it's time to go

by celastris

Summary:

Saionji Kyouichi. Former Student Council Vice President, former Kendo Captain, former student of Ohtori Academy. Former duelist, former deuteragonist, former dorm-room stowaway. Formerly revered, formerly expelled, formerly reinstated.

Saionji Kyouichi used to be a lot of things, more bad than good, but these days he's not sure how to be much of anything at all anymore. Change takes work—takes dropping the baggage, cutting ties, accepting blame where it’s due and learning to reject when it’s not. It takes remorse, it takes forgiveness, and it knowing when you've burned a bridge too badly to go anywhere near it again.

It takes knowing when to stay and fight, and knowing when it’s time to go.

Notes:

hello and welcome to the most ambitious utena related undertaking i've ever embarked upon—a multi chapter, entirely saionji kyouichi centered fic. i'm doing what many have simply been too cowardly to do. territory that simply has not been explored to the degree i believe it should be. i am doing what must be done

anyways, buckle in boys because i have a 9 page outline for this entire fic and it's gonna be a rollercoaster

Chapter 1: it's time to go

Notes:

just some introductory silliness (read:angst) to set the ~tone~

that old familiar body ache

the snaps from the same little breaks in your soul

you know

when it’s time to go

 

Saionji Kyouichi was never very good with plants.

This wasn’t much of a surprise to anyone who’d been around the guy for more than 10 minutes—he was the furthest thing from the ‘nurturing’ type. Impatient, reckless, indelicate, oddly but consistently averse to following instructions— he had every trait someone would need to guarantee the downfall of a backyard garden. This, however, was a new low, or at least he saw it as one as he sat there, slouched against his worn kitchen counter, staring, dumbfounded, at this near-deceased miniature cactus.

The whole appeal in buying a cactus, he thought to himself as he ran the shriveled mess of rotting edges and discolored leaves under the kitchen faucet in a last-ditch effort to revive the thing, was that they were practically un-killable—anything with a pulse was supposed to be able to keep those things on life support. Anyone, however, but him apparently. In all fairness, he’d never been particularly predisposed to fostering growth in much of anything, but even so, this still seemed a bit ridiculous. He used to know people who had a knack for these things, for keeping things alive. Plants, among other things. 

In the same breath, he used to know people who could look you in the eye and convince you a wilting, rotting mess of a plant was healthy as can be, all while they tore its roots from the soil right in front of you.  

Saionji had figured out, by now, at the prehistoric age of 25, that he was neither of those things. For better or for worse, he couldn’t even keep a damn cactus alive to save his life, but perhaps that was for the best. Some people were best suited to nurture, some to destroy, and some, like himself, not to do much of anything at all.

A younger Saionji would’ve scoffed at this—him, incapable of anything? Hardly, and especially not something as embarrassingly easy as keeping a houseplant. A younger Saionji simply wouldn’t have encountered this issue in the first place, thinking the keeping of plants in any shape or form was far too feminine a pastime for him to waste his time with. By now he’d long grown past that—he wouldn’t go as far as to call himself a raging feminist, but plants were just plants. Women were just people, gardening was just an activity, and cacti were just stupid little prickly motherfuckers that just couldn’t seem to cooperate.

Letting out a sigh, he set the lost cause of a plant down in the sink basin, downing the rest of the now-lukewarm coffee he’d made and neglected earlier and setting the empty mug on the counter, not caring enough to rinse it out. He always did this, and always found himself cursing at the air later as he struggled to scrub the stubborn dregs of coffee-stain from the bottom of the mugs when it came time to do the dishes. Yet, as was the case with a great number of things these days, he continued to do it.

Was this all too pessimistic a thought process to be having at 6:30 in the morning on a Tuesday? Absolutely, but who was Saionji Kyouichi if not an overly dramatic cynic to the end. He’d gotten a little better at managing the ‘woe-is-me, tortured lone-wolf’ act over the years, but old habits die hard, and he felt more than justified in indulging them every now and again. It was in looking at that stupid, sad little dying cactus that he allowed himself a moment of excessive self-pity, as a treat.

Once he’d snapped back to reality, and out of his succulent-induced misery, he gave the pathetic little planter one last glance before leaving it on the counter, grabbing his bag and heading out the door, not having the heart to throw it out.

---

Saionji hadn’t finished out his time at Ohtori, just not having it in him to pull through that final senior year. He’d finished out his junior spring, gone home for the holidays, and never come back. What was there to come back to at that point? Sure, he was popular, but that hadn’t done much for him in the end. Popularity was one thing, on its own. Crowds of ravenous teenage girls drowned in layers of discount department store perfume fighting tooth and nail to be shown a passing glance, mobs of boys from the underclass doing anything and everything they could to associate themselves with him long enough to feel some sort of elevation above their peers, all kicking madly so as not to be lost to the voracious social appetite of that godforsaken school—that, on its own, was one thing. Friendship, however, was an entirely different can of worms.

As far as actual friends went, he’d made the fantastic choice to put all his eggs in one basket, so to speak. The basket in question had turned out to be a manipulative, backstabbing, toxic piece of shit in the end, so there wasn’t much there to salvage, but he’d tried at first. Saionji had tried to fix things with him—and god had he tried.

Right after everything had happened, as everyone began to pick up the pieces of it all, he’d seemed to be better. He had tried, or at least did his best to make it look to Saionji like he did, to mend whatever they had, before it had devolved into what it had become. Perhaps that had been another one of his little games, but at this point Saionji couldn’t have cared less either way. Saionji wanted to believe things were going to change, because, tough as he made himself out to be, he was a kid. He was a stupid, deluded, cripplingly insecure kid, and he didn’t have anyone or anything else left. All he really could do is wait for him, that sick bastard, to change, because his only other option was to leave.

Leaving, he’d thought, was giving in. Leaving was defeat.

It was that flimsy sense of pride, that unceasing need not to be seen as weak that got him into the worst of these situations. The flags were glaring red looking back now, redder than the ever-glossy hair cascading down the former Student Council President’s back, but he hadn’t seen a thing in the midst of it all. How could he, with just how fast everything was moving and how mind-bogglingly insane things had become.

Whether he was blind or just choosing not to see the signs was anyone’s guess, but Saionji figured it was a mix of the two. He’d been oblivious as one can be up until a certain point, where the line began to blur and reality made its way to the stage. The waking up, however, hadn’t come until he’d long passed the point of no return, (or at least, that’s what he’d told himself to cling onto whatever vestiges of control over the situation he may have once had). In the aftermath of it, the immediacy, he spent countless nights lying awake, kicking himself for being stupid enough to let it all happen, because none of it would have happened if he hadn’t let it. The then-Student Council member assured himself time and time again that he was in control, that anything unsavory he’d done or had done to him was just that—unsavory, of course, but all done of his own volition. These were mistakes he himself had made, things he had allowed to happen, nothing more, nothing less. That he should be ashamed of himself for being so weak, so easily debased, strung along and held on a constant hairpin trigger.

Of course these days Saionji knew that was a load of bullshit. He did his best to cut himself a little slack when looking back on it all, because there just wasn’t any moving past it otherwise. He’d been taken advantage of, used, hurt, and fucked over, and there wasn’t the slightest bit of shame in accepting that, because lord knows the healing wouldn’t start otherwise. He’d made more than his fair share of mistakes and hurt countless people in the process, and that was, and always would be, worth having regrets over. That was worth the guilt, the remorse, and was reasonable and justified in motivating him to do better, to be better. What Touga and the Chairman had done to him, the things they’d made him do and the vile shit they’d put him through, however, never would be.

It took months to finally come around to actually doing it, and even longer to realize that wasn’t any shame in it—in leaving. Walking away was the hardest but, in the end, the defeat wasn’t in leaving, but in staying. There wasn’t any weakness in it, but strength. Strength in knowing when to go. When to leave.

So he left.

---

“I’m home,” he halfheartedly shouted out, kicking the door shut behind him with the heel of his shoe. He was met with the predictably lacking response of an empty apartment, something he noted with a bit of dissatisfaction upon realizing he couldn’t even hear the ever-present buzz of the radiator in the background. Fucking heater is broken again, he thought with a groan, fantastic.

