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When Utena returns home for the day, she’s hardly surprised to find Anthy regressed.
It’s been happening more and more lately, it feels like, and who is she to take away Anthy’s coping mechanism? Scars don’t heal easily, and sometimes the easiest way to put Otori behind them is to pretend like it never happened at all.
The first time Anthy regressed, Utena panicked. She thought that Anthy was having some sort of mental breakdown, or that she was hallucinating or something awful was happening she couldn’t understand yet. There’s no doubt her reaction made things worse, which is why Utena’s made an effort to return home fully prepared to have a little one on her hands.
Anthy’s head perks up at her arrival, the excitement written all over her face. “Utena!”
It’s been months of work to get her to drop the honorifics, but out of headspace, she rarely has that problem. Utena is just Utena, and she’s just Anthy. It can really be as easy as that.
“Hey, Anthy.” Utena sits opposite—respectful distance, that’s important—of Anthy. “What are we playing?”
“We” here is a very important word.
Anthy doesn’t want a caregiver. The very idea of someone else having power over her, someone who can boss her around because they know best, is enough to make her sick. She’s had more than enough of that for one lifetime.
Utena doesn’t regress. At least, she doesn’t think she does. She has fun when they play together, but she doesn’t get that weird daydreamy look Anthy does when she really goes under. She doesn’t get that sense of security that Anthy sinks into, so either it doesn’t work or she’s doing it wrong.
“Making things!” Anthy declares, her face bright with simple, all-consuming joy.
She’s seen Anthy pick up tons of hobbies at Otori, but those were duties, obligations. Anthy hated cleaning, especially while regressed, and the array of crayons, paper scraps, books, and glue sticks prove as much.
“Ohh.” That doesn’t explain anything at all. “What are you making?”
Anthy shrugs. There’s no real answer because there’s no real goal. Her time is her own, and she can spend it however she pleases, all without the looming threat of being interrupted. She can do whatever she wants. And that’s the most comforting sentiment of all.
“Can I help, then?” Utena is more than used to talking to herself when Anthy is regressed. Anthy just loses the words to express herself—which probably plays a part in why she doesn’t want a caregiver. It’s much easier to communicate with a peer.
As an answer, Anthy presses a piece of blue construction paper into one hand and a glue stick into the other.
Without any idea of what they’re doing, Utena doesn’t have much of a clue how she can help. But, hey, it’s not like they’re making anything specific. They’re just making things. She can do that, easy.
She folds the blue paper. Wakaba tried to teach her origami once, but she was never very good at it. It was always too many steps, too easy to mess up, too time-consuming. She remembers how to do a flower though, and if she can’t… well, that’s what the glue stick is for. She can glue the pieces together if she has to; it’s not like she’s being graded on this.
It’s hard to put her finger on why, but there’s something soothing about these activities. She’d rather do something more with her body, but at least it occupies her hands. Enough to keep her from getting antsy, which she supposes is the most important part.
Utena works steadily, keeping half an eye on Anthy as she does so. Anthy squirms under too much attention, but none at all is an equal cause for concern, and especially when she’s regressed, it’s easy to get her riled. She catches Anthy’s gaze and offers a little smile, then lets it drop there.
Her flower, for lack of a better word, is struggling. She’s ripped two of the petals, and maybe the one that ripped all the way off is in better shape. At least that one could be glued; the other hangs by a thread, and Utena already tried glueing it back on. Ripping it back off would only make it look worse.
Utena has half a mind to give up. She’s never been good at the “making things” activities, but before she can properly throw in the towel, Anthy catches her wrist, enthralled by her creation.
Anthy’s at her most physical when she’s regressed, but she still freezes if someone touches her without warning. Now, though, it’s the furthest thing from her mind.
She marvels at the flower in Utena’s hand. “So pretty…” she murmurs.
And it’s really not, but Utena isn’t going to argue with her. “Uh, thanks.” She glances down at the project in Anthy’s lap, an amorphous blob of colors and shapes. “Yours looks nice too.”
