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There is a telephone attached to the hallway wall in the Eastern dorm that rings at odd times of the day and night. When Utena picks up, no one replies. Sometimes, when she listens closely, she reports the sound of breathing on the other end of the line.
“I guess this place really is haunted,” she tells Anthy.
Does she really believe this? Already, Utena has demonstrated a startling capacity for turning a blind eye to darker human natures, preferring to believe in fairy stories. Even without knowing their caller’s identity, ghosts are far more benign than a creep panting heavily across a phone line.
Anthy only picks up the phone when Utena is asleep or away. Her voice becomes a code, alerting Akio that it is safe for him to speak.
“Anthy — I’ve missed you.”
“It’s only been three days.”
“Really? It feels longer. Like an eternity.”
He is always more romantic in the early phases. It is at this stage, when they play at being separated, that Anthy is most dear to him. He claims to miss her quiet steps, her supple body. He temporarily forgets her twisted smiles, her deadened glance.
“How is she?” he asks, “your newest betrothed.”
“She’s doing well,” says Anthy. “She’s won another duel.”
“I know,” says Akio.
The slightest note of discord has slipped into his tone. The answer he wants is more than well. He wants some insight into his promising champion, some key to understanding this strange, sword-wielding girl. Anthy has an idea or two, nuggets of information that would make her brother’s manipulative mouth water, but for now she chooses to withhold them from him. It is early days yet, and Akio is detached enough from the proceedings to let her get away with this small act of insubordination.
The night after Utena triumphs against Touga, the hallway phone rings late. Both girls are tucked in bed, warm amidst their separate tangles of blankets and sheets.
“I didn’t realize it, when you were gone,” says Utena, only half awake, “but you took the ghosts with you.”
She turns in bed, angling herself to descend the ladder that came with their standard dorm bunk beds.
“That’s alright, Miss Utena,” says Anthy, “I’ll answer it.”
Utena emits a slight protest, a sleep-garbled Are you sure?, before yawning again and slipping back into a hazy sleep. Meanwhile, Anthy rises from her bed, careful not to wake Chu-Chu (unbothered by the commotion), and walks out into the hallway to answer the phone.
“Hello, Big Brother.”
“You sound happy, Anthy”
“I do?”
“Does that surprise you?”
Akio’s voice is indulgent and warm. He’s pleased to have caught his sister unawares. There are precious few things in their world that make Anthy happy — rare rose breeds in bloom, Chu Chu — and she doesn’t dare fathom what’s been added to the list. The implications are too risky; the consequences, dire.
She waits for some barb from Akio, some triumphant goad. Say it, she thinks, name it — this supposed key to my happiness. She plays with the phone cord, twisting and undoing its many spiral loops.
“I think it’s time I meet her,” he says, “your valiant girl-prince.”
“So soon?” asks Anthy, her purported happiness now turned into concern. “Will you send her a letter?”
“No,” says Akio, “I don’t think so. I want to play things differently this time around.”
Anthy is skeptical. She doubts this cycle will be different in any way that matters, especially when it comes to Akio.
“You should bring her around next Saturday,” he suggests, “so that we can be properly introduced.”
Though politely worded, his suggestion is really an order. Anthy knows that she cannot refuse. Still, she thinks of the sleeping girl only a few rooms away and she hesitates. Utena is ill-prepared for what they will do with her.
“Well,” presses Akio, “what do you say?”
Anthy cannot think of an answer, but knows she must give one soon. She closes her eyes and slips out of the moment. She responds on auto-pilot.
“Yes, Big Brother.”
Once she is certain Utena is asleep, Anthy rises from bed and sneaks out into the hallway. The phone on the wall is connected to Ohtori’s internal network. To call the chairman’s residence, she need only pick it up and dial 1. Akio answers almost immediately.
“What a treat,” he says, “you don’t usually call me.”
He’s being facetious. Anthy is never the one to call; that isn’t her role. That she should do so tonight is an overstep — a grave one, judging from Akio’s tone. Still, she presses on.
“Did you watch today’s duel?” she asks.
“Of course,” says Akio. “Utena performed beautifully.”
Anthy bristles. Her interpretation of today’s events isn’t nearly as rosy. Utena was aghast when the duelist awaiting them on the pitch turned out to be Wakaba. Anthy, in turn, was shaken by the girl’s rage. Wakaba proved herself to be a vicious fighter — so different from the bit player Anthy perceived her to be.
(That, of course, turned out to be Wakaba’s problem).
“She refused to take the sword,” says Anthy.
“Yes — how noble of her.”
Of course, he would think so. Of course he would phrase it that way.
“She could have died.”
The words come out in a whisper, more emotional than Anthy intended. It’s been a problem as of late. For so long now, she has kept her feelings under tight control, but when it comes to Utena, her grip on them has begun to slip. It isn’t an issue most of the time — her anger and her frustrations, her pain and her woes remain buried deep, unnoticed by this newest batch of self-involved duelists. Even Utena, for all her professed care for Anthy, fails to see the horrors that lie before her. But Akio is a different matter.
“You care for her,” he states.
