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Utena didn't answer the door the next day, either. She'd missed class, so Wakaba had assumed she must be sick and brought a special get-well lunchbox for her. She waited at the foot of the tower for what must have been a solid hour, ringing the bell intermittently, but nothing happened.
That seemed a little weird. Even if Utena was resting, couldn't the chairman or his sister answer for her? They both knew who Wakaba was, and if anyone belonged beside Utena at her sickbed, obviously that would be her very best friend in the world — which meant Wakaba, of course. Not Himemiya Anthy. Anyway, if Utena was sick, she would need to eat something besides fried food and shaved ice.
Come to think of it, had Himemiya been to class either? Wakaba didn't remember seeing her, but on the other hand, that girl rarely did anything in class worth remembering.
She would have to look for her tomorrow, to ask her about Utena.
—
"I brought an extra lunch today," Wakaba told Tatsuya. "So... here." She bowed a little as she held it out to him. He didn't take the box from her for the space of a few heartbeats, or even say anything about it, and she couldn't see his expression. Just as she began to worry that something was wrong, though, she heard a soft chuckle, and looked up to find him smiling warmly down at her.
"There's no need to be so formal," he told her.
"Huh? What's so funny about someone being polite?" Wakaba straightened up and shoved the box against his chest until he took hold of it. "There! Is that how you think I should act?"
Tatsuya beamed at her, so Wakaba supposed it must have been. Weird. "You just happened to have an extra lunch, huh?" he asked.
"That's right. I was wondering what I should do with it, and then I saw you, and I thought about how kind you were when you first transferred back... and how I've mostly been ignoring you since then." Was that a little too humble? Wakaba thought it might be a little too humble. She didn't want to grovel when she still felt vaguely annoyed with him for reasons she couldn't quite pin down. "Well! I've been busy, after all! But childhood friends are important too, so..."
Tatsuya chuckled again. "You're not very honest, Wakaba."
"I'm always honest," Wakaba insisted. "Didn't I tell you that already?"
"If you say so," Tatsuya replied indulgently.
—
Utena didn't answer the door, and Wakaba had forgotten to talk to Himemiya Anthy. As she waited at the foot of the tower, nervously cradling the get-well lunchbox she'd brought and ringing the bell intermittently, she found herself growing increasingly irritable, though she couldn't say who exactly she was annoyed with. If it turned out Utena was just moping over something again, Wakaba would definitely have a reason to be annoyed with her, but she knew she couldn't jump the gun on that or she'd feel like a jerk if Utena really was ill.
The chairman deserved her ire either way, Wakaba decided. He had no excuse for leaving her locked outside when Utena needed her. She tilted her head up toward the top of the tower to level a glare in his general direction.
The sun glared back, burning over her vision.
—
"Excuse me! Can I sit with you?" a first-year girl asked Wakaba and Tatsuya at lunch. "It looks like you've found a tree that's got most of its leaves left, and the sun's still hot enough that I could use the shade."
Tatsuya coughed conspicuously. "Well, about that..."
"I can share my lunch!" the girl offered. "It's mostly store-bought, but I made it really cute! You like cute food, right, Shinohara?"
"Oh? I happen to be a master of cute lunches, you know," Wakaba told her. "Do you really think that you can stand on the same stage as me?"
"I'll do my best!" the girl said. "And even if I lose, there's a lot to be learned by going up against a master!"
A grin split apart Wakaba's face, and a giggle exploded from her throat. The other girl laughed with her.
"I'm pretty sure we have more than enough food already, since Wakaba brought an extra lunch again," Tatsuya objected.
"That's all right," Wakaba said. "We can share some of ours with her, too."
Tatsuya sighed. "Just try not to get fat."
—
Utena didn't answer the door, and Wakaba had forgotten to talk to Himemiya Anthy. She waited at the foot of the tower for a little while, tapping her fingers impatiently against the get-well lunchbox she'd brought and ringing the bell intermittently, but eventually decided that she could make better use of her time by talking to someone while she was still thinking about it.
