like gossip as much as the next ditz around here, but I don't break rules!"

She snorts. "You just said you were a good liar."

"Ditching your friend at the greenhouse is different from breaking out of school!"

"Hey, no one said you had to break out with me!" she snaps. "Jeez." She kicks at the ground, at nothing in particular.

She remembers how eager Miki was to get a chance to live beside Anthy Himemiya. She remembers how she guessed—she knew—that they'd eat him alive—a seasoned duelist who was used to the world turning upside down at a moment's notice.

Wakaba? They'd just tear her right apart. She'd never see the light of day again.

"Look. I…I don't wanna pull anyone who doesn't want it into this," she blurts out. "This whole Utena crap is my problem. Well—it's hers, but I'm making it mine, now, too. Not like you can cross the whole world yourself just to pick a bone with her for me." She kicks the floor again. "That just takes the fun out of it."

"Wow…" Wakaba murmurs in wonder, flushing like a peony as she stares at Nanami head-on. "You really love her."

She shoves her. "Would you stop saying that?!"

"Can't help it! I'm a hopeless romantic! Also—" she clears her throat. "You're absolutely crazy and you'd probably end up crashing the car into the building either 'cause you didn't read the gear shift right or 'cause you just felt like it. It's kinda scary I can't tell which."

And despite all the hell going on inside of this miserable husk of a school, Nanami can't help but let the corners of her mouth twitch slightly at that.

"So you'll bust me out?"

Wakaba winks. "Anything for true love."

She's about to retaliate when she feels a meek tap on her shoulder and turns around. A boy with a mussed-up hairline and a pair of glasses strewn halfway down his nose is thrusting a bulky mobile into her face.

I mean, it does explain why you don't want all those guys that are literally lining up right outside your doorstep—

She sighs. "Make it quick." The words come out colder than she intends.

Really, you have any idea how many girls are jealous of all the cute guys you could score?

There's dark circles of sweat lining his armpits. Jeez, for all the time she spends hitting the asphalt, even Utena doesn't reek this bad.

"H—hey, Miss Nanami! I was thinking we should, ah…exchange numbers—"

…Yeah. Pass.

"Fine," she says, snatching the phone as she tromps away. "I'm a ten. You're a three."

She waits until midnight comes streaming in through her window to peel herself out of bed and fumble through her closet.

She's never felt more wide-awake and exhausted at the same time.

She sifts through piles and piles of sparkling hourglass trims and sequined empire waists and blazing neon halters until she's a sweaty, unraveled mess drowning in a pool of partywear. Curse her naturally good looks for demanding a naturally flashy palette to go along with it.

In the end, she manages to salvage a dusty, black button-up that seems like it's permanently stained with the bitter smell of mothballs. She grimaces as she slides her arms through the sleeves, then snorts as she fiddles with the jabot in the mirror.

"I look like Juri gone goth."

The things she does to get out of stuffing herself into that yellow uniform again.

Her braid's halfway undone. She ends up untwining it all the way through and twisting it up in a ponytail. Her reflection gazes back, relentless.

Who are you? Do you know? Do you know?

And as she glides under her silver spotlight in the moonlit hallways, she can't help but sneak a glance at the latched-shut door floating straight out of the walls.

Do you know? Do you know?

She swallows.

Should he know?

Her hands flawlessly tug the latch open despite their trembling, like she's done this so many times before that she's learned to swallow down the bubble of anxiety drifting its way up to her throat.

(She has).

And he's sleeping. For the first time since what seems like forever, the lights are all snuffed out, the sheets are sprawled on top of him instead of the cold floor, and he's sleeping. She can't help but lean in closer to drink in the face she's never gotten to see for so, so long.

It hurts.

There's a blanket of calm draped over his face; he has no room to smirk or wink or even console. He just is.

Nanami, you don't have to fight anymore.

She wants to kiss his unconscious forehead. She wants to say goodnight. She wants to crawl right into the cool sheets and cocoon herself in them and bury her face right between his warm shoulder blades. It hurts.

She kneels down and runs a hand across the mattress. The words catch in her throat the first time she says them—and then the second time, they come out as a hoarse whisper even she has trouble hearing. Perhaps it's for the better.

