Utena, Revolutionary Girl Fan Fiction ❯ A Tale of Two Princes ❯ The Romance of Sleepers and the Haunting of What Never Was ( Chapter 4 )

Title: A Tale of Two Princes

Chapter 4: The Romance of Sleepers and the Haunting of What Never Was

Rating: PG-13

Shoujo-ai Content

Utena and its character do not belong to me. I am just borrowing.

 

Juri stalked the long path back to her dorm and wished for someone she could drag into the fencing hall to fight. She had left the best sparring partner she had to the care of his dorm so that he might contort his way through the conundrum she had left him with. Touga saying that he would not make his life as complicated as her own, while a good answer to the equation, was not exactly appropriate in her line of thinking.

 

She worried too much. She wanted to do right by the people in her life, and that was why she usually kept them a good arms length away. She was a frightening person to know, she realized. She was all too intense and all too cold within the same breath. Someone had once called her an angel and a devil locked within the same skin. She agreed stating that, "I am the two of me."

 

But both, she thought carefully, both feel so hollow.

 

There were so many things she felt she needed to do, and most presently occupying her mind were all about dreams. Dreams of a prince and dreams of duels that were darker than any she had ever participated in. All the duels she had lost...she lost to herself.

 

She wanted to find the person or persons responsible for the dreams.

 

She wanted to be able to keep her friends close. And she seemed to better at it with Touga than Miki (and she refused to even think about her relationship with his sister), but wasn't that just because they had a goal in common. Wasn't their closeness derived of a deeper connection, to secrets and betrayals, or reconciliation and forgiveness come too late?

 

The lamp lights along the pathway began to flicker into life. The pale yellow-orange light that seeped forth created shadows on the path. Sometimes, in some views, the shadows looked like hands pointing to an unknown location. The air was getting crisp and she thought about the coming holiday break and how she would inevitably still be at the school for it.

 

She would have taken the time to resent her parents had she actually ever gotten the chance to really know them. Perhaps her sister would grant her a favor and let her visit. The thought warmed her. Yes, that would be nice and she could stroll along Paris streets and maybe pick up a modeling job. She could spend a week in a city that filled her with dazzling sites and wonderful foods...

 

"Beautiful women," she muttered and then bit at her bottom lip.

 

She wished again for someone to fence against again. Then she considered going for a long jog and a cold shower. There was a fire that had started burning in her and she wanted to fight it. She didn't want to crave what she was craving.

 

She needed to stop bottling up her feelings.

 

She needed to write Shiori a long letter.

 

She needed to do her homework.

 

She needed to call her sister.

 

She needed to stop worrying.

 

She shut her eyes and heavily considered her thoughts. It made her smirk, all those things she needed to do. And then it hit her that the one thing she really needed to do...

 

"Prowling, Arisugawa?"

 

...was to stop running into Kozue Kaoru.

 

Juri shrugged as the younger woman approached, and then stated flatly, "On your way home or looking for a date?"

 

"Maybe...I haven't decided what I want to do." The wolfish young woman stepped in closer.

 

"I thought I had made things clear this afternoon," she whispered.

 

Kozue sneered a bit and then huffed, almost chuckled, "No, you just made things more..." She stopped and whatever smug and ripping remark she was about to make slipped away and she grimaced, managing a laugh that turned into a sad sigh, "I just want a good night's sleep, Arisugawa."

 

With a breath of airy speculation the stoic fencer said, "Don't we all."

 

I don't have the strength it takes

When it comes to loving you

And you don't have the heart

To give into what love asks of you

We can go in circles until we fall apart

But darling I think the Fates have toyed with us

Almost right from the very start

We have this time

This little game

We play around

And we both feel the same

But giving in and giving up

And giving out to you

All these pieces of my heart

End up way beyond blue and bruised

 

They would sleep together, but not in any lustful or romantic sense, although perhaps there was a spark of something in the latter that was desperate to weed its way into the both of them. It was merely sleeping, sleeping and holding each other as they dreamed of what they really wanted, or of nightmares that would not go away.

 

They would chat casually over inane subjects that hardly mattered for awhile first. Juri would make tea. Then the fencer would take a long shower leaving Kozue to clear the cups, and toss on an over sized t-shirt that would serve as pajamas.