It was just him tonight, as usual. After kicking his shoes off and tossing his bag aside, he made his way to the kitchen to check on that abomination of a plant again. Maybe he’d order takeout tonight. It was that or three-day old leftovers, which didn’t sound too appealing after the day he’d had. That’s the thing about ordering takeout alone—there’s always too many leftovers.

Saionji wasn’t entirely alone though, he supposed. At least he had the cactus.

(or what was left of it).

Notes:

siri play cactus by twice

Chapter 2: interpersonal

Summary:

we meet a friend, and are met by a ghost.

Notes:

sup y'all welcome back to my house of horrors. today we will be introducing my favorite underrated character, which may be a surprise to those of you who have never read my stuff before, and will be blatantly obvious to those who have lmaoooo (we will also be doing something else even MORE fun than that but no spoilers <3)

also this one's longer and actually the length of a proper chapter so. enjoy

“You know, you could always go to art school or something.”

“Absolutely not.”

The two of them were sprawled out on his couch, Saionji forced into the corner as the girl next to him did her best to take up as much space as humanly possible. Maybe some younger version of himself would’ve cared enough to argue about it, it was literally his couch, but he’d long since learned to pick his battles. Not everything was worth popping a damn vein over, and turning every single inconvenience in life into a conflict was both exhausting and destructive.

“But you’re, like, a pretty decent artist, right?” Kozue replied, in what could almost be construed as a compliment if Saionji didn’t know any better. However, he did, and knew that if you wanted a genuine compliment out of that girl, you’d have to waterboard it out of her.

“I doodle stupid little cartoons when I’m bored, Kozue, I’m not Edouard Manet,” he punctuated this by tossing another handful of popcorn into his mouth, not so much as throwing a glance her way.

“Who’s that? Never heard of him,” she asked innocently, doing her best to keep a straight face with a look of mock-confusion. It didn’t matter either way, as Saionji hadn’t taken the time to look over at her before responding, taking the bait so easily it was laughable.

“You don’t? He was basically the start of the Impressionist movement as a whole, pretty well-known, responsible for a ton of famous paintings? Y’know, Olympia, Luncheon on the Gra…” Saionji trailed off as he looked over, realizing that Kozue was barely keeping it together before bursting out laughing.

“Oh my god, I knew you were a nerd!”

“I am not,” he scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest and rolling his eyes at her.

“You totally are!” she shot back, smug grin on her face as she grabbed the popcorn bowl and shoved another handful into her mouth. Saionji was irritated, but didn’t take it too personally—something bounds away from the personal insult he’d used to take every remotely negative comment thrown his way as. 

It wasn’t that he wanted to become this century’s Van Gogh or anything, but he’d always had somewhat of an interest in art. He didn’t get to do much with it at Ohtori, other than stupid little drawings in the margins of his notebooks, (how mortifying would it have been to see the Student Council Vice President struggling at an art-room pottery wheel), but these days he’d been able to pursue it a bit more. Trying things, learning things, making things—it was nice to have a hobby, for once. He hadn’t really had any hobbies before, back at the school.

There was the absolute insanity of the dueling circuit and, as Kozue had not-so-affectionately called it once, all the ‘Student Council-ing’ he’d had to do, which took up the majority of his time. The rest went to Kendo practice, his training duties as Captain of the team, and, of course, school itself. The idea of pursuing a hobby, something that would take up extra time, have no ultimate reward, and essentially be useless was out of the question. Why do something you weren’t already good at? Life was a competition to be won, and there really was no point in trying anything at all if you didn’t intend to be the best at it. Besides, he’d written off almost every arts-related activity as either feminine, (oh, the horror), a waste of time, or both.

Saionji knew now, of course, that that was ridiculous. Doing something simply because it was enjoyable had turned out to be kind of nice, actually. He’d started by buying a sketchbook for the first time a few years ago—a cheap thing with flimsy pages, on sale at the local bookstore, but it was a start. From there, he’d looked up videos here and there on the basics, whenever the mood struck him. It was very start-and-go as, to nobody’s surprise, he got frustrated incredibly quickly. After awhile, though, it became easier. For the first time in as long as he could remember, Saionji was alright with not being the best at something. He was, without a doubt, a less-than-mediocre artist, and he was alright with that.

That said, he’d picked up some knowledge from a short documentary on the Impressionist movement a week or two ago, giving Kozue just the ammunition she needed to, as seemed to be a passion of hers, try to piss him off for kicks.

“God forbid I have hobbies, Kozue—you should try it sometime, huh?” Saionji retorted, reaching over to the popcorn bowl, only to have his hand swatted away by a mildly amused Kozue.

“Well excuse me Mr. Renaissance Man, but I have plenty of hobbies,” she paused for more popcorn, “thank you very much!”

“Like what. Name one hobby you have, right now.”

Kozue paused for what must have been at least two awkwardly silent minutes, before replying, voice muffled by a mouth still stuffed with popcorn.

“‘Hobby’ this, ‘hobby’ that, how about you ‘hobby’ some bitches and then get back to me, Saionji.”

Apparently this was an invitation to break into another fit of laughter at her own joke, the girl grinning hysterically as if she’d just delivered the most devastating comeback of all time. Saionji wasn’t sure how to respond to something that stupid and, rather, took the moment to wonder why he even let her in his apartment in the first place.

Miki Kaoru’s twin sister was the last person Saionji would’ve seen himself being friends with all those years ago, but stranger things had happened. Turns out the two had a lot in common, but a foolhardy, shallowly confident, deluded young Saionji would’ve fought tooth and nail to assure you his choice in friends, (well ‘friend’, singular), would be the same for decades to come.

That, for reasons he found it better not to think about these days, was not the case.

Their friendship was unexpected for a few reasons. For starters, to put it bluntly, in his younger days, the former Student Council Vice President would have short-circuited like a cell phone in a swimming pool at the idea of being friends with a woman. It goes without saying that he wasn’t particularly inclined to see women in the best light back at Ohtori, apart from, perhaps, his fellow Council Member Juri Arisugawa. (Translation: 17-year old Kyouichi Saionji saw girls, other than the ones who could kick his ass, as inherently inferior in every single way and undeserving of his respect or time, like the complete jackass he was). The concept of having an entirely platonic, 100% equal, and all-around ‘normal’ friendship with a girl would’ve been entirely unthinkable, but here he was, friends with one of the most insufferable ones he’d ever met and somehow surviving it.

Along with that, Saionji wasn’t the best at making friends, (an understatement), and even worse at keeping them. Insufferable people bring about insufferable company though, or at least that was Kozue’s explanation for how they’d ended up hanging around one another. He hadn’t quite believed her at first, assuming that she was just a quieter, less uptight, and somewhat more mysterious version of her brother. Sure, she seemed a bit odd, but the two hadn’t interacted much before, aside from passing one another here and there on occasion. What little he knew about the often-forgotten Kaoru twin was pieced together via rumors and assumptions but, overall, he assumed she would be relatively tame.

Nonetheless, Saionji was so incredibly wrong it was funny. Not that he couldn’t have found this out from asking Miki, because lord did Miki know, but Kozue was batshit insane. How Miki hadn’t thrown himself off a bridge living with her for twenty-odd years, especially given how prone the scrawny little nervous wreck was to cracking under pressure, was beyond him. She did what she wanted, when she wanted, and she didn’t have a care in the world about what anyone thought or said about her. That was an admirable trait in its own right, but one that made you want to tear your hair out when you were someone she disagreed with constantly, purely to be contrarian. She was impulsive, somewhat manipulative, a little reckless, and loved to stir the pot and push people to the edge for the thrill of it, but the biggest issue blew those out of the water.

Kozue Kaoru said whatever she wanted, the second she thought it, with absolutely no filter whatsoever, and she enjoyed doing it.