"Do you know? Do you know?"

But then she catches sight of the other source of light in the room—the one that isn't moonlight, but instead, catches the moonlight with an ironclad fist as it's nestled innocently on Touga's ring finger, and projects it into a cluster of hazy pink onto the wall that makes Nanami's insides pretzel in on themselves.

Do you know? Should he know?

"No," she whispers as she slips back out the door and allows herself one last look at the mirage of an oasis she became a desert for. "Goodnight, Big Brother."

Who are you?

A vigilante, she decides as she jams the rest of her wardrobe into her suitcase (or as much of it as she can until the bag threatens to burst at the seams) and makes a break for the front door. A princess finally leaping out of her tower towards freedom.

It just kind of blows she has no prince waiting at the bottom to catch her fall. Instead, she's stuck with—

"Wow, took you long enough!"

Her.

She sits cross-legged, back up against a tire as she furiously waves a flashlight over at Nanami with a pale pink book splayed face down in her lap. "Y'know how long it took you? Long enough for me to read this—front and back. Well—okay, maybe I'm exaggerating. I already read the first two bits in my dorm right after class got out. And then another two so I wouldn't go into a major freak-out fantasy about getting expelled for crashing the chairman's car. And then another when—hey, are you even listening to me?"

"You…let your hair down," Nanami murmurs in disbelief.

She blinks. "What?" It swishes around now as she shoots up, free of its bow and tumbling down her shoulders and just barely past her poufs before it starts curling in on itself. "Well—" she huffs. "Yeah. Still too baby-faced for you?"

"It, uh. Um." She clears her throat and coughs the words out into her fist. "Looks kind of pretty, actually."

Wakaba gapes at her as she hops into the driver's seat and wedges her book into a side compartment. "Wow! So you can be nice to people."

"Well if you're gonna be like that, then it looks horrible," Nanami snaps.

The engine purrs to life.

"Whatever you say, Ice Queen."

"No nicknames."

"Package deal."

Nanami scowls. "We're not friends!" She glares down at the gearshift.

"P-R-N-D-L."

Wakaba nods. "You have to put it in D for Drive—but you gotta be careful." She narrows her eyes and frowns. "It's right next to reverse."

She smirks. "Sounds like you never heard the end of that one."

"Oh, shut up."

She tries to respond but the next thing that comes out of her mouth is a rending shriek as Wakaba pounds against the gas and sends them both screeching through the campus.

She straps her seatbelt across her waist like her life depends on it—mostly because it does—and screams across the engine. "What the hell's your deal?!"

Wakaba's hair flies on end as she weaves and bumps through cobblestone out to the gate. "You said you wanted out! You didn't say how!"

"Well I am now!" She folds her hands up against her ears and tucks her chin into her knees. "Go slower!"

"I don't know how!"

"Just…" She vaguely claws at the air in absolute desperation as it whips past her face like a blade. "Put the gearshift on reverse or something! It'll make your speed go backwards!"

"That's not how driving works!"

Rows of dorms fly past in a vertiginous blur as Nanami clutches her stomach and shrieks again. "How are we not dead yet—?!"

But as soon as she says it, she shuts right back up.

The buildings are gone. The gate creaks behind them. It's just her and the sheet of inky blue midnight against the world.

She takes a deep breath in—and it doesn't smell like roses. She can almost forgive the inevitable tinge of stale gasoline creeping its way into the air.

She's free.

She's also nauseous.

"You missed a tree over there," She deadpans as Wakaba's determined grip on the wheel only tightens and Akio Ohtori's car lapses into another jerky fit. "You wanna go back and hit it?"

"You wanna drive?" she deadpans back as she stares straight ahead at the endless road rolling out in front of them. Her hair's still flying wildly at her shoulders. It looks different—she looks different. And yet, Nanami thinks, as she eyes the dusty pink paperback poking its way out of the glove compartment, she still seems painfully the same.

She frowns. "Hmmph. What's…the book?"

"Oh! Magnolia Waltz!" Wakaba shakes her head—it's an odd sight, really, without her usual curls to account for the way her head, her entire body actually, bounces as she talks—and sighs happily. "Always."

"Always?"

