A/N: Eight of sixty-four ficlets written for the livejournal community 64damn_prompts. #4 might eventually be expanded into a longer fic, possibly involving Ruka (among others). Because Mikage is awesome.
It's two goddamn A.M., but Saionji finds himself climbing the stairs to the dueling arena anyway. (Using the stairs seems more honest, somehow. He's always felt better when he does things the hard way, for some reason he can't quite identify.) He doesn't even know what Touga wants him up there for -- it's not like they have anything to duel over, these days.
Why does he always do as Touga wants? He has nothing to gain by doing so, and it's not as if they're friends. (He is no fool, to be sure. Not these days.)
Even so, he is here now, at two in the goddamn morning.
Touga lounges against a parapet, smiling to himself when he sees Saionji stalking angrily towards him (empty-handed, for once). He has come, then, after all.
Saionji seems to lose his anger with proximity, growing less and less incensed until he is leaning (that's one of the big differences in their attitudes, Touga thinks -- he always lounges for best effect, but Saionji just supports himself) next to Touga and looking at him with the eyes of a teenager who wants to go back to sleep, because he has class in the morning thank you very much.
"Why have you called me here?" he asks.
Touga looks at him carefully, noting the fact that Saionji has slept in his day clothes, and has a blot of ink on one side of his face. He had not been jesting, then, about getting back to work now that the dueling was over. He suddenly feels that they must look very young -- too young to have seen all that they have. He is reminded of children born in wartime, who have experienced things many of their elders elsewhere have not, and who manage to seem unscarred if you know nothing of what has happened . . .
"Do you remember her?" Touga asks. "Tenjou Utena."
Saionji snorts. "Is that all? Of course I do; did you think I had no brains at all?"
Touga relaxes, truly, now. He always seems relaxed -- it is one of his talents -- but he is sure Saionji can tell the difference.
"Thank you," he says, and means it.
Shiori wakes to find herself on the cold floor of the dueling arena, and laughs a little. Perhaps she is bitter, perhaps not. But she has fallen into the shadow of another's life, and now she is getting up again. (She's not sure how she means that. She isn't sure she cares.)
As she walks down the stairs, still a little weak, she remembers her train of thought that had been interrupted by Tenjou's arrival. This whole damn school is metaphor layered upon metaphor, truths fading into allegories. It's a strange thing, that something about the place seems to force everything into that pattern.
Idly, Shiori wonders what it would symbolize if she finally got around to repainting her room.
She suspects she would be unable to find any paint that wasn't orange.
Juri used to love just sitting outside and staring at the sky. These days she's far too busy to do such things -- but sometimes she pauses, and wonders why she doesn't do so anymore.
Mikage steps out into the world to discover he's missing several years of his life. What had he spent them doing, and where? Who had he been, for that period of his life? He knows his real name is Nemuro . . . something, he doesn't remember his given name anymore, but he thinks of himself as Mikage Souji. Why is that?
No matter. He finds his papers in a pocket of his laptop case, as well as some money (along with his teaching and counseling credentials; why had he been keeping them there?) and applies for a job at the local college. He likes working with students, he remembers that much.
He does, indeed, enjoy it quite a bit, and almost manages to forget that he has forgotten so much. Still, it bubbles up from time to time in his mind.
Mikage remembers going to see an abridged version of Hamlet with a group of other college students, mostly Western Lit. ones, and how many of them (though not himself) objected to the fact that bits of the play had been cut out, even though they knew it would be that way beforehand. It hadn't really bothered him.
He finds himself objecting a little, too, now.
Degrees, Kozue thinks. It is all about degrees, with them. How far she can push her brother, and how far he will eventually snap back.
(He hasn't yet, not really. But it's just a matter of time, and she's happy to wait.)
She wants Miki to be happy, she really does. But she refuses not to be a part of his life.
Seize the day, thinks Saionji to himself.
"You have no engagements after lunch?" he asks, making it sound more like a statement than a question.
Touga stretches suggestively (as always). "None."
"No fangirls?"
"No fangirls," Touga agrees. "But I thought you were done 'playing around'?"
Saionji smirks. "Everyone needs some vacation time."
"Even you?"
"Heh."
Saionji wins, of course. Touga has been spending too much time lounging attractively atop flat surfaces, and hasn't practiced once since his last bought with Saionji.
(Saionji decides to be nice, and cooks something for them and Nanami to enjoy together. He doesn't believe in true friendship, of course. He doesn't have to.)
Opposites, she'd called them. And that was obvious to anyone who knew them even a little. On one hand, Touga -- smooth, suave, intelligent and sociable. The kind of man you warned your daughters about (not that they'd pay any heed), who would either turn out to be nothing but trouble or the ticket to a great future. On the other, Saionji -- bitter, angry, isolationist, and a tendency to slap people. The kind of man you didn't bother warning your daughters about, because they'd stay far enough away on their own.
It was obvious.
Even if it wasn't quite true.
Some things run deeper than blood, Akio thinks. Power, hope, greed, loss, passion.
What else had gone missing when his sister left?
I'm not too sure how well I did on these, so if you have any opinions, please share them.