Saionji was in no position to talk about the art of subtlety, as he had the emotional intelligence of a doorhanger at times, but Kozue was on another level. If she liked your shoes, she told you. If she thought your haircut was the ugliest thing she’d ever seen, she told you. If she thought you had no people skills whatsoever, she told you, and told you how pathetic it was to watch. If she thought you were an arrogant, self-centered, whiney piece of shit who loved to create your own problems and then stew in the stupid little messes you made for yourself, she told you. A fair amount of what she said was brutal, but the worst part of it all is that she was never lying. Kozue was not, by any means, a liar, and so you knew every single thing she had to say to you was true.

Saionji hadn’t really had too many people in life who told things how they were, at least not right to his face. He’d had the kiss-asses, people who lied to him and boosted his ego until it was near-bursting at the seams, and he’d had the liars, who’d built him up to be something he wasn’t, took what they wanted, and tossed him aside like a used napkin when he lost his value. Sure, Kozue was mean, but she told him the truth, and never backed down when he got, (often a little too), defensive about it. The truth hurt sometimes, but it had helped more than he liked to admit having someone pointing out his flaws and his mistakes with brutal honesty for once.

Other than this, Kozue didn’t like to talk about her feelings. She understood what went on at the school, and herself had been dragged into, chewed up, and spit out of it all by the monsters pulling the strings. Things had happened to her, horrible things, and so she more than understood the emotional baggage Saionji was carting around. However, she also understood that neither of them wanted to talk about it, which he very much appreciated. Kozue never pried about his issues, and Saionji never pried with hers, and that base understanding of one another without having to verbalize it was the foundation of their relationship.

Once in a blue moon, of course, one of them would say something. Recall something, talk about it, usually never in detail but enough so to get the point across. They never coddled one another about it, knowing how much worse that felt in the end, but rather acknowledged how fucked-up it was, and assured one another that life moved on. That was all there was to do, they both knew, that really meant anything. Life moved on, and the only way out of the past was to move forward.

So they did. They kept things brief, laughed off what they could, deflected what they couldn’t, and got one another through what stuck. Both of them knew that they definitely needed therapy, but at some point they’d both decided that getting absolutely wasted on Saturday nights and watching dubbed over re-runs of 90 Day Fiancé did the job well enough.

Lastly, and most importantly, as Kozue liked to point out every 5 seconds, they shared a Myers-Briggs Personality type. Saionji had no idea what that even was, and when she’d forced him to take the online quiz, he’d thought it was stupid. He’d tried to argue it with her once, saying that a stupid personality test didn’t have anything to do with the quality of a friendship, and she’d asked, in turn, what Touga’s Myers-Briggs personality type was.

He'd promptly asked her to shut up.

---

Work was interesting, to say the least.

The work itself wasn’t anything remarkable. He made a living as a personal trainer, at this unremarkable chain gym downtown. Only 20 minutes by public transport and decently paying, there wasn’t much to complain about. Management was tolerable, patrons were decent, and the hours were survivable for the most part. The issue, however, came in his coworkers. Coworker, actually, singular.

He worked at the same gym as Utena.

Fucking. Utena.

The odds of them even ending up in the same city, let alone at the same gym with how large of a city it was were astronomically low, but, apparently, never zero.

Had they miraculously become best friends? Absolutely not, but rather the two spent their time trying to balance working in the same facility every single day and managing not to wring each other’s necks in the process.

In the beginning, they’d barely spoken—after the first very eventful day they'd encountered one another, that is. Saionji had originally applied to several of the multiple gyms within commuting distance of his apartment upon moving to the city years earlier. He thought it best to play to his strengths, noting this when he applied for the open ‘personal trainer’ position, as athletics came relatively easy to him. As for the actual training part, however—not so much. Namely, he lacked the interpersonal skills necessary not to lose your patience within the first two minutes of working with a client, but Saionji figured he’d be able to grit his teeth and bare it for that much-needed rent money. This in mind, he gladly accepted the position offered by this particular gym, especially content with how short the commute would be. The first several years working the position passed without event, other than the stray irritating customer or managerial issue. The last thing he'd have expected years down the line was the absolute nightmare of a scenario he was about to barge head-first into, so to say he was surprised when the day came an understatement.

It had been a day like any other, with Saionji greeting the front desk on his way to drop his personal duffel bag away before starting his shift. She’d been absentmindedly putting something or other away in the break room, giving an enthusiastic greeting and a wave to her new coworker before turning her attention back to meet them. Needless to say, that enthusiasm went out the window immediately.

Utena was not happy to see him.

Not one bit.

Quite honestly, Saionji didn’t think she was even alive, let alone lived in the same city as him, which was a whole other suitcase to unpack. That said, it took a minute for him to register that he was not, in fact, seeing a ghost, and that this was the Utena he’d had his ass beat by countless times, that had been the catalyst and centerpoint of events he hadn’t had the misfortune of recalling in god knows how long. Events and emotions and memories he hadn’t had to confront in years, and certainly didn’t intend to now.

However, a minute of hesitation was a minute too slow, as Utena had him shoved up against the wall by the collar of his shirt before he could bat an eye, asking him what the hell he was doing here, and what gave him the nerve to show up at her fucking job.

She’d gotten taller since Saionji had last seen her, which, in all fairness, was when she was 14. She was a bit more muscular too, but still maintained that lean-athlete build she’d had before. Her face had thinned out a bit, cheekbones more prominent and jawline sharper, but her eyes hadn’t changed one bit. It was those eyes, startlingly blue as ever, and the hair, that identified her—who could miss a full head of bubblegum pink hair? It was just as annoyingly pink as the day they met and, being that he could count the number of people he’d met so far in life with naturally pink hair on one finger, a dead giveaway that the past had come back to haunt him with a vengeance. That vengeance was here, in the form of a 5’9-ish young woman with a desire to beat him to a pulp that, impressively, hadn’t dulled one bit in the past near-decade.

Just when Saionji thought that nothing else thrown at him could possibly top being met with a furious, very much alive Utena Tenjou at 7:00 on a Monday morning, things got even better. He could remember exactly what she’d spat at him in that moment clear as day because, in all honesty, it was a sentence he’d never thought he’d have to hear again.

“I don’t give a shit what you’re up to, but if you so much as think about contacting Anthy ever again, I’ll make you wish you were never fucking born, understood?”

His first thought should have been something along the lines of, “of course,” or, “ah yes, the girl I abused for a solid calendar year straight as a junior in high school, perhaps I should apologize for that”. Really, it should have been literally anything except, “you’re joking, right? She’s definitely joking, someone cut the cameras”. After about two seconds of actually using his brain, however, he realized that she was definitely not joking.

Was he currently living life with the deliberate intention of never thinking about Anthy Himemiya again? Yes. Was he doing this to avoid having to confront the disgustingly unforgivable treatment he’d subjected her to out loud? Also yes. Did ignoring the topic entirely in the name of deluding himself into thinking he was a decent person absolve him of all accountability? Absolutely not, and a large part of him knew that, but another sizeable part of him was riding on the fact that the consequences of his actions would simply never come back to bite him in the ass. Surely, pretending he was an entirely different person now would make it all go away, right?

That was very much not the case. The consequences of his own actions had come back for him. The consequences of his actions lived in the same city as him now, and shared an apartment with Utena Tenjou, apparently.

Saionji didn’t have much to say in response, as there wasn’t much to say that wouldn’t get him in more trouble. He wasn’t sure he could’ve responded if he tried, with how occupied he was mulling through everything he’d just taken in. Utena, having had her fill, finished off by once again very colorfully threatening to make his life a living hell if he so much as thought about Anthy, before shoving him away with a snarl.

“Stay away from Wakaba while you’re at it,” she’d barked over her shoulder, storming off to whatever task she had to busy herself with that morning. It was still a solid half an hour before opening, so while Saionji suspected she might actually not have had much to do at all, he was more than glad to see her leave for both of their sakes. She needed to cool off, and he needed to figure out a plan of action to get through the day alive and regroup.

He leaned against the wall and groaned, running a hand through his hair before pushing back off of it and gathering his stuff to go hunt down (another) coworker. Ideally, he would’ve gotten acquaintened with things that morning, if he’d been met with some random gym bro instead of the goddamn grim reaper. Nonetheless, work was work, money was money, and Saionji would find a way to get through this job in one piece if it killed him.

