Anthy liked heavy metal.

Waking up to alarm clocks every morning had been foreign and ridiculous and exhilarating from the start, but now that she'd set hers to Orange Machinegun and an obnoxious decibel level she was even likelier to wake up with a genuine smile. Utena somewhat less so, but she was in general much more cheerful in the mornings (as well as at any other time of the day, really), so it evened out.

"I never asked you," Utena said one morning, waving her toothbrush around, mouth full of minty white foam. "Did you really like playing the piano?"

Anthy felt her hand tremble against her hairbrush, and tightened her hold. "I don't know. It didn't matter."

Anthy's alarm started blaring then. She must've forgotten to deactivate the snooze function. She caught Utena watching her tap her fingers to the beat, and immediately stopped. Utena snorted.

"No," Utena said through a toothpaste-filled smirk. "I guess it didn't."

.

For the first time existing on the same plane, the same sequence as everyone else, (brushing the world with her fingertips like it was made of things too simple and endless for patterns, a spectrum of softness and solidity that can only be perceived and never articulated), Anthy was starting to think maybe all people were a little admirable, a little grotesque. Possibly because her story should have ended, and when it didn't she realized there'd been no story at all. Everyone who lives has a life. Everyone who's alive has lived.

Outside herself there was a world, and it was interesting.

.

Noons at the teashop were the most unpredictable. Too late for before work and too early for after school, these kinds of customers had a different rhythm, slightly easier or more disquiet than was customary. Anthy liked them the most, naturally, and put extra intention into their tea. Undoubtedly, it made the tea no better; but, she was rather good at it regardless.

This noon was chilly and dry, and Anthy had spilled a little ground cinnamon in the kitchen and it bothered her somewhat. It hadn't made a visible mess, puffing instead in a brown little haze and disappearing in the air. Cinnamon now clung to her hair like cigarette smoke, and it made her feel disingenuous. Anthy had nothing about her that particularly resembled or complemented cinnamon.

There were five people in the shop. At the single table near the exit sat the woman who liked to feed the street cats. She'd buy them fancy wet food every weekend and always kept their water bowls full, even though kids liked to spill them. She drank pu'er.

At the table almost exactly in the middle of the shop sat two women drinking coffee and saying very little to one another. One was slumped over the back of her chair, and the other on her elbows on the table. Every so often they glared at each other, but their feet always remained almost touching.

Under the table closest to the wall furthest from the door, the man who ordered yellow and the man who ordered green with honey were holding hands, smiles comfortable and loose. Nobody looked; nobody would. Anthy saw, still. They were unremarkable, manly black shoes and conservative haircuts and hands held in secret under tables in teashops. They were unremarkable and commonplace and perfectly compelling.

They did not tip well, however.

.

As with everything else, no matter how fantastical and unknowable, a routine eventually took hold. Even in this strange and intimidating reality full of people and devoid of heroes, there was normalcy to be found. Maybe it was even unavoidable.

So Anthy had days filled with tea and revelations and nights of idleness and old socks, mornings too loud to be morose and afternoons too languid to even recall. There was trimming plants with a pronounced lack of any significance and talking about useless things (sometimes with other people), and using public transportation with some regularity and making love until her fingertips got wrinkly. And it was utterly wonderful, but sometimes it seemed to Anthy, especially in comparison with their previous roles, almost intolerably small.

.

"Do you have any dreams?"

It was well past dawn and the alarm had already gone off for the first time, but the light was still somewhat moody and Utena was still at least halfway asleep. She spared a single half-lidded eye for a questioning glance, and Anthy felt suddenly soft and unsure. This was very frivolous timing, she realized.

Still. "Dreams?" she repeated. "For the future?"

"Mmm?"

"Do you have any?"

"Dunno."

"Do you want them?"

Utena successfully shifted very noisily without opening her other eye. It was probably still sticky with sleep. "Himemiya," she said.

"Yes."

"Are you trying to make me say something sappy."

It didn't sound like a question, so Anthy didn't bother answering.

"I don't care about futures," Utena stated plainly. "Come back to bed now please."

It wasn't until she was wrapped snugly in Utena, legs hooked around knees and forearms snaked inside shirts and hair mingling pink and purple that Anthy remembered she'd set the alarm on snooze and therefore had less than five minutes before Okomura Kaori started tearing up her eardrums again.

Better savor it, then, she thought, and cupped Utena's ass and kissed her collarbone and breathed in the scent of her skin, warm and waxy and very much human.