 

Juri would emerge from the heat and steam already in her night gown and still a little damp. And they would be stuck for a second or two as thoughts of something deeper would cross into them. Thoughts illuminated by a glance or a slight touch, a brush of the shoulders. It never went anywhere though. It stayed as perfectly innocent as two friends having a sleepover.

 

They would glide under the covers, melding into the small space of the slightly over sized twin bed. They would shut their eyes and forgive the softness of the others touch, as a leg would adjust, or the slip of a hand along the stomach as the depths of slumber overtook them.

 

In the morning they always found themselves too close for comfort. Their dreams would bring them closer and they would wake, a tangle of limbs, caught by the small nagging fires that being so near could bring. There were times when they wished to close the gap between them. There were times when one would wish she could just give in and press her lips into the softness of the other, but then never did.

 

Why had it started? It was hard to say exactly what drove them to it, but it was mostly because they both had trouble sleeping. It was because they were drawn together by odd coincidences at an earlier time, and it was also because of a girl with violet eyes.

 

When Juri found out it was a slow and steady scratch against her heart (yes, still, even after Juri had let her go, even after knowing she did not love Shiori, and that was important...because deep inside, she knew she no longer loved, in that same romantically tortured way, the girl with the violet eyes). She felt so entirely miserable and then Kozue had come to her and things just got... complicated was being polite. One would have thought after all the business with the locket she would have learned better, and she had. That was why she never slept with Kozue, and that was why Kozue pretended she did not notice the little butterfly's sly flirtations.

 

But Shiori was gone now. She had left for anther school. She probably had another crush already. She probably had her heart set on something else, because she was always and forever a little butterfly. She flitted from one pretty thing to the next; never really understanding that she never gave anything back.

 

And she was gone now.

 

It was a point Kozue had been trying to press, and she could press a point until one just want to either give in or shove her violently away. She wanted that from Juri. She wanted the panther to either give in or push her away. She hated this compromised illusion, and she knew that Juri hated it to.

 

After all the boys, all the dating, the cigarettes, the good byes, and deep seething regrets of ever getting into that damned red convertible of the chairman's, Kozue found herself very bitter and void of feeling for anyone. And then one day, she didn't know why, but she sat down at the piano again and started to play. Her brother heard her and after the initial shock pulled away sat down next to her. They still were not as close as they could be. They still had a dark patch that separated them, but it was a change...and change... wasn't that something oddly intriguing?

 

She knew she could change if she wanted to, and then she found Juri. They clicked, they sparked, and they knew how to push each others buttons. There was a sophisticated wildness to the panther, and as long as she stayed wild...Well how could Kozue resist, after all she was an animal, deeply and intrinsically, and even the wickedest and wildest needed a mate.

 

The long lines of the moon's light spilled in from between the blinds.

 

They couldn't go on like this. Things had to break for better or worse.

 

There was a fire that was burning inside Juri's chest, and unconsciously, Kozue had caught a whiff of the embers.

 

Kozue shifted her position and turned to face the panther, who was, to her great surprise...awake.

 

They stared into each other's eyes for a while, until the younger touched her hand to the other's face, her thumb stroking along the cheek, and pulling closer so that their legs tangled into each other and they were too close for comfort and anything innocent.

 

"Juri...I... I need...," she felt her heart beating stronger, or was it that she felt Juri's heart beating with her, growing in a pace to meet her own. She shut her eyes and when she opened them she mouthed the word, 'This.'

 

Their lips met, softly at first, hungry for something they had tried to deny, for reasons that seemed too simple to really matter. As touches grew and kisses increased the wilds of Kozue's character found a new way to blossom, so suddenly trapped under the weight of a panther's explosive longing.

 

We can regret the morning

We can stem still the tides

Oh yet it is better now that I have rushed to you

Oh yet it is better now that I have staked my claim

With my lips

The pull of our hips

And we glide into something voraciously cruel

We land in the depths of lustful fools

And in this flame or spark that pierced the dark

And in this new space that captures the heart

We can regret as the sun rises full

But we won't...we don't

 

She was not pleased to have been roused from her bed at such an ungodly hour, especially given the present company she was keeping. But while he was all cheeky grins, and muted chuckles upon seeing her, he immediately took her displeasure to heart and produced forth the letter he had received.

 

She responded by shutting the door in his face and scurrying about her room to find more appropriate clothing. Softly explaining the situation to the guest in her room, in polite and hushed tones that she knew he would not be able to hear clearly from the other side of the door. She promised to return shortly and the young woman promised she would wait, seeming to understand the exacting urgency of the situation.