It was then that he froze mid-step, just passing the doorframe. He’d been so caught up in everything else Utena had said that he’d completely glossed over her lovely parting statement.

“Stay away from Wakaba while you’re at it.”

“Stay away from Wakaba.”

Wakaba was here too.

The minute Saionji got off work that day, he went straight home to drink.

---

“Hey there big guy, how’s it going?” 

The cactus, predictably, didn’t have much to say back, but he smiled nonetheless as he downed the rest of his beer and set the empty glass aside. He picked the pathetic little planter up out of the sink where he’d left it, placing it in front of him on the counter as he drank. Mostly, of course, he was just checking to see if the thing was any less dead than it’d been yesterday, but a small part of him just wanted someone to vent to, even if it was a fucking cactus. 

Saionji could swear though, that it looked a just a little greener, the leaves just the tiniest bit perkier, than it had yesterday. 

Notes:

some notes:

- how did kozue and saionji meet? you’ll find out later, i can't just give up the goods this early or i won't have enough material to write this thing lol

- kozue and saionji do, in fact share a myers briggs personality type. they’re both ESFPs

- since ikuhara gives us literal fucking crumbs, i had to go through all the saionji-related media for the bajillionth time to try and discern what kind of hobbies or interests this man could possibly have other than kendo, being a dick, and treating women like garbage. anyways, remember that one drawing of him and anthy in the exchange diary, where he’s like stepping on a bald dying utena, i thought that was funny because it WAS funny obviously, but also thought it was a little better than i expected him to be able to do. like saionji gives ‘stick figures at best’ vibes and i just think that drawing on some level could be an interest of his. the lengths i have to go to for this fandom i hate it here

- i am now aware that you need to be certified to work as a personal trainer but i have chosen not to care

- lastly, you may be thinking ‘celastris why did you only talk about saionji being a literal hellspawn to anthy at ohtori for like two seconds’ and my answer for you is that i will be addressing it in extreme detail later and you just gotta trust me here. i am a psych major. i will not let u down xoxo

Chapter 3: unexpected [derogatory]

Summary:

introspection is never fun.

Notes:

sup bitches i'm alive. i had finals and then a major surgery so i've been MIA but i'm all good now (can't promise this chapter is good but you can be the judge of that, not i)

Going home that day had been fun.

Thank god Kyouichi Saionji’s car was outfitted with a bluetooth speaker, because he was barely able to keep from crashing his car with two hands on the wheel, let alone one. Not that he could be blamed for being a bit frazzled, and it was in light of that day’s events that calling a certain someone, (not that he had much choice in who to call), was the first thing on his mind.

“You knew she was here the entire time and you didn’t tell me?”

“Yeah,” Kozue answered casually. A little too casually, really, as if she’d forgotten to tell him it was going to rain that day, or neglected to pick up a gallon of milk at the store. Not anything of consequence, and certainly not that Utena Tenjou was alive, and living in the same fucking city as them. A fact that, for some unfathomable reason to him, hadn’t been important enough to bring up.

This could have been for a number of reasons, of course. Kozue was a complicated creature, but even she had a method to her madness. Saionji knew that by now and, were he feeling at all inclined to find those reasons, he just might have found one. Someone more naïve might have attributed the girl’s decision to a concern for either party’s wellbeing, or a desire to keep the peace, but he knew better. At best, it had somehow slipped her mind, and at worst, she’d kept it from him for kicks. The latter seemed far more likely.

In short, Saionji was pissed.

“How long have you known?”

“Like I’d tell you,” Kozue replied with a yawn.

“How are you so nonchalant about this?”

Saionji was practically shouting at this point. Much to his dismay, Kozue let out a cackle across the line. She was laughing. She was actually fucking laughing.

“Do you think this is funny?”

She paused, taking a moment to collect herself before giving the shittiest answer imaginable.

“A little bit, yeah,”

As if she couldn’t push things in any further, Kozue felt the need to continue, a clear amusement in her voice as she did.

“Oh yeah, and Anthy’s with her too, in case she hadn’t mentioned that pa—”

“YES, I KNOW ANTHY IS HERE TOO, KOZUE.”

There was no doubt in his mind at that point that, surely, she’d been waiting for this to happen. She must’ve been—neglecting to tell him about Tenjou was one thing, but the enjoyment she was clearly taking in all this was an entirely different issue. Honestly, she’d probably only done all this out of boredom, which pissed him off even more. At this point though, his choices were limited. He could curse her out and hang up, but that would leave him with more questions than answers. This said, Saionji knew he had no choice but to go with the lesser of the two evils and stay civil if he wanted any information.

“Stop yelling while you’re driving, you’re gonna hit someone— and while we’re on the topic, Wakaba also lives around here somewhere or something. Miki mentioned it once, but I’m not sure how he knows. I don’t keep tabs on what that loser gets up to,”

No way.

No way.

“Wakaba?”

“Yeah?”

There was no way she knew about this too. Honestly, he’d convinced himself by that point in the drive that Utena had meant to stay away from Wakaba in a general sense, not in a ‘she is also living somewhere in this city, because everyone you’ve ever fucked over apparently lives in this goddamn city’ sense. Kozue must’ve misspoken—Wakaba was a common enough name, or at least that’s what Saionji wishfully thought in that moment because, again, there was no fucking way Kozue knew that too, and didn’t tell him.

“As in, Shinohara Wakaba, Ohtori’s Shinohara Wakaba,”

“Damn, I knew you were getting old, but I didn’t think the hearing loss had kicked in yet,”

As strong as the urge to hang up right then and there was, Saionji knew that, given how much she knew that she’d so kindly neglected to tell him, he might as well get the rest out of her while he could. So, with an uncharacteristic amount of self-control, he replied in the driest tone he could muster.

“Are there any other fun facts you have that you’d like to share with me?”

“Let me think,” Kozue replied, taking a pause before continuing. The question was meant to be rhetorical, really—what else could there possibly be to share at this point.

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot—Touga’s out, and he moved in next door last week. He actually brought Miki and I over some cookies, they were a little burnt but what can yo—”

“WHAT?”

Kozue burst into peals of laughter, barely finding a moment to catch her breath long enough to say anything to the now-distraught man on the other end of the line.

“Just kidding, but you believed me for a second there though, didn’t you,”

Self-control was overrated. Fuck this.

“God you’re so gullible, it’s hilariou—”

With that, he hung up.

---

Once Saionji had calmed down some, gotten home, and settled in, it was time to process the most eventful 24 hours he’d had in years.

Now there were, of course, several angles to tackle it all from. Firstly, Saionji could confront his past, plan out some very in-depth apologies, take responsibility for every awful thing he’d subjected the ghosts of his past to, come to terms with what an unforgivably awful person he actually was, and, if time allowed, see if his insurance covered mental health services.

That, he’d wisely decided, was stupid. Saionji would go with a Plan B.

His Plan B was simple, just another foray into his favorite pastimes. Something he, if he did say so himself, was pretty decent at.

Avoidance.

Saionji Kyouichi wasn’t really a fan of confrontation, not these days, and even less so of accountability. That tended to be the case when you repeatedly backhanded a girl half your size in high school, and then tried to kill her girlfriend.

All not-cool things to do, to say the least.

Utena, was, for the most part, easy enough to brush off . It wasn’t too hard to convince himself that the duels were just duels, and he’d done what he had to, for better or for worse. She would’ve done the same from his side, surely, and she was just as vicious. If Utena was the only person to be dealt with, it would all be easy to wrap up and shove to the back of his mind, never to be critically dealt with again. Independent of everyone, (and everything), else, she was just another cog in the machine, and they’d both done what they’d had to in order to survive. Nothing more, nothing less. Utena, however, was not the only person to be dealt with.

There was Anthy.

The situation with Anthy was, for obvious reasons, very cut and dry. Even Saionji could see that now, which made things all the more difficult. Looking back on it all wasn’t something he did very often, (at least not sober), but in those sparse moments of reflection, it was plain to see. The former Student Council Vice President was a pathetic, obsessed, insecure, misogynistic, and subsequently abusive piece of shit, for lack of a kinder description.