Maybe a student council member would know something. Most of them seemed to frequent the kendo hall these days, so Wakaba went there, and found Kiryuu Nanami sitting alone on the floor, messing around with a tea set.
"Um, excuse me," Wakaba said. "You're with the student council, right?"
"You're thinking of my brother," Kiryuu said without looking up from her mortar and pestle. "I don't have anything to do with that anymore. See?" She held up one hand and twisted it back and forth to show off both sides of it, but Wakaba didn't know what she was supposed to be looking at. There wasn't anything there.
"But you were with them until recently, right?" Wakaba said. "Do you know what happened to Utena?"
"Her? She's gone," Kiryuu said. "You're better off just forgetting about her, like everyone else is doing."
"What do you mean 'gone'?!" Wakaba demanded. Saying the word felt like something stabbing out from her chest, and she had a sudden, almost overwhelming urge to grab the pot of hot water laid out with the other tea paraphernalia and splash it onto Kiryuu's face. She took a step forward to do just that before she realized what she was thinking and brought herself to heel.
"I mean just what I said. She's gone. She isn't here anymore."
"This is your fault somehow, isn't it? You always hated her, and there's all those rumors about what the student council can do, and you went and joined it just long enough for her to disappear!"
"Don't be ridiculous. If I'd gone around expelling everyone who got too close to my brother, the whole campus would be—" The mortar made a distressing cracking sound, and Kiryuu winced as she put the pestle aside. "Anyway, it was the chairman. She got into a fight with him, so he got rid of her."
"Is that the version of the gossip you heard?"
"Not at all. I saw it happen."
"What? You did? When? Where? Why were they fighting? Did she say anything about—"
"What an annoying pest." Kiryuu poured the water and began mixing the tea, which presented Wakaba with the awful temptation of a vessel full of hot liquid that would be even easier to pick up and throw than the pot. "I suppose this is why no one ever answers questions around here: it just encourages more. You ought to be grateful I even gave you the time of day."
"Well I'm sorry to distract from your busy schedule of sitting by yourself!"
"Do you really think that hurts?" Kiryuu laughed her affected laugh. "It doesn't even matter what I do. Just by existing, I'm more important than you, because I have something you don't."
Wakaba opened her mouth to make an insultingly sarcastic guess at what that could be, but nothing came out. She had no way of knowing whether Kiryuu was telling the truth about Utena and the chairman, but she could feel all the way down in the core of her being that she was telling the truth about what she'd just said.
Without warning, Kiryuu's haughty smirk withered down into a small, wistful smile. "The funny thing is," she admitted to her cup of cooling tea, "I don't even want it anymore. I've tried to get rid of it, but I don't think I can. Or if I can, I don't know how, and no one is going to tell me, because no one ever tells me anything." She looked at Wakaba for the first time, jerking her gaze up suddenly in what seemed to be an attempt to level a glare at her but only resulted in exposing the confusion and worry in her eyes. "So, like I said, you should be grateful that I told you even the little bit I did. There's no way I could possibly explain it all so that someone like you could understand."
"I guess I'll just have to take it up with the chairman, then," Wakaba decided.
"You shouldn't, if you know what's good for you. He and his sister... they aren't good people. They're dangerous."
"Don't worry about me," Wakaba told her. "He'll probably never even open the door."
"I wasn't worried," Kiryuu said, but Wakaba had already turned to go. As she left, she heard a splash and a retching sound, followed closely by: "Ugh, gross, it's like drinking dead leaf crumbs! That's supposed to bring about a higher consciousness?"
—
Tsubomi got into the habit of eating lunch with Wakaba and Tatsuya. Wakaba got into the habit of calling her Tsubomi.
"I've been thinking of joining a club," Tsubomi said as they sat on the grass beneath their favorite tree. "Boiled egg?"
"Sure, and you can have one of my fried ones!" In a whir of chopsticks, Wakaba deftly swapped out the contents of their respective lunches. "Which club?"
"Well... are there any that you're interested in? I was thinking that maybe we could do something together!"
"I," said Tatsuya, "am considering trying out for the basketball team next year. I think I've grown a couple centimeters this past month or so, and if that keeps up..."