"The main girl," she explains excitedly. "She's always loved this guy. But after she's rejected—another guy appears the next day, and she ends up with him instead."

Nanami blinks. "That's…it?"

Wakaba shrugs. "Eh, there's stuff in between. Adventure, drama, death, you know." She drums her fingers against the steering wheel and smiles serenely. "But I'm in it for the romance."

Romance. Nanami considers this. Perhaps it's only natural for a nobody on the social ladder to constantly crave the kind of attention she never deserves. Not that popularity's about catching all the guys or whatever the hell. But everyone still can't seem to get it through their thick brains that making out does not a big name make.

"You're a pretty simple girl."

The dismissive snort she gets in response to that is probably the most unladylike she's ever heard. "Maybe to you," Wakaba retorts, rolling her eyes. "You were born with a silver spoon in your mouth thanks to your good old silk-stocking Mum and Pops."

Ouch.

Nanami looks away, cheeks burning as the cool, sharp wind slaps them senseless. "They're…not my parents."

And then Wakaba nearly brakes completely until Nanami jabs her elbow into her gut and she comes back to her senses and pushes against the pedal again.

It's at a slightly more tolerable speed now. Perhaps it was for the better.

"The Ice Queen's an orphan?!" She clicks her tongue in a way that inexplicably sets Nanami on a razor's edge. "That explains so much."

Oh—that's right. Sympathy.

"I don't know what that means," she cuts in coldly. "And I don't want to."

"Just—" Wakaba shrugs. "—You know. You're so angry all the time. And you love the spotlight. Maybe your mean streak's 'cause you're just scared and lonely on the inside, and—" she stops short as the road sends them flying again before she continues. "Maybe you do it for attention to fill in that longing void in your gaping heart."

"…Okay, you've been reading way too many romance novels," Nanami grumbles. "What are you, a psychologist?"

"I'm working on it," she says so suddenly and with such ardent passion strained into it that Nanami can't help but stare on as the wind buffets her and Wakaba's hair alike.

"I mean—being able to read people's minds just by looking at them? Everyone's their own story." She hums. "You're basically getting paid to browse through a bookstore the whole day."

"Huh," Nanami nods in begrudging appreciation. "Poetic."

""Yeah…" She nods—not back, though, since she's still fixed to the sea of asphalt stretching out in front of them out of obligation.

Nanami still thinks she's staring back, though.

"Mom says I have to be a nurse though."

She scoffs. "Why, 'cause you're a girl?"

She shakes her head. "No. 'Cause I'm always destined to be on the sidelines," she mutters, tearing her eyes away for just a fraction of a second to meet Nanami's.

"You said it yourself, didn't you? I'm pretty plain."

Ouch. Again.

She bites her tongue. She had said that at some point, hadn't she?

And then her heart has the indecency to send a small pang to her stomach as she watches Wakaba's eyes cloud up and turn the color of mud by the time she turns back to the road.

"Idiot," she murmurs (but softly enough that only she can hear it) as she stretches out to snatch up her suitcase and scrabble through the sheets of champagne and rose red and hot pink sequined numbers so she can dig up a small pouch whose zipper she opens up with her teeth. She digs out a sparkling tube of lip gloss and shoves it in Wakaba's direction.

"Here."

She sees it, and for a faint second, Nanami can catch a glimpse of bright pink dancing across Wakaba's cheeks before she turns back around to the wheel, resolute.

"I'm…kind of hands-full at the moment."

"Oh—yeah," she breathes, her tongue dried out by the comet of wind they're in as she flushes furiously—idiot idiot idiot. "Yeah. Whatever." She nearly bites her own hand with her compact mirror and stabs herself with eyeliner as she balances the pouch on her thighs.

"What are you doing?"

Idiot.

"What does it look like?" she snaps. "Trying to get my wings evened out." She peers into the mirror, scratches at a blemish (on the glass, of course, not on her) and scowls. "Eyes on the road."

Wakaba sniffs. "Yeah. Thanks."

"Wait." Nanami slams the mirror shut as she catches sight of the backseat beyond. "We've passed that tree before," she says sharply.

Wakaba blinks. "What?"

"You're taking us in circles! I can't believe you! You're too scared to break the rules, aren't you?" she growls. "You tricked me!"