No amount of regret could take back what he’d done, and that was less of a platitude or a concession on his part than a fact. To the then-Student Council member, Anthy Himemiya had been no more than and a foundation for his own desperate need to convince himself of his own masculinity, and from that masculinity that he had any power at all. She was the perfect little wife, deluding him with false placations and empty displays of devotion. She was an ornament, a possession to show off, a means by which to prove his own worth to those he feared saw him as weak. All the times he’d said he loved her were nothing more than a means to convince others, and more importantly, himself, that their fucked-up little dynamic had permanence. Eternity, he’d called it at the time. Their silly little ‘love affair’ was something eternal, and so the esteem-maintaining power imbalance that came along with it would, surely, last just as long.

It had never been about Anthy, and the mental gymnastics he’d engaged at the time to convince himself otherwise were laughable.

There were the usual excuses, of course. He was insecure, unstable. He’d been hurt too, without a doubt, by the few people he’d let close enough to do so. Family, mentors, friends— there was no doubting the harm that had been inflicted on him, especially by a choice few. In turn, he’d vented that pain onto others. Onto Anthy. Physically, emotionally, socially, you name it—those in the line of fire who, more often than not, were her, were victims to the fallout.

That reasoning had gotten him by in the immediacy of her disappearance from the school, and a bit of the time after until he himself left. Now, of course, Saionji knew it was all a load of bullshit. It was one thing to be a victim. It was still something he was grappling with, acknowledging himself as a victim, as the weaker party in any scenario, but that was an identity crisis divorced from the things he did and the hurt he caused. Victim or not, victimhood did not, and never would, justify victimizing someone else in return. Not anyone, and especially not to the degree he had victimized Anthy Himemiya.

It was from those actions that the harshest questions were brought to the forefront. How do you get away with shit like that, and somehow manage to delude yourself into thinking you’re a good person? It was one thing to be remorseful, to be ashamed. Saionji, without a doubt, looked back on what he’d done with disgust. Remorse was enough sometimes, but some things just can’t be forgiven with an apology and several years of self-loathing. In cases like these, redemption was a far loftier thing to attain, if attainable at all.

The question was never how to redeem himself, because as far as his own thought-processes went, he never really made it that far. More often, the roadblock came at a far more pressing question—how could someone possibly be allowed redemption after that? After doing the things he did, inflicting the pain he had, in what fantasy would redemption be on the table? It was a terrifying question, really, and not one that was easy to set aside or compartmentalize. It was a dull, throbbing ache, just present enough to be remembered, but still minute enough to willfully ignore. Could a person really come back from doing the things he’d done? Are some things simply too much to come back from?

It was that duality, of being both a victim and an abuser, of being both remorseful and actively avoidant, that made things messy.

How do you come back from that?

Saionji Kyouichi didn’t want to know the answer.

---

The cactus hadn’t gotten much better, but it certainly wasn’t dead. Saionji had somehow found the optimism to move it back to the windowsill, allow it a bit of sunshine and a fighting chance. It still looked like shit, leaves splotchy and wilted, ugly brown and mottled green, dry and disarrayed, but he was positive that the little abomination wasn’t dead yet.

That was a start.

Notes:

don't worry we have not even BEGUN to scratch the surface of the anthy saionji discussion. this thing is like an onion. it has layers. the layers are chapters and the fic is an onion and i am the author anyways uhhh see you in the next one lol

Chapter 4: green

Summary:

more thoughts to be had, more questions unanswered.

Notes:

hello friends i have returned. hopefully this chapter is interestingggg

As much as Saionji would have loved to quit his job, he couldn’t for two reasons. First off, he needed the money to pay for his living expenses, and all the things that came with that. His rent wasn’t too insane though, and he really didn’t spend much on his own beyond utilities and groceries, so he was comfortable enough covering those things. The financial drain, really, came with the second reason he absolutely could not quit this job.

Hair dye, which, with the frequency and amount he needed, wasn’t cheap.

The hair scenario was interesting, to say the least, and something he still didn’t quite understand. It didn’t make sense, but nothing at Ohtori ever had. Things, things that he now realized were more than just unusual, occurred, and no one batted an eye. Whether it was some otherworldly force imbued in that place keeping them so ignorant, or simply an acceptance of things out of habit he’d never really be sure of, but that was how things were. It had all been normal, he supposed, not because it actually was—rather, because Ohtori redefined normalcy for itself. It was a status quo that made absolutely no sense in retrospect, and yet was one that they all happily complied in maintaining.

All this to say, about a month or so after leaving that wretched place for good, Saionji Kyouichi’s roots had grown in.

As in, the roots of his hair.

At first, it’d been easy to ignore. Well, easy enough— a bit of black where his hair parted, but he’d chalked that up to shadows, improper lighting, something like that. Nothing else would have made sense, his hair had been a healthy forest-green for as long as he could remember. Sure, it had been darker when he was a baby, he’d seen enough of the few grainy family photos left lying around his old home to know that, but he’d always assumed it’d just lightened in the sun as he grew older. That was normal enough, to grow into green hair, right?

And it was—at Ohtori.

The whole situation was almost funny, looking back—as if that place had done it deliberately, assigning each of the main players their role down to their color-palette. Laughable, really, how each of them were made involuntary members of that fucked up little soap opera, color-coded down to the goddamn archetype.

There was Miki’s blue, for one. A color of innocence, tranquility, stability. Intelligence, calm, restraint, all very straightforward, and the more mellow Kaoru twin embodied these perfectly. Cut-and-dry traits from a straight-and-narrow kid, and nothing that surprised Saionji in the least.

There were the more interesting cases too, the colors that fell somewhere in between the obvious. Kozue’s hair wasn’t quite blue or purple, but that fed into her character well enough, or at least the character she’d been in the midst of it all. Conflicted, mysterious, seductive, manipulative, well-intentioned, and yet selectively malicious—not quite the blue she so desperately protected in her brother but could never achieve herself, but not quite the purple she’d pushed herself to be as a result.

Juri was another case— her hair could’ve occurred naturally, but it was a rare enough shade of bright-ginger orange that Saionji felt it fair to include her in the mix. Enthusiasm, determination, complication, passion, drama, all things the former fencing captain personified quite well. A hybrid color for a character in turmoil, and a vibrantly steadfast one for someone of the same nature.

The rest were obvious enough to cement his theory, all very telling in how their respective colors showcased their personas.

Purple.

Red.

For obvious reasons, he chose not to think too hard about those last ones.

His own color made enough sense, really. Envy, jealousy, cowardice, uncertainty. Disgust, confliction, insecurity— Saionji Kyouichi never really could think of many positive associations with the color green, at least not any that suited him all too well, but the negative ones fit the bill to a tee. He really should’ve abandoned that color by now, been sick of it at least, what with everything it represented of the persona he'd tried so hard to leave behind.

Color theory aside, (it's worth noting that this whole line of thought had only come after he'd watched some documentary on the subject a few months ago), it was all so ridiculous—to any sane person, they must’ve looked like side characters in a poorly written 90's anime. Cartoonishly ridiculous in everything they did, in everything they were. He could have left his hair black. He should have, really. That would be some kind of symbolic for sure, escaping the personhood imposed on him for so long, finally given the chance to be his own person. However, he decided against this, not for any poetic reason, but for a far simpler one.

Saionji, for whatever it was worth, liked his hair green. It looked good on him.

He’d assumed, for the most part, that this phenomenon hadn’t been unique to him. Saionji knew for a fact that Kozue was no different— her roots had grown in too, a slightly lighter brown-black than his had. Her twin’s had grown in the same, and both siblings had been of the same mind as Saionji to dye it. The meeker Kaoru twin had gone for a more muted, work-appropriate blue-black, while Kozue stuck with the same vibrant indigo she’d donned all those years before.