Anthy preens at the compliment. Had she already forgotten that Utena couldn’t even tell what it was a few moments ago? She supposes it doesn’t matter, so long as Anthy is happy.
“What are you going to do with your flower?” Anthy asks.
It’s a good question, one Utena didn’t have the answer to until a bolt of inspiration strikes her. She holds it out, ignoring the heart-pounding surge of puppy love she feels. “It’s for you!”
Anthy blinks, her surprise blooming into delight. She’s always been the one to give flowers, not receive them, and their presence was always a given. Not gifts, but duty. And Utena isn’t any good with flowers, but she can at least try to change that.
“You can put it in your hair!”
Anthy thinks on this, a shy smile pulling at her lips. “Can you do it for me?”
Utena scoots over, closing the gap between them. Close enough that their shoulders brush. Close enough that Anthy’s hand winds plaintively into the hem of Utena’s shirt. Closer than Anthy normally allows Utena when she’s regressed. A sign of trust that Utena doesn’t want to spoil.
Utena maneuvers the flower in between Anthy’s curls, tucking the stem over her ear. She grimaces as glue threatens to coat Anthy’s hair, but Utena supposes that’s a problem for later. For now, Anthy seems happy.
“You look pretty!” The compliments tumble out easier when they’re playing. Utena thinks that’s the closest to actually regressed she gets, when things are light and fun and playful, when all she can think of is telling Anthy how pretty she looks.
Anthy preens at the compliment, when an idea strikes her. The next stage of “making things” has become clear.
“Utena needs one too!” She pushes the half-formed blob of glitter and colors out of her lap in favor of starting fresh. She rips a piece of green construction paper in half, rolling it up to work as the stem. Amazing how quickly her mystery project becomes a thing when she has a clear goal in mind.
Flowers are a strange territory for Anthy.
On one hand, they remind her all too much of her gilded birdcage, of her time tending to the roses as the student council fought for her hand in marriage. Bad memories like that don’t go away overnight.
But on the other hand, the roses were the one thing about her duties that she truly loved. It was her escape from the world she was trapped in, and she truly does love getting to look after plants.
When she’s regressed, it’s a toss-up how she’ll feel about them. Sometimes any responsibility will have her shrinking back, and other times she’ll be emboldened, determined to do the best job possible.
It seems like today it’s the latter. Maybe because Utena did one first, just to prove it was safe. Her bravery ebbs and flows with the days, ricocheting from wanting independence to never wanting to be alone, the never-ending process of trying to find her sense of self away from her brother.
But Anthy works fast with a mission in mind, and it’s not long before she has a delicately folded pink rose, petals feathered in an intricate twist.
“How’d you do that?” Utena asks. She knows the answer, but she can’t help feeling awed at just how fast Anthy managed to do it.
Anthy only grins. “Secret!” She waits for no invitation before she winds the flower into Utena’s hair, perching the stem behind her ear so the blossom sits high on her head.
Utena can feel the glue all the way up the stem, tangling into her hair. A taste of her own medicine, she supposes. They’ll just have to be extra careful to wash it out later.
“Now you’re pretty too!” Anthy says.
And despite herself, Utena finds her face warming. She’s been called pretty a ton of times before. Mostly by guys she couldn’t care less about, but sometimes guys she cared way too much about. She’s never liked the word; it’s always made her skin crawl, always made her feel squashed down into a feminine ideal that everyone else wanted from her.
Funny how none of that feels true when Anthy’s the one saying it.
No caregiver is a good one. Even if the hand that holds the leash is benevolent, it doesn’t undo the presence of the tether. Utena thinks in another world, she’d work well in that role, but not here. Not with Anthy.
She doesn’t know what she is in its absence. Prince and protector go hand in hand, just like freedom and adulthood. She doesn’t feel regressed, but she doesn’t feel perfectly adult either. There has to be some middle ground that she’s playing in, not quite as young as Anthy, not quite as old as she should be.
Utena supposes it doesn’t matter.
They’re just two kids, two equals.
The way it always should’ve been.