(—And I fell for it, too, she viciously bites back as her heart pummels against her frilly black blouse).

"What the—" she's torn between looking at the road and Nanami, stammering helplessly and shrilly in defense. "No I didn't—"

"Oh, save it! Everything's always just so black and white to you in your perfect little world, isn't it? Well, news flash!" she cries, abandoning her seatbelt with an unceremonious click as she stretches over the gearshift. "The world out there's not like that! Give me the wheel!"

Instead, she gives her a swift elbow to the nose.

"What do you know?! You haven't been out there, either!"

"But I—" she grits her teeth, "—still know what's going on! You—don't—know—anything!"

"THEN WHY'D YOU EVEN BRING ME?!"

They finally jolt to a stop. Nanami can feel the warmth finally come back to her cheeks as the cold stream of wind surrounding them crackles down into nothingness. She's forced to recoil to avoid permanent ear damage.

(And possibly that stupid, dysfunctional heart of hers that's threatening to hammer its way straight out of her chest).

Wakaba presses her forehead down against the steering wheel. She's hiding herself inside a curtain of wind-mussed copper.

It's eerily familiar.

"Why'd you bring me?" She croaks again. "So you could laugh at me like everyone else does?"

The moon's gracious enough to shine its spotlight on the driver's seat. It's cruel enough to force Nanami to watch Wakaba tremble in that ridiculously poofy school uniform until she slides right into it and shrinks down into nothing.

"I—thought you were—different," she discloses. She stretches over again to shake her shoulders and pry the wheel. "Hey."

It turns out she doesn't have to fight. Wakaba just gives way like a rag doll and limps over to the passenger seat, and Nanami sighs in relief.

"Finally."

Being nice is so exhausting.

She fastens her seatbelt and slams against the brakes, and their back again in their own little blood-red comet surging past the rest of the world in a lonely sky of asphalt.

"Huh." She quirks her eyebrows. "This is easier than you make it look."

She sticks her tongue out at her. "It's 'cause you're going in a straight line, genius. I'm the one who got us out of that curve."

Nanami does likewise. "Yeah, and you're the one who got us into that curve in the first place."

She looks away. "Whatever."

She stares out at the road. "Hmmph." The sky nearly blends in with the ground. Her fingers grip fruitlessly against the steering wheel as their path just keeps receding on and on and on into eternity. Her foot nearly falls asleep on the pedal. At least the tree's gone.

Nanami kind of misses that tree now. Wakaba never crashed into it.

Who knew freedom could taste so boring?

"You…said I was different," Wakaba interjects hesitantly, and Nanami startles; she's grateful for the distraction.

"Well—yeah." She shrugs. "You try pretty hard to be."

"So…you don't just wanna use me for your Utena or whatever."

Nanami purses her lips. "She's not my—" and then she sighs defeatedly. "Nah," she mutters. "I mean—I wanted to. That was kind of the point."

She hears Wakaba kick at something in frustration—it better not be her suitcase.

(It's probably her suitcase).

"I knew it," she spits.

"But you're—still different!" Nanami blurts out. "You, uh…like psychology," she finishes lamely. "And trashy romance novels."

"They're not trashy!" she argues. "They're just cliché."

"Your hair?" Nanami tries.

She runs a hand through her locks, piles it up into a ponytail, and lets go and allows it all to fall down in limp tangles all over her face before she blows them out. "You said it was lame."

"I…You're…not plain," she says directly to the steering wheel. "You're just…kind of bare."

She snorts. "Was that supposed to be a compliment?"

"Rrgh!" She clenches her teeth and digs her nails down in the handles so hard she can feel an ages old wound inside of her palm start bursting with pain again. "Okay, look. I've only known you for a little under a day but I don't think I'll ever be able to get your annoying voice out of my head. You're different. You're not like the other schoolgirls. I can never keep track of their stupid faces and whiny voices and uniforms that all look like damn carbon copies of each other. You're hard to forget no matter how much I bang my head against the wall trying to shoo you out." She exhales sharply. "Is that good enough?"

Wakaba grins as she swipes at her eyes. "For now, yeah."

Nanami grumbles. "You're impossible."

"Y'know, maybe not everyone who looks plain's as normal as they look on the outside. Like…Anthy. That rose garden girl."