"Obviously Tsubomi and I can't join a boys' sports team," Wakaba said. Both Tatsuya and Tsubomi looked at her kind of weirdly, like they were worried she'd missed the point, but she ignored that. "I guess I'm all right at volleyball and tennis, but probably not good enough to try out for a team. Let's see... what else do I like? Reading... Cooking... I don't think there are clubs for those."
"We could start one!" Tsubomi suggested. "Wakaba and Tsubomi's Cute Lunch Club!"
"Don't you already basically have that?" Tatsuya pointed out.
"Sure, we share our food, but that's not the same thing as making it together!" Tsubomi said.
"I don't really have time to be a club officer," Wakaba said.
"Fiiiiiine." Tsubomi puffed out her cheeks in an exaggerated pout, and the expression was familiar in a way that made Wakaba feel strangely old. "Well, if you didn't have any ideas, I was thinking about maybe checking out the fencing club. I know that sounds kind of out there, but Miss Juri is the captain, and she's really cool, right? A lot of the girls in it seem cool!"
"Maybe I'll do kendo instead of basketball," Tatsuya mused aloud. "As I get taller, my reach will get longer too."
"Being around swords makes me kind of nervous," said Wakaba, though she wasn't sure why, and couldn't even recall a time she had been around them. "But you two should do what you like!"
"I like spending time with my very best friend in the whole world!" said Tsubomi. "Don't you like that too?"
Wakaba bit her tongue, but Tatsuya made her efforts pointless by snapping, "Since when are you her best friend?"
"Sorry, sorry!" Tsubomi said with a smile and a wave. "I didn't mean to step on your toes, Kazami! You two have known each other since you were little, so you must be like brother and sister, right?"
"That's not what I'm saying at all!" Tatsuya shot back. "Wakaba already has a best friend, but right now she's in the hospital or something."
"'Or something'?" Tsubomi repeated. "Do you not know what happened to her?" She looked to Wakaba as though for confirmation, and her jaw dropped at whatever it was that she saw in Wakaba's expression. "Wait — do you not know what happened?"
"Do either of you even remember her name?" Wakaba asked.
"Um... well, I never exactly met her, so..." said Tsubomi.
"Of course I do," said Tatsuya, but he didn't volunteer it.
"It hasn't even been that long!" Wakaba admonished them both. "It's only been... um, it was summer then, and it's barely autumn now, so... it could only have been a couple months at the most, right?"
"It feels like longer than that," Tatsuya said.
"I think it might only have been a few days," Tsubomi said. A yellow leaf floated down from the canopy above them and landed in her hair, but she didn't seem to notice.
"I don't understand it," Wakaba said. Her eyes burned like maybe some of the grit from the falling leaves had gotten into them. "Utena was special! She was important! If it were me, I'd expect all but one or two people to forget, but how can this be happening to someone like her?"
"Maybe it's because of that?" Tsubomi suggested. "If it were someone normal, people would just forget normally."
"What are you two talking about?" Tatsuya asked, sounding horrified. "Wakaba, you are special! I would never forget about you!"
"Oh, I wouldn't either, of course!" Tsubomi said quickly. "But that isn't the point."
"How is that not the point?"
Because, Wakaba knew, the point was that this sort of forgetting wasn't normal. Everyone else was moving on to other things at impossible speed, and if Wakaba didn't at least pretend to do the same, she would stand out — and not in the good way.
"Maybe I should join a club," she said, and Tatsuya and Tsubomi instantly stopped arguing to help her run through the options.
—
"Do you know? Do you know? Have you heard the news?"
"What a miraculous day! Somehow, I've come face to face with an engineer of legend! It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Daedalus!"
"It's a pleasure to meet you too, Mr. Wright."
"Sir, what I have with me here is a flying machine from the twentieth century. Would you care to go for a ride in it?"
"A ride? You mean right now? But that machine is just a skeleton! Don't you still need to put the feathers on it?"
"Huh? It doesn't need feathers. It's in perfect working order."
