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“Senpai…”
In the darkness, a thought stirs.
“Senpai…”
A fragrance in the gloom: the perfume of a bonfire. No, not a bonfire… what was it…?
“Mikage-senpai.”
Vision blurs. A vision blurs. A young boy—yes. Pale and freckled—no…? Brown skin—purple hair—something lighter? Something darker?
“Mikage Souji-senpai.”
Who is that?
Who is that?
Who am I?
Who are—
Tup tup tup tup.
A delicate sound in an empty hallway.
Tup tup tup tup.
Urged on by the flat of a hammer, nails burrowed into the walls.
Tup tup tup tup.
Anthy wiped the sweat from her kerchiefed brow and leaned back from where she stood atop her stepladder. Picture frames of all sizes lined the floor to either side of her, while nail heads dotted the wall like a field of dull stars.
“The last one, at last,” she breathed, though there was still much more to go. “My, how tiring!”
Leaning on the other side, arms folded over his chest, her brother chuckled. “Would you like me to take over?”
The hammer, sized specially for her small hands, remained in her dainty grip as she smiled at Akio.
He smirked back. “Just kidding.” He pushed himself off the wall and turned to stroll out of the building. “Good work so far. I’m counting on you, Anthy.”
The exit/entrance wasn’t far. He knew it quite well. Akio opened and shut it in his wake, heading down the stairs that lead to and away. A sign watched him go mournfully, but already knowing the whole of its piddling message, he paid it no mind.
It read:
“Nemuro Memorial Hall”
“Senpai, is something wrong? I’m talking to you.”
Nemuro looks up.
Standing before the desk at which he’s seated is a boy. Lavender hair, walnut skin, a uniform of Chianti red with teal tassels, one hand on his hip. So young. So young? He blinks. The image of him burns into his eyes, and he rubs them. No spectacles bar his way.
“Mamiya…?” he murmurs.
The boy smiles. “Were you up all night again, Mikage-senpai? That’s not good for your health.”
His vision clears. Focus gained, Mikage leans back in his chair. A state-of-the-art cathode monitor computer, set to the left of his desk, awaits his commands. “You’re in no position to chastise others about their health, Mamiya.”
Mamiya laughs a little and holds out the hand that was on his hip. There’s something there between his delicate, tapered fingers. “I brought you a present, senpai.”
Mikage accepts it. It’s a framed photo of Mamiya, just as he is in this moment.
“You’ve been working so hard, you’ve hardly been by to see me. I wanted to make sure you didn’t forget what I looked like,” he adds, teasing.
Mikage smiles back and sets the photo on his desk. It’s as though it belonged there all along, but that’s only natural. After Tokiko… yes, after Tokiko left, Mamiya is the most important person in his life. He rises to his feet and reaches for Mamiya’s hand. His fingers are soft and fit with aching perfection within his own. Lowering his eyelashes, Mikage brings them up to his lips.
The old fools in administration would no doubt think it scandalous. Honestly, there was a time in his life when he would have thought it scandalous, too. But he was a different man then. Yes… Back then, he didn’t understand. He didn’t see. The light was too blinding. But now, he exists within a comfortable shade. They both do.
He presses to the backs of Mamiya’s fingers a gentle kiss. His pale lashes lift so he can take in the startled look Mamiya gives him, the beautiful O his own lips form.
“I could never forget that,” Mikage murmurs.
Mamiya’s startled look melts into a smile. There’s a haze to his green eyes. A certain sadness, perhaps. Mikage is certain he understands its source, and he pulls Mamiya’s hand in to hold it reassuringly tight.
“That, or our promise,” he continues, voice low, gaze burning. “I will seize eternity for you as you desire, Mamiya. I swear.”
A breath of a faint laugh, transparent and intangible, escapes his throat. Before Mikage can ask him what’s so humorous, Mamiya opens his hand and leans in.
A black rose spins.
“I want eternity.”
He looks at his companion from the resting couch. The bouquet of roses he holds, fresh and vibrant still, perfumes the closed room, just as the sounds of revelry outside seep in. On the nearby bed stand, a candelabra burns with three candles, one unaligned with the remaining two.
“What made you change your mind?” he wonders. “You seemed content with your fate before…”
“You did,” he murmurs in reply, features half-buried in the floral arrangement. “I don’t want to go. I want to stay with you. I want you to stay with me. I want this moment to last forever.”
Something in his heart, so often described as mechanical, softens: not a beep, but a proper beat. He raises a hand to brush past the roses and cup his face.
The roses are fresh and vibrant still, but they’ve already been sheared from the bushes. It’s only a matter of time before they turn black.
Unless—
“I’ll make it happen, for you,” he whispers. “I will seize the secret of eternity.”
The boy smiles and layers a hand over his.
When they pull away from one another, it’s with joy and regret in equal measure. They share a smile and a gaze. It’s unlike Mamiya to be quite this forward, it occurs to Mikage, but it only makes him silently happy. A rare gift.
“I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel lonely, Mamiya,” he adds, maneuvering around the desk that separates them. “You know you’re always first in my thoughts.”
“I know,” he replies.
“Why don’t we take a stroll through the academy grounds? The sunlight will do you good.”
He shakes his head. “It’s too bright. I prefer staying indoors.”
“You’re going to develop a vitamin D deficiency…” Even so, Mikage goes to his side and wraps an arm around his shoulders. Mamiya does nothing to stop or dissuade him. “As you wish, then. A walk inside.”
Mamiya smiles and doesn’t resist.