 

When Juri emerged from her room she was lovely site. Her uniform was rumpled and sloppily thrown on, and her massive light auburn locks were a tousled mess hastily pulled back into a ponytail. She gave him a scathing look when he had the audacity to point out a small purplish mark on her neck.

 

They walked in silence outside of the dorm and proceeded quickly to the fencing hall since it was relatively close and conveniently vacant at such an hour. They took up short residence in the unused office of the administrator who was supposed to chaperone the activity of the fencing team but always seemed to be otherwise engaged.

 

He handed her the letter, or rather, the short note. Too short in fact, it consisted of only two words, useful and helpful a clue, but still...a bit brief in her mind. She took in the whole of the letter comparing it to the other's the student council had received before. Noting carefully the differences and then handed it back to Touga.

 

"It isn't him," she muttered.

 

Touga grinned, "I knew you would say that. How can you tell, he could be trying to fool us?"

 

"The hand writing is too feminine to be his," she paused and then looked him over, "He would not be so brief in instruction and besides I do not think we have anything left to offer him."

 

"Rather bold assumptions, I think."

 

"But you feel the same way, don't you? I know you don't think it's him, but the questions remains...Who did send it? And why so brief a message," she asked calmly.

 

He looked over the note and the elegant curves of the handwriting. The way the words popped out from the background of light lavender with a darker purple ink. And just two words, a simple location, it seemed it should have been obvious to them. The card said: Neumero Hall.

 

"What do you make of the stamp at the bottom of the card," he asked quickly.

 

She shook her head, "I've no idea. The hand is pointing to something but we may not be able to know what it is until we go check out the hall." She was about to shrug when a sudden chill overtook her and she placed her hand over her chest, as the whisper of pain sprung up there. She looked over at Touga and then whispered, "You know, that hall is supposed to be haunted... I don't know why, but I suddenly feel there is something very important I need to remember about that place."

 

"Something dark..."

 

"No... something...something that is sad. A hundred students were burnt alive in that hall," as she spoke her eyes grew wide and then she muttered in continuation, "I should have thought of this before. I feel like... I feel like I've only just regained the memory."

 

Concern began to etch into his features and he stepped forward to place a hand on her shoulder, which she immediately shrugged off.

 

"But there are so many haunted places on this campus, Touga. Why should this one feel so different? I mean the old fencing hall is considered haunted as well and-"

 

She stopped as a dreamy image floated to the surface of her mind. It was a haze of fights performed between the duelists, but they had not taken place inside the dueling arena. She looked to Touga, and wondered if he had any similar feelings. She wanted to say she remembered winning completely, and then she also wanted to say she lost, but most of her stated very sternly that no such events ever took place.

 

"Memory is something that is criminal to distort," Touga said with some mild comfort.

 

She was right, he was having the same problem.

 

She took in a deep breath and letting it out said, "After classes, we should go to Neumero Hall, and then perhaps if we survive that jaunt we can go to the old fencing hall as well. I don't like this, Touga. I do not like even the subtle hinting that our memories were toyed with."

 

"I should think no one would, but if we have these feelings...Then the others too will eventually be having the same. Dreams and memories... What are dreams but the memories of things that never were, but might have been?"

 

"Waxing a bit philosophical there?"

 

He grinned, "I can be a very deep person if I want to be."

 

"But you prefer the shallow end?"

 

"Very funny... Juri, I would suggest wearing a turtleneck to classes," he quipped. "Wouldn't want to have people talking, now would you?"

 

She didn't even bother to tell him to leave her alone. She just shook her head and began to walk out of the room. He followed and stopped her before they parted.

 

"You told her didn't you? The reason you had to leave, you told her the truth?"

 

"I did."

 

"You trust her."

 

"I do, because she longs for her brother to keep his innocence even if she says and acts otherwise, and because..."

 

"Because?'

 

"Because of the past."

 

He wanted to press further she could feel it in his glances, but she made it perfectly clear through her body language that the matter was not to go any deeper. She walked off quickly and he too turned to the direction of his dorms. Perhaps, Nanami had forgiven him and unlocked herself from her room.

 

Hi grimaced. He hoped she was feeling better. He was such a terrible brother.

 

To be continued...