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Wakaba looks at him. She's smiling again, like she's delighted every time she comes back from classes and he's still here.
"Wakaba," he says, and she sets down her bag so carefully, as if it holds an expensive and fragile piece of glass.
"Saionji-san!" she chirps. "I know you must be tired of take out all the time, so I got you something."
He raises himself from stiff seiza and tries not to loom. She takes a carton of eggs from the bag.
"How you take your eggs, Saionji-san? I like them soft-boiled, but only if they're in something, like ramen, or curry. I also like omurice—I know it's kind of basic, but it's easy to make, so it's good when you've had a long day." Wakaba's chatter is soothing, because she doesn't expect much from him. He wonders again if she talks to herself like this when she's alone. "Do you mind omurice? I can show you how to make it."
"Omurice sounds good," Saionji says. "I don't want to make you do too much work for me."
Wakaba laughs, bright and eager. "I don't mind cooking for you. Go wash your hands," she orders. "If you really feel bad, you can help me."
"Yes, Sensei," he quips, and is rewarded with another of Wakaba's sweet laughs. He washes his hands, dawdling for long moments in the bathroom. He leans in towards the mirror to stare at his face.
He can't see it as a whole, but as parts. Individual elements: his too-large nose, good eyebrows, a smattering of stubborn zits dotting his temples. He bites a bit of loose skin on his lip, chewing it off and leaving a bloody spot in its place.
"Saionji-san!" Wakaba calls. "Hurry up!"
Saionji blinks. He turns the water off, dries his hands and walks back into Wakaba's bedroom. "I'm here."
"Took you long enough!" Wakaba has an apron on, lacy and cute. "Go ahead, start cracking the eggs."
"Giving me busy work?" he quips. He picks up an egg, rapping it against the edge of the bowl. His first few attempts are too gentle, barely creating spiderweb patterns along its surface. His next is too hard, the egg crumbling and cracking in half, drenching his hands in sticky egg.
Wakaba looks over, giggling at his dumbfounded expression. "Into the bowl, Saionji-san. Not onto the counter."
"I meant to do that," Saionji bluffs, looking down, pouring what remains of the egg into the bowl, and dripping for a few messy moments. It seemed like such a simple thing, to crack an egg. Wakaba picks one up to demonstrate, rapping it smartly against the counter and pushing her thumbs into the resulting weak spot. The egg drops free of its shell, landing neatly into the bowl. He mimics her motions as best he can, the egg shattering and dropping bits of shell into the bowl to mix with the raw egg.
Wakaba uses a fork to fish the bit of eggshell out. "Don't worry," she says. "It took me a few tries to get the hang of it. Three more, and then you can wash your hands," she instructs.
He stares at her for a long moment, searching her face for any trace of mockery. When he can't find any, he looks away, picks up another egg. "Cooking is supposed to be messy," he says. "I knew what I was getting into."
She doesn't call his bluff. Instead, she fiddles with the hot plate. "Good to hear," she replies.
-
Saionji lies very still. If he lies very still, he won't hurt, and if he doesn't hurt, he won't make an unmanly noise.
Touga drapes an arm over him, fingers tracing patterns over his bare chest. "You can do this with the Rose Bride, too," he says, his mouth less than an inch from Saionji's ear. "She's good at it."
"Is that what you do with her?" Saionji asks. He isn't sure why the thought bothers him. "This?"
Touga chuckles condescendingly. Saionji feels so very young. Touga isn't much older than he is, he knows, but he feels a world older than Saionji. "That's what a Bride is for," Touga purrs.
Saionji presses his face into the pillow. He likes to hold the Rose Bride, likes to tease her, likes to bother her until her eyes are bright with the tears she so hates to shed. There's a pit somewhere in his chest.
"Just wait," Touga says. "You'll love it."
Saionji gets up. Each movement feels like a herculean effort. His limbs don't obey himself. The room is so painfully dark that it makes him clumsy as he drags himself to the bathroom.
"Don't be like that," Touga chides, his fingers still tracing patterns on Saionji's chest. "I wasn't trying to hurt you. I just thought it would be better this way."