They go all ways through the hallways. Wheels spin, as wheels are wont to do. As they pass the confessional door amid rows of chairs, Mikage doesn’t turn away from the path ahead. The elevator is operating smoothly, he thinks. As they pass the entry hall with its blank forms quietly waiting to be filled, Mikage doesn’t look away from the path ahead. The guests can check themselves in; he’s already ready for when they do. It’s only when the two reach a wall decorated with all manner of framed photographs that he at last turns and looks.
There, at the center of them all, is a pair. A woman with short hair and a pencil skirt, looking to the right. Next to her, a young man with pale hair and shaded glasses, looking to the left. Though they look towards each other, their points of view do not align.
“They say a picture’s worth a thousand words,” Mamiya remarks.
“Indeed,” Mikage murmurs. He raises his fingertips to the gaps between the photos, and emotion floods through him. He smiles, bitter and sweet. In the glass, watching him, he sees the reflection of Mamiya—
Mami—?
He shakes his head, sharp and frantic, before blinking over his shoulder.
Mamiya holds his gaze unwavering. “Is something wrong, senpai?”
“…No, nothing.”
For an instant, your reflection looked like a girl in a red dress, he doesn’t say. That would be ludicrous. More importantly, it would make him uneasy, and that’s unacceptable. Mamiya needs him, and so he needs to be there for him, needs to save him from his fate. He can’t worry him with strange hallucinations.
As the ancient phrase states: It’s just his imagination.
So instead, he smiles. “I was just thinking that memories are beautiful… but you’re breathtaking.”
Mamiya smiles back. “You’re such a flatterer, senpai.”
“It’s not flattery if I mean it.”
He lifts his chin and gives him a considering look. “There’s something about you that’s a little different now.”
“Is there? To be honest, I thought the same of you earlier.” Mikage faces him fully. “To bring about a revolution means to change the world. It’s only natural we would change as well.”
“Change, in order to preserve what once was?”
“Of course.” He smiles. “A revolution is also a circular movement. Moving forward thus means inevitably arriving where you once were.”
Mamiya’s long eyelashes fly wide; then they droop. “You’re so astute, senpai,” he murmurs.
“I may have been a computer-like man, but one can’t reach success without keen powers of observation,” he says with dry humor. “Don’t fret, Mamiya. We have plenty of chances. To grant you eternity, we will make this experiment succeed.”
“The experiment was a great success,” Akio declared to the burned ruins before him. To the girl with whom he stood back-to-back, he continued, “I’m counting on you, Anthy.”
Harsh sunlight obscuring the lenses of her glasses, Anthy gazed down at the broken halves she held of a wooden name plank. Loops of red thread tangled helplessly around them, as if desperately trying to hold the pieces together. It was far too late for that, though. Slowly, rotation by rotation, she curled one end of the thread around her left pinky finger.
“What to do…” she wondered aloud, absent and distant. “It’s just much too bright; I can’t see a thing…”
Akio didn’t reply. He had already gone.
Anthy lifted her chin and let go of the shattered plank. It tumbled out of her grasp, mere refuse among refuse, but the thread remained. It helped anchor her thoughts; the sun really was far too bright. She shut her eyes.
Ancient and weak, the scent of smoke curled in the ruins like the thread in her fingers.
She half-turned, one heel rising away from the ground while the other remained firmly planted. For a moment, she remained that way. Then, picking her steps carefully, she tracked into the remains of the old burnt ruins and rummaged through them.
Her work paid off in a moment. From blackened planks, she drew out a corroded brass candelabra, the stubs of mostly-melted candles still in their nozzles. The string fell away from her fingers, but there was a different sort of string now. She held it with both hands as she beheld it.
The smell of smoke was stronger now.
Slowly, by degrees, she lifted her gaze to the heavens. The sun was overcast now, draping a long shadow, like an enormous shroud, over the once-elegant building. She lowered her gaze anew.
A square shaft, descending into a great yawning darkness, was open at her feet. Between her feet laid a single singed photograph.
Ding.
“It’s been so quiet lately,” Mamiya whispers, his voice nonetheless carrying through the pitch.
Mikage gazes down at a single black rose blooming in an aquarium. The room is dark, pitch black, an endless void in which all is hidden, but for the dim illumination beneath the rose. A single possibility to light the way.
A wisp of smoke curls like a beckoning finger, its scent drawing him forward. The way before them—
“That’s a good thing,” Mikage concludes. “An academy should be a peaceful place of study.”
—he has prepared it.
A hundred cabinets, their wheels still, line the wall.
A room descends.
He’s splayed, marionette-like, in the corner where he’s collapsed. Pain. He’s in pain. Someone stands over him. He’s convinced he knows who it is; he doesn’t look up.
A dark hand offered him a single framed photograph. A stray red thread spools at its back.
His vision blurs behind his tinted glasses. There’s a bo(d)y depicted there. Not just any. Someone he’d come to love.
Love. Love. Such a strange word. So powerful. So bittersweet. He grips the photo.
A whisper: “I’ll make it happen, for you.”
Yes. All of his most precious memories are here.
“Hey, Himemiya!”
Anthy smiled over at Utena from the doorway out of their shared dorm. “Yes, Utena-sama?”
Eyes curious, Utena tilted her head from where she was draped on her bed, doing stretches. “Where’re you going with a hammer and nails?”
She held up the tools, smile unmoving. “Oh, I’m just going to go hang up some photographs. I’ll be back before you know it.”
“Oh, okay. See you later!”
“Yes, I’ll see you later.”
Utena watched her go, cycling her legs. Then she stared down at Chuchu, left behind on the desk. “Wait, Chuchu, are you not going with her again?”
Chuchu squealed, jumped into an open drawer, and apparently ran to the back so fast he bonked the whole thing shut.
Utena blinked rapidly, one eyebrow rising, and tilted her head the other way.