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When Anthy found her, there were roses.
There was something in the way memories of Before became a watercolor wash as the days and weeks and months passed by. Hazy, like all thoughts were then, unable to link together the patterns that might’ve made it clear so much earlier, the perpetuated harm that haunted the campus like a phantom sword in one’s back.
The outside world wasn’t so different, really. There were still people, and gardens, and petty fights and uneasy resolutions and unsaid words. The sky was still blue. But there was a roughness to the sandpaper of the days that was real and grounding, and reminded Anthy that here, consequences existed. Each day affected the next. Time was a fact, not a suggestion. She had a digital camera in her bag to remind herself that her life was linear, and her memories were more than mere imprints of want.
When Anthy found her, it was raining.
She hadn’t been actively looking that day, but the pattering on glass had beckoned her outdoors. The weather at Ohtori Academy rarely changed, with seasons like obligations more than realities. Existence itself was at a standstill. No one acknowledged the decay of leaves, the outside world pressing in. No one grew, and the past was more present than the now. Flowers remained unblemished by autumn.
Anthy learned that she loved the rain.
She popped open a colorful, striped umbrella to go for a walk in the drizzle. It was a new city, as it so often was, and Chu-Chu nestled comfortably in the hood of her rain jacket in his own, mini jacket.
“What do you think?” Anthy asked him, patting his head with one finger. “Will we find her today? Or will we go on another new adventure?”
He squeaked in a way that could have meant anything, but Anthy knew it meant he was hopeful. He hadn’t been the same since Utena left Ohtori. But then, neither had Anthy – and in very subtle ways, neither had Ohtori.
The people around them scrambled for shelter or fruitlessly held newspapers over their heads, ducking under awnings, as Anthy stepped along the sidewalks with no destination. It was a beautiful day. The sky was so wide. The people she passed were strangers, and what a luxury that was. They could have been anyone, anything, kind or cruel or apathetic, and it was her choice whom she let in.
She had broken her engagement with the world, and she owed them nothing.
When Anthy found her, it was in a graveyard.
Anthy couldn’t hazard a guess as to what she was doing; there was no nearby chapel silhouetting the horizon, no cresting null upon which a biker may overlook, no grave markers for anyone she should know buried here. Yet, there she stood in the rain, in a red coat, her hood pulled low but the pink hair curling over her chest too distinguishable to miss. The graveyard was full of blooming rose bushes, but the ones closest by were white.
“It’s you,” Anthy breathed, gripping her umbrella handle tighter.
Utena somehow heard her over the clatter of rain. Her face lifted slowly, blue eyes widening with something akin to horror, disbelief – as though Anthy was a specter clawing out of one of the many coffins below their feet. She had, in a way.
Several seconds passed. Was there something eternal to this, the distance between them?
Anthy reached out, stumbling forward.
Utena stared, a dozen emotions flitting across her countenance as she moved, landing on an unstable foot and catching Anthy’s hand, clutching like Anthy might simply fade away. Utena allowed her to pull them close enough for the umbrella to cast a shield overhead.
“It’s – it’s me,” Utena agreed, something both hesitant and joyous as her gaze darted over Anthy’s face. She trembled slightly, likely not from the chill. “Um. I-I don’t really know what to say.”
“That’s alright,” Anthy replied. It was.
They watched the raindrops bead on rose petals and slip into the soil below, like a tear tracing the soft edge of one’s jaw and soaking into the collar.
Chu-Chu clambered out of Anthy’s hood with an urgent squeal, and Utena laughed, reaching out with her free hand to let him climb on and latch onto one of her fingers. “Hey!” she said. “Oh, I missed you, too! Hi!” Chu-Chu made another noise in response, and the two got on like no time had passed at all.
Anthy adjusted the umbrella to ensure it covered Utena entirely. It covered herself, too. It was big enough for both of them.
“I know I’m early for our tea,” Anthy said. “I hope that’s alright.”
“Hmm?” Utena turned her gaze from Chu-Chu to Anthy, her smile softening. The darkness in her eyes seemed to finally evaporate. Anthy was really here. She was real. “More than, Himemiya. I know a place with great shortbread cookies, too, nearby.”
“With Cantarella, I hope?” Anthy joked, beaming at her more genuinely than she ever dared before.
Utena tightened her grasp on Anthy’s hand. She didn’t need to tug as she moved; Anthy came willingly, in step.
“Only if there’s enough for both of us,” Utena replied.
They left the graveyard together.