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The sight of Utena’s blood never got easier.
A boy had clipped her on the basketball court. Utena told the story with no ill will in her voice as she toweled off (not that she was capable of ill will, the innocent prince) (no, that was the old Utena), and Anthy hummed. She brought her water and bandages. She set the teakettle, too: today, she would steep roses plucked before full flower.
Bubbles frothed and began to steam, as misty and fragile as the breath of that boy.
She could so easily cut the flame. Dispel it.
“Anyway, he wouldn’t stop apologizing,” Utena was huffing, “so I told him to pay better attention to where he was going. What if I had been one of the younger kids? Honestly.”
She glanced over at Anthy in the kitchen, and her face shifted. Even after all this time, and all the revolutions big and small that had changed them, Anthy could still read Utena like a part of her own self. Maybe she was, still (all girls are like the Rose Bride) (wait for me, Utena).
First the haunted sort of anger that fell across Utena when she remembered the Rose Bride’s existence, then the uncomfortable judgment when she realized the course of Anthy’s thoughts. It would war with the twisted romance of it all—whatever Anthy did to the boy, she would do it for Utena—and then lose to the careful, chosen trust between them.
All this flickered across her beloved’s face, and Anthy smiled.
“It doesn’t bother me,” Utena said after a long moment. Her voice was quiet. Husky, like truths told at nighttime.
Yes, Utena-sama, Anthy would have said before. Or I understand, Utena-sama. The words still rose in her throat like choking stems.
“It bothers me,” Anthy said instead.
She left the kettle boiling on the stove and knelt by Utena. Predictably, her erstwhile prince had done a hasty job of wrapping the wound. When she looked up at Utena, eyebrow arched, the girl just shrugged.
“I wanted to see you faster."
With anyone else it would have been a line. But Utena was Utena even now, all simple earnestness and soft hope.
“I wasn’t going anywhere,” Anthy murmured, and began to unwind the bandages. An ordinary gash. Not terrible. Any university athlete might sustain one, just from running and jumping and colliding.
She reached close enough to feel the heat of the wound, nearly touching where the skin broke to reveal blood and pink flesh. (A million swords of hate, piercing her stomach) (that is the destiny of the Rose Bride).
“I could heal this for you,” Anthy whispered. A touch, a kiss, turn the blood to flowers. Take the pain into herself. This, too, was a violence she could still conjure.
Utena reached down and took Anthy’s hands in her own, as gentle as it had been in a coffin hanging over the end of the world. But—
“We aren’t there anymore, Himemiya,” Utena reminded her. And they weren’t—they had chosen the real world. They had built their life here, in this small apartment with Utena’s badminton rackets everywhere, and drawers full of Anthy’s animal-print socks, and a tiny bed for Chu-Chu near the radiator, which sputtered terribly. “I’ll just clean it and leave it be. It’ll heal.”
Her expression was tender. The emotions flickering across—grief, memory, guilt—were nothing compared to that tenderness. That love.
Anthy stood with Utena’s hand in hers, the old-new hope flaring in her chest. She cupped Utena’s cheek, kissed her—and Utena yielded easily, with a warmth and trust that stoked more eager heat.
The time would come for that. Now, though, they kissed and kissed—gentle, heated, insistent, breathless—until the teakettle whistled and filled the apartment with steam.
Grinning, Utena parted from her and hobbled toward the window. Anthy joined her, and together they lifted the latch, letting the scent of roses dissipate into the sky.