"Well, if you say so... but remember not to fly too close to the sun, or the wax will melt!"
"There isn't any wax, either!"
"But there must be! How else would all the various components hold together?"
"I see... Mr. Daedalus may be ahead of his time, but not, it seems, by four-thousand years."
The silhouettes on the stage's backdrop shifted from a profile view to the appearance of facing the audience. They curtsied deeply, which in this case meant delicately pinching the puffed legs of the pantaloons they'd worn for their male roles as they pressed their heels together and bent their knees.
Wakaba, alone in the seating area of the still-darkened theater, asked them, "Are all of your plays like this?"
"Of course not!"
"Not at all!"
"Every performance is different from the last!"
"That's the magic of theater!"
The two actresses had similar voices and mannerisms, and their shadows didn't bounce around to indicate who was speaking like they'd done during the play, so Wakaba had no clue which shadow was saying what. For all she knew, someone behind the scenes could be speaking to her along with them — there were at least three girls in this club, weren't there? "I meant: do you always do shadow plays?"
"Oh, that! Yes!"
"That's our thing!"
"Why?" Wakaba asked.
"Just look at us: we could be anyone!"
"We're certainly no one important."
"But, here we are: on a stage!"
"Isn't everyone?"
"Yes, but we draw attention to it! That's the only reason anyone cares about our ramblings."
"But you aren't on the stage," Wakaba pointed out. "You're somewhere in the back of the theater, in front of a projector."
"And yet, you're facing the stage when you talk to us."
"Th-that... that's only because..." Wakaba paused to think it over, which was when she finally realized: "Wait a second! You have your backs turned to me, don't you?"
The actresses laughed uproariously.
"Quality improv! You sounded so offended!"
"You'll fit right in with this troop!"
"You even have the movements down! All those exaggerated gestures that you pass off as natural? Perfect!"
"And you're good at playing roles! You've been doing that every day, haven't you?"
"You've been trying to have it both ways, haven't you?"
"You aren't normal, and you can't be special, but you've got everyone fooled in one direction or the other."
"Are you calling me dishonest?" Wakaba asked. She could hear the offense in her own voice, now that they'd pointed it out. Unnervingly, she found herself leaning into it. "You're saying I'd make a good actress... because you think I'm good at lying?"
"Why so insulted? Would you prefer to be bad at it?"
"Omnis traductor traditor! Especially when you're translating reality into words."
"Try on enough different lies in enough different directions, and eventually you might find one that's close enough to the truth for practical purposes, in a given time and place."
"The dangerous lies are the ones that get repeated often and questioned rarely."
"And the dangerous stories are the ones that get repeated often enough that everyone decides they're what all stories should be."
"That's how a story becomes the bad kind of lie!"
"So, what do you say? Will you take the stage and speak in shadows with us?"
"Will you carve out your place in the light alongside ours?"
"It sure would be nice to have an extra pair of hands for juggling all these props."
"I guess I'll think it over," Wakaba told them. They had certainly given her more than enough to think over for as long as she cared to try thinking. "But right now there's somewhere I have to be, before it gets too much later."
—
No one answered the door, no matter how long Wakaba stood at the foot of the tower or how often she rang the bell — which was likely more often than usual, because today she had no get-well lunchbox with which to occupy her hands. Her drama club detour had left her with no time to prepare one, and anyway, she was all but certain now that Utena wasn't home, and never would be again.
Was even the chairman home? Where else would he be, at this time of evening? The sun had gotten low enough in the sky that the tower's shadow stretched all the way across the courtyard and reached down toward the dorms.
It cast a pall over Wakaba for most of her walk back.
—
"Wait, where's my lunch?" Tatsuya asked as they sat down under the tree.
"Did you leave it in the classroom?" Wakaba guessed.
"How would I have done that? You haven't given it to me yet."
"What are you talking about? You didn't bring your own?"
"Uh, no. Why would I bother with that when you always bring one for me?"
"I wasn't bringing them for you," Wakaba reminded him. "I had extra, so I let you have them. I'm pretty sure I told you that!"