Touga sounds young, younger than Saionji has ever heard him. Even as a child, Touga was an old soul, something in his eyes that was deep and mysterious. "Better?" Saionji echoes.
"Other people wouldn't have been as gentle," Touga explains.
"Was that gentle?" Saionji asks. He feels as if he's been hollowed out, like a pumpkin.
"You don't hurt, do you?" Touga asks. And Saionji doesn't, there isn't body for his pain. He curls up, his back pressed to Touga's chest. They're on the bed, he never left the bed, and Touga's hair is tickling the back of his neck. It itches, and that itch is the only bit of skin that seems to belong to him.
Saionji's eyes are stubbornly closed. "How many times?" he asks, as he focuses hard on his legs. They don't want to move.
Touga's fingers are still on his chest. "Does it matter?" he asks. Saionji grabs his hand. Their fingers tangle, and Touga's hand is unexpectedly warm. "You lose track," he admits, something small in his voice.
"I don't know that I could ever lose track," Saionji admits. "I think I'll remember this forever." He stands up, walks to the bathroom. It's dark, so dark, and Saionji wonders if something is wrong with his eyes. Touga wraps his arms around Saionji, so warm that it's cloying.
"I'll remember you forever, too," Touga says.
"Why does it have to hurt?" Saionji asks. "When you love someone."
"That's what it means to love." Touga presses his lips to Saionji's ear. "It always hurts."
-
Saionji cracks another egg. Out here in the woods, with a stolen hot plate and a stolen apron, and egg upon egg. Now that he's gotten the hang of it, it's comforting in its predictability. Each egg breaks cleanly on the side of the pan, each yolk lands on the hot surface with a sizzle. He scrambles some on the pan, fries others into perfect sunny-side-up.
It's a shock when Nanami barges in on him, whining about 'her' egg. Nanami looks wild-eyed.
"You eat eggs," he says, confused. "They aren't such a special thing. You don't need to take them so personally."
Nanami shakes her head. "You don't understand," she protests. "This egg is special to me."
"How can it be that special? It's just an egg. There are plenty more."
Nanami cradles her egg against her chest. "But this one is mine," she says.
Saionji shrugs. "It wouldn't bother me if you took my egg," he argues. "I have plenty more."
"I don't!" Nanami protests. "And even if I did—they're mine."
The scent of burnt egg reaches Saionji's nose, and he looks down in a panic. He desperately scrapes at Wakaba's pan, trying to keep the egg from ruining the pan for good.
When he looks up again, Nanami is gone, disappeared with her oh-so-precious egg.
It bothers him, but he puts it out of his mind and cracks another egg.
-
Wakaba's omelet isn't as neat as most of the ones that Saionji has seen. It's crooked on the edges, and it's thinner in some spots than others. It's still much neater than the one Saionji made, which is falling apart. There's clearly a trick to folding it without it tearing, a trick that Saionji doesn't know.
"You know," Wakaba starts, and then takes a bite. She's eating the omelet Saionji made, and he's eating the one she'd made, and she doesn't seem to notice how clumsy his is. "I used to do this sort of thing with Utena all the time."
"Is she any good at it?" Saionji asks. "I wouldn't expect a girl like her to be good at cooking."
"What do you mean, a girl like her?" Wakaba replies. "Just because she's Utena doesn't mean she can't be good at cooking."
"It's just not the sort of thing that I'd expect." Saionji takes a bite of his omurice before he can say something else to bother Wakaba.
Wakaba sighs. "People always think those sorts of things about her. That she's not a real girl. But she's as much a girl as I am." She looks troubled, and Saionji can't help but listen when she says, "she's a really good cook, actually. Much better than Anthy. She's good at most things that she tries, except being ladylike. And math, of course."
"I was worried she was good at everything," Saionji says, no small amount of jealousy in his voice. "She certainly acts like she is."
"She doesn't, really. Not when you get to know her. She's just headstrong, and she's brave. It seems like she knows what she's doing, but really she's just willing to try something, even when she's not sure, or she's afraid." Wakaba shreds the omelet a little more. "She's the kind of girl who makes you want to be braver yourself."