She scoffs. "Anthy's not plain at all."

"Jeez, so you're in love with her now? Make up your mind!"

She wants to throttle her—she wants to hiss shut up shut up shut up more than anything in the world, but instead all she does is increase their speed tenfold before realizing she's probably about to slam the gas pedal right through the underside of the car and jolts to a standstill.

She's trembling. She's looking at her knees.

They're wrapped in black tights from that stupid student council uniform for her stupid sneakout getup. She couldn't find anything else that worked.

She'll probably never be able to escape the smell of roses.

"Hey…"

She feels a hand press down on her shoulder. There's nothing but a thin layer of sheer, shadowy blouse between the two actually touching.

Nanami hates how close she gets to it every single time. It makes her want to cry.

"Hey, Nanami. I'm sorry," she whispers. "If it really shakes you up that bad, I'll stop."

Damn right you should.

Instead, she blurts out, "It's not you," then cups her face as she shakes her head. "I mean—it is you. Most of the time." She bites her lip. "But the other half of the time…I don't even know what to feel."

"Hmm." Wakaba slides back in her seat; her foot's right on top of the suitcase. Goddamn it.

"Well, you still haven't told me what this Utena's like. Spill."

"Ugh." She leans back as well, props her feet up against the wheel, and vehemently ticks her fingers off. "Arrogant, cocky, absolutely full of herself."

"Those…are literally just definitions of each other."

"Hmmph," she grumbles dismissively. "Self-righteous. Nosy. Strong."

She cocks her head at Nanami. "It's bad for a girl to be strong?"

"What? No!" She frowns. "She's just…like that. Strong."

"Physically? Mentally?"

"Both!" Nanami snaps. "It's so annoying."

"Hmmmm." Wakaba sidles in next to her, an eyebrow floating off her forehead as she buzzes and whines with excitement like a caffeine-shot mosquito. "Bet it makes your face go all hot, huh."

"Yeah—because she gets on my nerves." She kicks fruitlessly at the steering wheel. "Not 'cause of your Marigold Prance stuff."

"Magnolia Waltz. What does she look like?"

Nanami considers it.

"Annoying," she says finally.

Wakaba rolls her eyes. "You're just making this harder on yourself, you know that, right?"

"Fine—tall," she decides, picking at her French tips. "And…" she frowns and closes her eyes, trying to conjure up the old world of Ohtori that's sleeping fitfully inside of her.

"She's…always slanted to the side with a hand on her hip and her schoolbag over her shoulder," she mutters. "Pink flowy hair—pretty much the only girly thing about her." She snorts. "You should've seen her uniform. All black and red and white and sticking out like a sore thumb. And those—those stupid shorts. Blue eyes, long nose, oval face. And God," she sneers, "her dumb, crooked smirk and her airy laugh—"

"I asked what she looks like."

"Wh—!" Nanami yelps before becoming extremely interested in boring her eyes into the gearshift. "R—right."

"Seems like you have a lot to say about her."

That's when she slams the dashboard and screams behind gritted teeth—she's just about had it with the whole world breathing down her neck about this.

"That doesn't prove anything!" She cries. "I hate her! She ruined my life and when I see her I'm gonna kill her if she isn't dead already!" She bites the inside of her cheek so hard she can feel the blood leaking out and salting her tongue. She swallows it down.

By now, the pain pales to the horrors nestled under Ohtori's fake, star-studded roof.

"So who—" she tamps down the tidal wave cresting up into her chest. "Who the hell cares?! Who the hell cares if she's brave and popular and strong and confident and determined and beautiful and—oh…" She trails off with a broken, mortified gasp. "Oh."

Look, I don't hate you.

Then does that mean you…

"Oh my god," she squeaks.

"Oh my god," Wakaba echoes. "You've loved her this whole time and you just didn't know it. That's so sweet." She sniffles. "Bittersweet."

"You—you don't get it!" Nanami cries in desperation. "You loved her too."

And she probably loved you back, she bites back bitterly.

Wakaba sighs as she stretches across the gearstick. "Yeah, you're right. I don't get it. You think I'd remember something like that."

"You think you'd forget Saionji," Nanami mutters.