What little he knew of the others these days seemed to follow this logic as well. Juri’s hair had grown out a darker ginger, or so he’d heard from Kozue. Saionji and the former Fencing Captain hadn’t spoken in ages, (to no one’s surprise—the two were never particularly fond of one another to begin with), but she kept well enough in touch with Miki for Kozue to be able to relay this information. Predictably, as it wasn’t too much of a departure from the harsh orange it was before, Juri left the grown-in shade as it was. He didn’t know much about what Nanami was up to right now, not that Saionji had ever really kept tabs on his ex-friend’s annoying little sister, but from what he’d seen here and there on social media, it was a different enough shade of blonde to indicate some hairdresser-meddling had been involved. All that said, it was fair enough to assume that this phenomenon had befallen most of them, but, as usual, there had to be an exception.

That exception was, as always, Tenjou Utena.

When wasn’t she a fucking exception!? Her hair had, somehow, remained a natural, root to tip, pure bubblegum pink. She was born with pink hair, would die with pink hair, and it didn’t make a lick of sense. He could’ve chalked this up to the encounter he’d had with the girl as a child, back when he’d found her as a pitiful little thing curled up in a coffin, but his hair had been just as green back then to. What was it then, that had hers stay the way it was, and his to change so abruptly? He just couldn’t wrap his head around it.

How did he know this, though? Stupid as Saionji could be, he wasn’t so stupid as to ask Utena himself. He very fairly assumed that, given their eventful first meeting and subsequent week of avoiding one another, she wouldn’t be too interested in making small talk with him over hair colors. However, (as he was learning about a great deal of Utena-related things), Kozue knew the answer to this one too. You’d think, with a topic the two had discussed so many times, she would’ve told him about the fact that Utena’s neon pink hair hadn’t budged from her fucking head since primary school, but apparently not! Apparently, things like this weren’t important enough to tell your, (alleged), friends. Kozue hadn't bothered to tell him Utena was alive in the first place, for god's sake, so why would she have told him about her freakishly natural pink hair!

Saionji Kyouichi was getting sick of this friend-having business.

Speaking of Kozue, he hadn’t spoken to her since last week, shortly after being told about all this. Sure, the silent treatment was a little childish, but after the week he’d had, he felt entitled to a bit of pettiness.

So, infuriatingly, all this bullshit left Saionji Kyouichi with a head full of black hair, (which, once he’d given it a fighting chance to grow out, looked atrocious), several subsequent botched hair-jobs to get to the same, (very unpopular, as he’d been told by several hairdressers), hue he’d had before, and, presently, a costly dependance on expensive, difficult to find, green hair dye.

Was this fascination with the state of his former classmates hair, and, now, irritation at Utena’s dodging of this circumstance, indicative of a larger issue? Without a doubt, but for now, it was easiest to chalk it up to hair. Just hair, just interested out of annoyance at his own, and nothing more. Interest in Utena’s as, unsurprisingly, she remained an outlier as always.

He wondered if Anthy’s hair had changed too, or if it had stayed the same.

He knew Touga’s had.

---

[Kaoru (pain in my ass) Kozue] hey

[Kaoru (pain in my ass) Kozue] heY

[Kaoru (pain in my ass) Kozue] s orry 4 being a dick last weeeeeek

[Kaoru (pain in my ass) Kozue] i mean i’m not actually sorry it was pretty funny lmfao

[Kaoru (pain in my ass) Kozue] no no i lied i’m actually sorryyy :(

Saionji didn’t know why he’d picked up his phone in the first place—who else would have been bothering him at 1:00 in the afternoon on his day off? He didn’t have much in the way of friends or family who’d feel inclined to shoot him a casual text, and it wasn’t like the pizza place he had on speed-dial cared enough to check in on him. Feeling a bit childish, he tapped on Kozue’s contact, scrolled down, and switched on ‘read receipts,’ before shutting his cell phone off and tossing it on the couch beside him.

As nice as it may seem to have your single day off lie immediately after being confronted with the most emotionally volatile experience you’d had in years, it wasn’t helping as much as Saionji Kyouichi thought it would. Work, though he hated to say it, would have been far better than this—even with Utena there. Tenjou or no-Tenjou, stewing in his thoughts to cable re-runs and flat orange soda wasn’t doing much better for his psyche.

With the reintroduction of Utena... he still couldn’t believe that she was alive. How the fuck do you survive… whatever that was that happened to her? He literally could not fathom how a person, a 15-year-old girl at that, could come out of what he’d pieced together had happened to her unscathed. Those were questions for another day, though, because he didn’t see himself asking her anytime soon, but he just couldn’t imagine it. That, and the fact that Utena and Anthy, the Himemiya Anthy, made it out not just in one piece, but together? It was all just so unbelievable…

Saionji was very quickly veered off this train of thought by several annoying text-alerts going off in rapid succession. Whoever came up with the ‘notify anyways’ function that’d come with his phone’s latest update had a one-way ticket to hell. Why have a Do Not Disturb option if it you won’t even allow it to work properly?

[Kaoru (pain in my ass) Kozue] assuming u had ur anthy crisis already this week, r u on to the wakaba part of ur freakout yet

[Kaoru (pain in my ass) Kozue] like logically that’s the order ur freaking out in right. utena anthy more anthy self loathing wakaba right

[Saionji Kyouichi] Mind your business.

[Kaoru (pain in my ass) Kozue] He Lives!

[Kaoru (pain in my ass) Kozue] and why would i do that. answer the question

[Kaoru (pain in my ass) Kozue] wanna taaaaaaaalk about it

[Saionji Kyouichi] No

Saionji shut his phone off resolutely, before hesitating at his pathetically dejected looking reflection in the dark of his phone screen. With a sigh, he begrudgingly powered it back on and typed out another response.

[Saionji Kyouichi] Maybe. I guess.

[Kaoru (pain in my ass) Kozue] ok sick ill be over at 8 leave ur door unlocked or i’m coming in the window

Kozue’d gotten it on the money, as usual. There still was the elephant in the room, the line of thought he’d been avoiding—Shinohara Wakaba. Is it still an elephant in the room, he thought, if you’re not actually discussing the problem with anyone? Do there have to be other people in the metaphorical room for it to count? Saionji wasn’t sure.

The Wakaba Issue, as he liked to call it, was complicated. Very complicated. Exactly how complicated would remain a mystery to Saionji, and by his own doing, as he had absolutely no desire to pick it apart anytime soon. There was the moral ambiguity of the situation itself, the juxtaposition of the somewhat sincerity of his feelings at the time with his inarguably dogshit actions and end-all self-interest, and, of course, the obvious—the Black Rose duel itself.

The Black Rose duels had come up in conversation one night over drinks with Kozue, about a year earlier. Kozue, despite having no memory of her part in the duel itself, had learned almost everything about what had happened from Miki. This didn’t surprise Saionji too much, because Miki never seemed like the kind of kid who was capable of keeping a secret if he tried. He’d gone and told Kozue everything from the details of the duel itself, to the details leading up to it, to the man behind it all and where he’d gotten the rings.

Well, almost everything.

Miki had neglected to mention where she’d gotten her sword. Being that she didn’t know any better, Kozue had assumed there were swords at the dueling site, or she’d just been given one along the way. She didn’t know about the sword-pulling, and she sure as hell didn’t know what it had felt like. How much it had hurt.

That, unfortunately, Kozue had learned from Saionji.

He almost regretted telling her, but at the end of the day, he did. Maybe he’d overstepped, but, as much as the former Vice President told himself he’d done so because she deserved to know, he knew why he’d actually told her. It was selfish more than anything else, the bittersweet sense of relief Saionji felt at finally telling someone about what had happened, about what they'd gone through. He’d never even talked about it to the other duelists, and while he didn’t know about them, Kyouichi Saionji could easily say that having that sword forcibly wrenched from his chest had easily been the most excruciating pain he’d ever experienced.

After what felt like ages of awful silence, an uncharacteristically terse Kozue asking a few more questions, and some poorly disguised tears on the twin’s part, both opted never to talk about it again. That was more than fair, as Saionji had his piece and Kozue had learned all she needed to, and so, from then on, the Black Rose duels hadn’t come up since.

Back to the Wakaba Issue, though— all of his problems seemed to have a common denominator, of course, which was the avoidance. Saionji’s preferred method of handling his past up until this point had been not to do so at all. Why unpack your emotional baggage when you could pack it all away in the attic to collect dust until you eventually sell your house or die? Out of sight, out of mind.