"You really care about her," Saionji says. He isn't sure what else there is to say.
Wakaba just laughs. "She's my best friend. Of course I love her."
Saionji thinks about Touga, a shining exemplar of masculinity. Thinks about Touga with his hands on Saionji's chest, about the shock of cold water on his face in the bathroom, about hot wet breath on the back of his neck.
"Of course you do," he agrees.
"She makes it easy to love her," Wakaba says. "Even on the days that I don't like her, or that I'm mad at her. I still love her."
"What else are friends for?" Saionji isn't as sure as he'd like to be.
His omurice still tastes good, somehow. He hopes Wakaba's does too.
-
"Where did you go?" Nanami asks. Her face is streaked in tears and make-up, her eyes are somehow distant, like she's looking through the world. "When you were expelled. You must have gone somewhere."
"Gone somewhere?" Saionji asks. "Oh, I stayed with Wakaba for a little while. She was kind to me."
Kind to me is a drop of water in the ocean of feelings Saionji has around Wakaba. He doesn't bother to say any of that.
"With Wakaba?" Nanami parrots. "It's against the rules for men and women to stay together in the dorms."
"We were breaking the rules. She didn't mind, she liked having me there." He liked being there.
Nanami scowls. "Shouldn't they have sent you home? Off campus? Somewhere else?"
"Off campus?" Saionji asks. "I haven't been off campus in—" he isn't sure how long.
Nanami stares not at him but through him. "Isn't that strange?" she asks. "I know this is a boarding school, but what about holidays? Shouldn't we all go home once in a while?"
"You go home regularly," he says, and she shakes her head.
"Because my house is on campus. Don't you go on dates, maybe? Off campus? I know you've had girlfriends."
He has, though he can't remember any of their faces right now. "No, I don't think we went off campus."
"Isn't that strange?" she presses him. "That we never leave?"
"We're students. We're supposed to be at school." Saionji looks around. "And it's a big campus."
"Saionji," she insists. "It's strange that we never leave. Not even for a holiday."
"What are you getting at?" he asks.
She looks into the distance. When he turns to look, there's nothing, just a wall.
"Do you know what my bro—what Touga wanted?"
It's strange to hear her call Touga by his bare name. But she does, like he's not her beloved brother.
"I don't," Saionji lies. "He never told me."
"He's not really my brother, you know," she says. "And he lied to me, all that time."
Saionji hesitates. "I don't think he meant to. To lie to you, I mean."
"He did mean to," Nanami protests.
"No," he says, "he wasn't lying to you. He was lying to himself." He turns around to look at the wall, at the shadows that dance across it. "He wants to think of himself as someone who's gentle."
"Neither of us is gentle," Nanami says. "No one here is."
"I'd rather have someone who's true than someone who's gentle," he says.
"Touga is neither of those things." She looks up, up to the highest point on campus. "Do you know what really happens, up there?"
He looks, sees the dueling arena. "Tell me."
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"What do you see, up there?" she asks. Her voice is tight with everything she isn't saying.
He squints. "The arena. And above that, the castle."
"You can't see the arena from here," Nanami says. "It's too far in the woods. And that's not the highest point, anyway." She stomps her foot. "Why can no one see it!"
Saionji turns, and see the girls that cast shadows on the wall. They laugh together. For a moment, he sees them as they are, with blood and breath and long limbs.
And then he looks past them. "There's the gate," he says. "You could leave. Get off campus."
"Would you come with me?" Nanami asks. "I don't know if I can alone."
He thinks about it, really thinks about it.
"I can't," he says. "Not without Touga."
It's the wrong answer, and he knows it before he looks back to see her furious face.
"It's always Touga this, and Touga that," she snaps. "I don't care about Touga. I'm not going to live for him forever!"
She turns and storms off, towards the gate. He watches every step she takes along the way, watches as she brushes past the girls who cast shadows and makes them spin like paper dolls in the wind she makes.
He watches as she walks past the gate, furious and hopeful at once, and he watches until he can't see her anymore.
And then he fixes the gate in his mind, until he is certain he can find his way back to it, and goes looking for Touga.