“It’s not that,” says Anthy. “Miss Utena is… she’s our best prospect in years.”
Her well-practiced arguments ring hollow spoken aloud. In calling Akio and breaking one of their many unspoken rules, Anthy thought that her goal was to convince. She would bring up an issue he might take seriously — the loss of his prize champion, his shining duelist — and ask…
She’s already forgotten the boon she came to claim.
She picked up the phone tonight not because Utena’s life was in danger during her duel, but because Anthy thought it might be, and the thought scared her more than it should.
“It’s good you called, actually,” says Akio, sensing that there is no need to belabor the point, that Anthy has quietly conceded, “there’s something I want to run by you.”
“Oh?”
“It concerns Saionji — I’m allowing him to return to school.”
The change of subject is so abrupt that Anthy is tempted to laugh. She keeps her fleeting mirth contained, acutely aware that she treads through tenuous territory.
“I thought you might,” she says, avoiding his underlying question.
If it were up to Anthy, she would keep Saionji away. He is violent and entitled beyond what even she can put up with. But Akio is only pantomiming at asking permission; her opinion on the matter won’t change his decision.
“I suppose your work in recruiting Wakaba Shinohara as a duelist might have given you some insight into the issue,” he says.
Or perhaps Akio isn’t pantomiming at all. Perhaps he only asked about Saionji so he could open the trap door hidden below Anthy’s feet, and watch her fall into a pit of her own guilt.
As it always does, Akio’s ardor for his sister cools following her return to the chairman’s residence. He is harsher towards her now that the distance of a telephone line no longer hides the lines on her face that he perceives as slights. He still takes her to bed, but only half their couplings are born from his lust. The rest are retribution — a fallen prince’s violent justice.
Anthy dresses, thinking fondly of her oblong bed. Utena and Chu Chu will be asleep by now; she will need to take care not to wake them.
“I have a favor to ask,” says Akio, lying on his back. “For tomorrow. I have business in the city.”
They both know he means to see Mrs. Ohtori. He’s laying the grounds for the end of his engagement to Kanae, currently too ill to marry — and what comes next.
“What is it?” asks Anthy.
“Send Utena to me,” he says, “sometime after lunch. I should be free by then.”
He says it so casually, as if asking his secretary to pencil in a meeting.
“Can you do that for me, Anthy?”
There is only one answer to give. It is the answer she always gives — obedience, acquiescence. Yes Big Brother, right away sir! Anthy knows her lines intimately. She has had them memorized for centuries. So why does she struggle to speak?
“Is that really necessary?” she asks instead. You’ve seduced Utena already.
Akio’s movements are swift. In less than a second, he is on his feet, marching towards Anthy. He grabs her by the hair, twisting a wad of it by the nape of her neck in the palm of his hand, forcing her to face him.
“Are you questioning me?” he demands, “are you, Anthy?”
She struggles against him, but she cannot escape his grip. He rarely gets like this, so openly angry. She and Akio are the same in the way — once masters of keeping their emotions in check brought to ruin by their struggle over one valiant girl.
Anthy knows what awaits Utena in the city. She has sent champions there before. She has watched scores of them return, dazed in the passenger seat of Akio’s car, lost and hurt. In the morning, she brews them tea and serves them cookies. She plays the innocent, the friend, the confidante — whatever they need. They rarely share what’s transpired, rendered mute by a new sense of shame, but they appreciate her company. They never grasp the role she has played in what’s happened to them. They never see her for who she is
— the brothel’s madam.
“No!” she croaks, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry — I’ll send her to you.”
Akio relents. He loosens his grip in response to her surrender. He runs his hands through her long, unfastened hair.
“That’s it,” he coos, “good girl, Anthy. You know the truth of it, don’t you? I couldn’t do any of this without you.”
Anthy stands still and lets him comfort her. She presses her head to his chest and greedily absorbs its warmth. It is the only warmth she has any right to.
Akio’s car is parked in the shadow of Ohtori academy. Dressed in their finery, he and Anthy sit atop its hood, looking at the stars. A long time ago, before the swords, before the cars, they would sit like this and stare at the sky every night Akio was home. In those days, Anthy was the one who knew the names of the constellations. She was the one who loved the stars.
The night air is cool against Anthy’s bare arms, a comforting balm after the burning pain of the swords Akio called upon when he took her for a drive. High up in the tower, Utena should be asleep.
“She saw us,” says Anthy, “in the planetarium. I caught her watching.”
Akio had asked for this answer at the start of the night. Her refusal to respond resulted in their punishing drive. Hearing it now, he offers no thanks. Instead, he laughs.
“Who would have taken Utena for a voyeur?”
It’s an immature response, terribly adolescent. Here is Akio at his most honest; a teenage boy with too much appetite.
The lights are on in the tower. Can Utena see the siblings from up high, conspiring and suffering together? She should leave them like this, Anthy thinks, stuck at the end of the game, standing above the precipice. She should take all her noble potential, her princely heart, her innate kindness and run from this place.
If she has any sense at all, Utena should abandon them both to rot.
END.