"Well whatever you were doing, couldn't you have warned me that you wouldn't be doing it today?" Tatsuya grumbled as he pulled himself back up to his feet. "Now I have to go all the way back to the cafeteria."
"It's your fault for making assumptions, you know!" Wakaba called after him as he jogged away. "And hey, wait a second! Between Tsubomi and me there should be enough to go around! We can still just share!" Tatsuya didn't seem to hear her, and kept going.
Where was Tsubomi, anyway? Wakaba held off on opening her lunch to wait for her, but when her stomach started gurgling in protest she decided that just waiting wasn't good enough. She got to her feet and peered around the courtyard, but couldn't see Tsubomi anywhere, even when she stood on her toes, so she wandered over to the nearest hill to get a better view.
There! Way off in the distance, Wakaba spotted a familiar bobcut. Tsubomi wasn't making her way to their tree at all; she was sitting with her back pressed up against the wall of the gymnasium building, in the exact opposite corner of the courtyard.
Wakaba headed over to see what was wrong. "Tsubomi, hey!" she called out once she was fairly sure she'd gotten within earshot.
Tsubomi jolted alert like a squirrel who'd just spotted a dog. She took one look at Wakaba before shoving the remains of her lunch haphazardly back into its box, then jumped to her feet and scurried away.
Wakaba's pace slowed as she crossed the last little distance to where Tsubomi had just been. Even so, she somehow managed to stumble into the wall and bump her forehead — not hard enough to hurt, but maybe if anyone was watching and saw how she started crying immediately afterward, they wouldn't know that and wouldn't question it.
What had she done wrong this time? Why did everyone always leave?
—
Wakaba didn't make it to the central tower that afternoon. She did manage to put together a get-well lunchbox, though it wasn't at all up to her usual standards. She did manage to get out the door and on the path to the central campus, though she had to fight against the urge to just crawl into bed instead. What stopped her was running into Himemiya Anthy, who was walking down the same path from the opposite direction.
Wakaba didn't recognize her immediately — which startled her, because Himemiya Anthy was one of the most easily recognizable people she had ever met. She noticed the outfit first: bright pink coat and skirt, jaunty white beret, all of it out of place amid the steady stream of school uniforms. The girl wearing it took a moment to materialize in Wakaba's awareness, but once she did, Wakaba blurted out, "You!"
Now just a couple paces in front of Wakaba, Himemiya stopped walking and stood face to face with her. "Hello hello!" she said with a smile and a tilt of her head.
"What did your brother do to my Utena?" Wakaba demanded.
The smile vanished, replaced with an expression of seemingly genuine surprise. "What did... he do?" Himemiya looked down at the ground and smiled again, this time a bit wistfully. "I see. So it's starting already."
A dervish picked up around their feet, stirring the piles of scarlet leaves into a dance.
"What's starting?" Wakaba asked. "Why won't anyone tell me what's going on?"
"Utena has left Ohtori Academy for good," Anthy said. "Right now, I am on my way to do the same. I don't know where she is, but I won't stop until I find her. "
"That doesn't answer anything!" Wakaba said, her voice rising and cracking.
"It's the only answer I have to give. Were you looking for information or advice?"
Wakaba laughed bitterly. "I don't think I want any advice from you!"
"But perhaps you'd take a warning?" When Wakaba didn't answer, Anthy continued, "I don't know exactly what will happen when I'm gone. I doubt that my brother will remain chairman for much longer. Alone, he is weak — but he is also desperate and cruel. He's found a use for you before, and you managed to surprise us then. As his hand diminishes, he may call on you again." One of the leaves blew into her hair. She plucked it out and cast it away without so much as glancing at it.
"The ornament," Wakaba remembered suddenly. "Saionji's gift... I only ever saw you wear it that once."
"I threw it away," Himemiya confirmed. "Did you want it back?"
"Don't tease me! How could you ever understand how I feel? Being noticed like that, coming even that close to the sun... those were the best days of my life!"
"You're young," said Himemiya. "Now, if you'll excuse me, there are places I need to be." She walked on. Without thinking and entirely in spite of herself, Wakaba stepped to the side to let her pass.