Wakaba ignores her. "I'll take the wheel."

She jerks upwards, hands clinging onto the handle like her life depends on it (and by this point, she knows it does). "Why? You wanna go back and hit that tree now?"

She's surprisingly gentle as she peels Nanami's fingers off one by one from the wheel, and Nanami's surprisingly incapable of coherent speech as she dazedly lets go. Wakaba winks and leans back to pat the backseat.

"I just think you have a lot to think about."

And Nanami simply crawls in, curls inwards in an upright fetal position, and lets the midnight wind creep inside and dry her throat out until all she can manage is a languished croak.

"…Yeah."

Nanami, what about me?

She startles—as if her heart couldn't be hammering away any faster because of Tenjou, Tenjou, Utena Tenjou.

Nanami.

Her hands strap in around her ice-cold chest that was nearly on fire just seconds ago.

"No—no. No," she breathes frantically. "You're not here. I left you behind."

Touga clicks his tongue in disappointment, sidling in and melting into the leather. But shouldn't we look out for each other? Isn't that what siblings do?

"You said it was an act!"

"H—hey," Wakaba yells back through the engine's din. "You…all right back there?"

Nanami, this is against God's plan.

"I—" she pales. "You…d-don't…" she trembles. "Then why are you doing it, too?! You don't make any sense!" She edges towards the left as he advances and tries again to bring her into his crisp linen embrace. Her voice breaks neatly into about a million different pieces.

"You've never made any sense!"

"Um—hey. Nanami," Wakaba tries again. "You're kinda…freaking me out. Nanami!"

Nanami.

She wishes she didn't have a name. She wishes she was a nobody. Then she wouldn't have to hear those syllables ooze out of everyone's prattling mouths so many damn times.

He traps her with his arm.

She swallows—it still tastes like blood inside of her. "What are you—"

He leans in.

Nanami.

"No!" She shrieks, violently shoving him aside. "No, let go of me!"

But—you love me, he whispers. Isn't that what you always wanted?

"NO!"

"Nanami!"

And then it's like he's never there.

And then she's a broken mess scattered in a billion imperfect shards across the car floor. She barely registers it jolting once more to a stop.

She barely registers careening over to the side and keeling out half her guts onto the murky road before collapsing back down against the upholstery.

Wakaba's hand presses against her like a roughhewn ice pack.

"You're burning up," she mutters before shaking her head and frowning. "We're heading back."

"No!" She shoots up gasping. "No please, I can't go back there! I can't live inside of that cage another second!"

"Then how have you done it for so long?"

"I…I didn't know!" she yells, and then the crest in her chest finally swells up to perfection and comes torrenting out of her in a flood of burning tears. "I didn't know anything! I still—I still don't know anything!" She sniffles miserably. "I'm nothing! I have nothing! I just wanna—"

She gets a chest full of white and can't say anything more.

It's not linen, though—it's far too soft. It smells like apricots and lemon tea.

(And it ends up mingling with saltwater and—as much as she'd like to deny it—a few dribbles of snot by the time she's done with it).

"Look…" Wakaba murmurs as a hand cards through Nanami's hair and Nanami's face burns in shame for a fleeting moment as she wonders what could've been if she hadn't shoved off Utena's hand clenching in on her nightgown in pity the day she moved into the chairman's hauntingly beautiful prison harem.

"I don't know what's going on, but I'm sorry."

The words disgust her—how does it feel to throw away your feelings so carelessly, drudging away all your energy on things you were never even a part of in the first place?

But she's tired. She's far too tired to scream. She's far too empty.

"Thanks," she rasps instead as Wakaba's fingers slide through her locks. And it makes her feel slightly less like her hollow insides are about to shoot through her mouth and ooze their way out into a pile of ugly sludge on the floor as she drifts off in her arms. She asks herself how long it's been since she's been held like this.

Far too long.

"Hey." Wakaba's voice barrels into her ears as she's shaken roughly awake. "Hey." She rises groggily.

"What the…" She gets a hand shoved in her chest.

"Don't move," Wakaba hisses. "In case you don't remember, your forehead's on fire and you, like, puked half your guts out. You shouldn't be up right now."