He’d deluded himself into thinking that he could somehow wall it all off, everything he’d done back at that wretched school, and while Saionji knew it was a morally ambiguous way (at best), to live, it had gotten him by this long, and he didn’t intend to stop anytime soon.

Who could afford a therapist anyways these days. Who needed one when you had alcohol and willful ignorance at your disposal? Given everything that had happened, (seriously, how the fuck was Utena Tenjou alive, and in good enough shape to work as a personal trainer???), Saionji had felt it was safe to assume that, were he to pretend they simply didn’t exist, the consequences of his actions couldn’t possibly come back to haunt him.

This line of logic had hit a snag, as the consequences of his actions had tried to choke him out at work last week, but that was simply a fluke, and nothing more.

He needed a nap if he was going to make it through tonight.

---

The nap didn’t work.

Once Saionji had realized that there was no way his body would organically pass out at 5:00 PM, he gave up, now finding himself aimlessly scrolling through his Instagram feed. ‘Aimlessly,’ at least, being what he’d convinced himself led him there, rather than his own morbid curiosity.

Sure, he had an Instagram account—Kozue had forced him to set one up a year or two earlier, but he couldn’t say that he checked it more than once every month or two. Usually, when the spirit moved him to log onto the app every blue moon, it was for one of two reasons.

Firstly, when Kozue forced him to. That was self-explanatory, with her either annoying him into liking whatever she’d posted on her page, or to explain some celebrity drama he had no interest in, both of which usually entailed her physically grabbing his cell phone and doing these things herself.

Secondly, to look for people. Not in a stalker-ish way, of course, but the way everyone did here and there. A little snooping was normal every once and awhile, and so the app became utilitarian enough not to delete entirely.

That being said, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why Saionji was there now. He knew damn well that this was the worst thing to be doing, and was precisely what he’d set out not to do on his day off. However, curiosity had gotten the best of him.

There must have been some shred of self-preservation left in Saionji, however, as he decided against looking for Anthy. Besides, she didn’t really seem like the type to be on social media, but what did Saionji Kyouichi know about her interests. The Rose Bride surely wouldn’t have been the type to be on social media. She wasn’t the type to do anything. That’d been part of the appeal, he supposed— the generic malleability of a perfect little woman with no interests. The real Anthy Himemiya, the modern one, that is, could’ve had a thriving Instagram account full of pictures of herself and her little rat-mouse-monkey creature for all Saionji knew. Hell, she could be running a social-media team for a PR firm right this second and he would be none the wiser.

All remorse aside, Saionji still maintained that he didn’t like that thing. The monkey. Rat. Mouse?

Whatever it was.

God, the curry incident.

Eugh.

Curry and monkey-mice aside, out of sight, out of mind, and so he didn’t go looking for the possibly-existing Instagram account of Anthy Himemiya.  By extension, of course, he didn’t go looking for Utena’s either (read: he absolutely did, but had just enough sense left in him to know that friend-requesting Tenjou Utena’s private Instagram account wouldn’t end favorably for him).

If he was any smarter than that, he would’ve ended things there. However, he was not any smarter than that, and what Kozue had said earlier was starting to bug him a lot more than he’d have liked to admit.

‘Shinohara Wakaba’. Search.

Surprisingly, she wasn’t all too hard to find.

After sifting through a few profiles that weren’t her, (given that, presumably, she hadn’t aged 40 years and undergone full plastic surgery since high school), he came across an account that fit the bill almost perfectly—and it was public!

Great, further enablement.

The profile photo was of a girl with, auburn, (auburn? Chestnut? Something in between brown and red, whatever the word was for that), hair, throwing up a peace sign at the camera with a toothy smile.

As for the little details, they seemed there for the most part. Those signature tufts of hair she always had hanging out when she used to tie her hair back were gone, replaced by a loose, shorter, face-framing haircut. Her eyes were the same warm brown they’d always been, and her freckles still seemed to be there too.

‘Still’? Did Wakaba have freckles in the first place? Saionji couldn’t remember, which was laughable considering he’d slummed it in the girl’s single dorm room for around 2 months and change. You’d think in all that time going stir-crazy in an 8’ x 12’ room with a singular 15-year-old for company would have a person remember these things! It should have, but who was the former Student Council member if not infuriatingly dense at the worst of times.

It doesn’t even matter, he thought to himself, freckles aren’t even that noticeable. If I had freckles, I wouldn’t expect anyone to remember them. Besides, people without freckles freckle in the sun sometimes! He was overthinking it, and he knew he was overthinking it. Freckle isn’t even a fucking verb.

Her hair hadn’t changed colors, but that made enough sense.

She wasn’t like the rest of them.

---

Nothing much had happened with the cactus, though who would have expected anything else. It remained where Saionji had left it on the kitchen counter, droopy as ever, contributing jack-shit to the environment around it. It was only really alive, if you could even call it that, because the former Vice President didn't have the heart to let it die.

In some ways, Saionji envied that stupid little plant. 

Notes:

some notes:
- freckle is a verb because i have decided it is
- i know this seems like it ends on a bit of a cliff but i swear the next chapter is already mostly done, and i wont take several months to update this time lmao
- i do not condone alcohol and avoidance as a replacement for therapy please Don't Do That

anyways, as usual i'm always interested in hearing your thoughts and opinions below, and i hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 5: 1984

Summary:

Saionji has concerns. Kozue has hobbies. Saionji has a headache. Kozue has his apartment keys.

Notes:

I'M BAAAAAAACK

i bet you thought you'd seen the last of ME bitches. not to play into the AO3 author cliche but i have had 2 surgeries, 4 new diagnoses, 2-ish near death experiences, 16 medication changes, changed career paths thrice, and graduated with one major and two minors since last chapter so. been a little occupied.

however, i assure you that our beautiful odyssey into the fucked up mind of this green haired motherfucker has not left my heart for a moment. hopefully this explains the gap in my updates, and i’m just going to make the assumption that someone else hasn’t been insane enough to post a second better-written future-AU Saionji growth-and-accountability arc fic in my absence. truuuuuly i am hoping that’s a niche enough genre to where I still have the market cornered. if not, this is gonna be really awkward. happy reading.

Kaoru Kozue could count on her fingers the number of times in her life she’d managed to arrive anywhere on time.

From appointments, to meetings, and everything in between, (she’d all but given up on public transportation at this point, seeing as she couldn’t catch a bus if she tried), Kozue had a penchant for late arrivals. Tardiness wasn’t a habit for her, but a way of being, and this held true as she knocked on Saionji’s door at a prompt 10:06 PM that night.

Knocking was a formality for the twin, already fishing out from her bag the keys she’d swiped from the apartment the week prior. There were enough hardware store-layered spare sets in the dish by the door that it hardly weighed on her conscience. 

Saionji tossed a glare to the side as his front door was flung open with the full force of someone who didn’t give a shit about the prospect of a noise complaint. 

“If you break my door, you’re going to pay for it,” Saionji snapped, his voice overlapping with the harmonious sound of Kozue kicking the door shut with her boot heel. He didn’t bother asking for his keys back, knowing the annoyance of hashing it out far outweighed the benefit. 

“You’ll be alright, I’m not gonna break your stupid door—"

“Second of all, why even bother knocking on my door if you’re just going to barrel right in anyways?”

“I don’t know,” Kozue replied, having already raided his pantry, her arms laden with chips, a 6-pack, and the tub of melon sorbet he’d just bought that morning, “in case you were doing something weird in here?"

“What do you mean you don’t know? And since when—” Saionji took this moment to reach over, snatching his sorbet while he still could, “do you care to warn me about anything?”

She shrugged, unceremoniously dumping her spoils across the empty portion of the couch, shoving her bangs out of her eyes before ripping open the nearest bag of chips.

“I don’t know, in case you were doing something weird in here? I don’t know what kind of freakish shit you get up to when you’re alone—” 

“What? Why would I answer the door if I was?” 