As her eyes shifted focus back to the central campus in the distance, for a moment she thought she saw the chairman's tower in ruins: a jagged-topped circular wall with no roof, its upper levels reduced to a pile of rubble at its base. When she blinked, it returned to normal — but even so, she decided against making the trek there today.
—
"I see you brought an 'extra' lunch again," Tatsuya said as they walked together toward their tree. He reached out to take it, but Wakaba pulled back.
"Actually," she said, "it was intended as a get-well lunchbox. I couldn't give it to the person I made it for, but... doesn't Tsubomi seem like she isn't well either?"
"She doesn't want to talk to you," Tatsuya said.
Wakaba stared at him. "How do you know that?" Tatsuya just shrugged. "Hey, come on! It isn't a difficult question! What did she say to you?"
"She finally understands how she's been causing trouble for you."
"What trouble?"
"You were finally growing up!" Tatsuya snapped so suddenly that Wakaba took a step back in surprise. "Everyone could see you were growing up! And then she shows up acting like you used to do, and you're on the other end of it now, and... and people are going to get the wrong idea! There's only so much you can chalk up to immaturity!"
"You chased her away," Wakaba realized. "You had no right to do that!"
"'No right'? Aren't I your prince? Protecting you isn't only my right; it's my duty!"
"I never wanted that!" Wakaba found herself shouting now. "I thought you were my friend! For you to take one of the only good memories I have from back then and turn it into that... you're a real jerk, Tatsuya!"
"I'm not! I'm a good person! I know I'm a good person!"
"And how do you know that?"
"Because..." Tatsuya faltered, and when he spoke again it was at a more normal volume. "Someone told me."
"Who?" When Tatsuya didn't answer, Wakaba couldn't help but laugh. "You don't even remember, do you? What's the point, then? Who decides what's 'good'? Who decides what's 'normal' or 'special'? If you don't even know that, then..."
"Wakaba?" Tatsuya prompted her when she trailed off. He reached out to take her chin in his hand, but she shook herself out of his grip.
"You're wasting my time," she said. "There's somewhere I have to be."
—
"There you are!" Wakaba declared triumphantly when she found Tsubomi eating lunch alone inside one of the classrooms. "Sorry about Tatsuya! I told him off for you."
"Oh." Tsubomi prodded a half-burned, poorly carved octopus sausage with her chopsticks and didn't look up. "He was right, though."
"About what?"
"Um... my reasons for wanting to be friends with you... weren't pure."
"So? As if his were!"
"That's different."
"How?"
"Because it's normal, obviously."
"Who says?"
"Everyone!" Tsubomi set her chopsticks aside and shoved her lunch away in frustration. "I'm just being childish."
Wakaba pulled out the desk next to Tsubomi's and pressed the two of them together front-to-front, then sat down so that she and Tsubomi could look directly into each other's eyes. "What if I say something else?" She set the get-well lunchbox on the seam between the two desks.
Tsubomi's only response was a sniffle.
"Hey, Tsubomi..." Wakaba opened the lunchbox, picked up a fried egg with Tsubomi's discarded chopsticks, and leaned across the desk to offer it to the other girl. "Have you ever wanted to be an actress?"
—
They debuted early one morning in the open air, the rising sun casting their shadows onto the front of the central tower.
"Do you know? Do you know? Have you heard the news?"
"My sweet, even though I am a pauper without a penny to my name, will you do me the honor of being my bride?"
"Of course, my dear! You may not own so much as an acre of land, but you're still the lord of my heart!"
"Aha! Now that I know your love for me is real, I can reveal the truth: I am secretly a prince in disguise!"
"Eh???"
"I'll call my finest carriage to take us to the castle! You can rule beside me and never want for anything! ...Ow! What are you doing?"
"Stop squirming. Now I've got to report you to the rebel leader."
"But I thought you loved me!"
"And I thought you wanted to help me overthrow the monarchy!"
One shadowy arm grew in scale until it was long enough to reach from near the base of the tower all the way to the top, and a fist closed around the observatory.