"'M fine," she declares drowsily as she stumbles onto her knees and then promptly gets a saucer served to her face.

"Here. Made us tea."

She's trembling slightly as she blows on it and then lets it hover uncertainly above her lips.

It smells like lemons.

Thank God.

She drains her cup and then promptly collapses on the mattress she's propped on top of. Her suitcase lays strewn across the edge, with rivers of partywear waterfalling out of it.

"Where are we?" she mutters.

Wakaba gives a tired smile—and Nanami's gut's suddenly churning again as she sees the bags circling below her eyes in shadowy rings.

"My dorm."

"Mm." She glares at the ceiling lights and lets them sear her straight in the eyes. "What time is it?"

"A little past two," she says, pouring out her own cup and lumping in a generous amount of sugar before settling down on the wood floor across from Nanami and shaking her head. "Oh—sorry. Sugar?"

"No," she snaps before she can even comprehend why. She grabs the kettle and fills her cup up again.

She feels like it's better off sour.

After all, that's how it's supposed to be.

"You, uh—" Wakaba clears her throat before downing her tea in one, scalding gulp. "You can stay here if you want. I'm good at keeping secrets. And…y'know. Ahem. People."

Her cheeks flush crimson as she swishes away—her hair's piled up in that ridiculously perky ponytail of hers again. Nanami groans.

"Don't tell me you mean Saionji."

She folds her arms. "So what if I do?"

Nanami rolls her eyes as she sets her cup on the floor and flops back against the bed. "You have a horrible taste in men."

"Oh, like you don't!"

The resulting kick sends the saucer skidding violently across the floor as Nanami's blood goes cold.

Again.

Wakaba frowns.

"…Spoke too soon?"

Nanami sniffs. "Yeah."

She gazes upwards as Wakaba kicks herself off the mattress and picks up the hollow cup and flushes, biting her lip. "I, uh—didn't—mean, uh—" She shuts up abruptly, uncharacteristically, and smooths out her skirt before clearing her throat. "I have a spare mat lying around here somewhere. You can take the bed for the nigh—"

"No!"

She scowls and folds herself up and in on herself like a paper crane beak-deep in a pillow before she allows herself to pierce a muffled scream right into it and shoot back up, gasping furiously for breath.

"What's your problem?!" she shrieks.

"What the—my problem?! Have you ever gone without your entire damn mood changing in the span of like, two seconds?! I just said you could have my bed!"

"That's the problem, you idiot," she hisses, burying herself again to stop the next cresting tidal wave pounding against her ribs from swallowing her up once more.

"Quit being so nice to me."

"Oh…" Wakaba's eyes widen as Nanami resurfaces for air. "Oh."

"What?" she snaps.

She shakes her head. "I'm sorry, Nanami."

That sends the pillow across the room.

"Stop it!" she pleads, tearing at her hair. "Stop saying that when you don't even know what it's for!"

"I know what it's for," Wakaba says quietly as she puts up the tea tray and glides over to turn off those searingly synthetic lights wedged into her ceiling.

"Nanami, I'm sorry no one ever loved you."

Her throat closes in on itself. "Wh—"

She watches helplessly as her shadow melts into the mat rolled-out on the hard, cold floor.

"Goodnight."

And then Nanami promptly slaps herself right on the forehead.

Idiot.

"I'm sorry," she whispers as she stuffs her clothes back in her suitcase and readjusts her ponytail the best she can in the dim stream of moonlight floating in through the windows. And then she says it again as she tries to muster up the courage to creak out of bed as softly as she can, again as she makes sure Wakaba's asleep as she tiptoes over her and drapes the blanket she pulls off of the mattress over her limp, dozing, rag-doll body, again when she slips out into the campus's night air and hovers uncertainly over Chairman Akio's bloodstained car, again as sees a flash of sword-slashing pink dance across the back of her eyelids, and again and again and againagainagain once she realizes that the blanket of night allows her the luxury of being ignored for once—something she'd never have dreamed about ever wanting before.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

She just doesn't know to who.

Maybe she just likes saying it.

Maybe she says it just because she hates it—like how she's been unwittingly and hopelessly in love with Tenjou through the sheer power of her burning hatred for her.

But it doesn't matter either way.

She's gone by sunrise.