“See, you can never be too careful,” Kozue garbled with a mouth full of chips, “And if I walked in on you, like, fucking naked in your living room or something, I would literally kill myself—no offense.”

“You can’t just say ‘no offense’ after saying something offensive, Kozue.” 

“Listen man, if you think the truth is offensive, there’s not much I can do about that,” she shrugged, tearing out two beers from the six pack and tossing him one, “the censorship in this place is some 1984 shit I swear—“

“Oh my god, shut the fuck up,” Saionji scowled, preparing to kick her out the minute the word ‘1984’ hit the air. 

Kozue, of course, had never been much of a reader before. Skirting by on her schoolwork had been enough in her school days, let alone picking up a book for her own leisure. This, at least, was the image the rebellious Karou twin chose to put forward, as it was far less effort to go with the grain than against it. Any attempt at doing otherwise would pale in comparison to her twin brother, being the paradigm of academic achievement amongst their peers as he was, and so she chose to set herself apart in other ways. 

Images, personas, whatever they were—they carried you through a place like that, kept you afloat in the misfortune of being visible to those around you, and protected you from those who took that visibility as a challenge. A rough-around the edges loner, a mysterious flirt, a reckless, rebellious mess of a girl everyone wanted to be but no-one wanted to know—amidst the chaos of it all, there was some small amount of certainty remaining in control of your image, of the way you were perceived. A philosophy of control above all underscored every decision she’d made back at Ohtori— when all control is wrenched from your grasp and dangled in front of you like a prize to be won, you still have control of your persona. 

It was flawed, as many survivalist philosophies are, but it was enough to get her out of there in one piece, damaged but alive. Now, however, things were far easier in many ways, yet so, so much more difficult in others. What is there to do when the curtain closes? What is there to be when you aren’t playing a part anymore? Who is Kaoru Kozue, unscripted? 

She wasn’t sure, but in the increasingly common waves of determination that came over her these days, she’d set to find out. All this to say, Kozue had taken it upon herself one Saturday afternoon to make her way to the public library, check out the first book she saw with a neat-looking cover, (George Orwell’s 1984 had caught her eye), and burn through the whole thing in an afternoon, all because no one was left expecting her not to. The book itself had been average, but the experience was freeing. 

Kaoru Kozue had discovered, there in the dawn of her 20s, that she actually liked to read. Even more, she’d found that she liked to talk about the things she read to anyone that would listen. Unfortunately, her pool of people to speak with was rather small, and in the absence of her ever-busy brother, she’d talked the ear off her remaining option. 

Saionji had come to realize several things. Firstly, he hated 1984 and wanted George Orwell dead. Second, Kozue’s voice became incredibly grating past the half-hour mark. Third, there wasn’t much to be done about it, as his social circle, like Kozue’s, was less of a circle and more of a two-person hula hoop. 

“Kozue, this isn’t 1984—"

“Oh so now my freedom of speech is being restricted? This is literally 1984, might as well put me in that room with the rats while you’re at it—"

“Oh my god, shut up,” he groaned, swatting Kozue’s feet off his coffee table with a huff, “and get your dirty feet off my table. You should be grateful I even let you over here.”

“You say that like you’ve got anyone else to talk to.”

Saionji couldn’t say much to that. She was right, and they both knew it. 

“So, I came over here for a reason, right?” Kozue chuckled as she grabbed around for the TV remote, letting the moment pass without a second thought as she flicked around for something decent to put on in the background. 

She had a funny way of doing that, of raising the mood, dropping it to the ground, and wrenching it back up just as quickly without missing a beat. Saionji found it jarring at times, the prospect of a friend who didn’t opt to have him fester in the lows, albeit that likely being the bare minimum.  

However, he wasn’t sure how to answer her question, ignoring it as if it would simply disappear if he failed to acknowledge it. He didn’t expect this to work though, side-eyeing Kozue as she made herself comfortable, maneuvering her body until she was hanging upside-down with her legs thrown over the back of the couch. She turned her head to glare right back up at him, expecting a response that she would be getting. 

“The blood’s going to rush right to your head like that, you know. I hope you end up in the ER with a concussion.”

“You’re avoiding the question, Saionji.”

“Fine, but I’m not doing this sober,” Saionji conceded, hauling himself up to rummage around his kitchen cabinets for something a little stronger. Talking the whole thing out had seemed like a decent decision when he’d invited her over earlier that day, but now that she’d actually shown up and pressed him about it, the idea was mortifying to the former Vice President. Whether he wanted to or not though, the inevitable conversation wasn’t happening in an apartment void of alcohol.

“Hey, grab me something too!”

“We’re out,” Saionji shouted back, scowling at the empty bottles littering the counter. Kozue was already halfway out the door before he could even pull out his boots shouting over her shoulder at him. 

“Hurry the fuck up then, we’re going to the liquor store.” 

Notes:

bye baddies i'm going to get ketamine pumped into me for like a week and if nothing hopefully it makes me a better writer

Chapter 6: the phrase 'meet-cute' implies the existance of a meet-ugly

Notes:

sup ladies and gentlewomen. bet you didnt think youd get another chapter out of meeeeeee did you! well, as if my life could not possibly get more tumultious, i was dumped by the love of my life this week after 7 years together so. if my writing is mid simply do not tell me because i cannot handle it at the moment <3 happy reading!

Finding street parking had been a bitch and a half.

Having an obnoxious backseat driver in your ear the whole time didn’t help, but hell would freeze over before he allowed someone who took 6 attempts to pass their driving test anywhere near the wheel of his car. It didn’t help that the former Student Council Vice President relished any opportunity to showcase his ability to parallel park, fascinatingly bragadocious for how mediocre his skills actually were. Once he’d managed to 15-point turn his way into the spot, he stepped out, locking the doors behind him with Kozue in tow. The air was crisp, cheeks tinted pink as they made their way down the block, the store in question making itself known, the flourescent lights cast out onto the street identifying it as one of the few remaining open this late. 

He hadn’t found himself in this part of the city for some time, never having much of a reason to end up there between the neighborhoods he worked and lived in. The liquor store closest to his apartment had been closed, a sign in the window denoting some sort of family emergency. Saionji had suggested they cut their losses and head back to the apartment, but Kozue had sworn to pay if they took the long way out, to which Saionji begrudgingly obliged. It wasn’t as if they had anything else to do and so, bolstered by the fact that neither of them had work the next day, the two took the scenic route in order to achieve their greater goal of getting absolutely shitfaced.

The store was small, modest, containing no more than a couple aisles, a few fridges, and a single checkout counter. A wave of heat washed over them as they stepped through the doors, thankfully radiating from the ceiling to combat the evening’s chill. Neither of the two were looking for anything fancy, intending to grab a fifth and a few shooters to top off the former Student Council member’s pantry. They’d barely step foot inside before Saionji abruptly ran into the twin’s back, her having stopped all of a sudden as the store’s interior fully came into view. Before Saionji could complain, a grin had broken across Kozue’s face almost instantaneously, gaze fixed straight ahead of her. 

“Oh my god dude, look. There’s no fucking way,” Kozue snickered, elbowing him and pointing a finger straight ahead of her.

“What are you talking abo— holy shit,” Saionji replied, voice dropping to a whisper as soon as he spotted what had caught the twin’s eye, heart dropping to his stomach as he did. 

“Kozue, we have to leave. Now,” he hissed back, turning on his heel to flee the store while he could, eagerly and with all intention of cutting his losses and ending the night sober. Unfortunately, and quite predictably, Kozue had already attracted attention to the two of them, dooming the 

Saionji Kyouichi had never once regretted the choice to maintain his green, easily-identifiable hair more than he did in that moment.

“Nice shirt, dipshit,” Tenjou Utena shouted from where she stood next to the front-most aisle, taking it upon herself to stride over to the two of them with a purpose and a smirk.

Saionji looked down at the shirt in question, letting out a groan upon realizing which it was. He hadn’t paid much mind to it on the way out of his apartment, having dug it out from the back of his closet as the rest of his clothes ran through the laundry, but he could not possibly have chosen a worse option to be caught in. Not that he could have predicted the company he’d run into that night, but the worn-out tee emblazoned with “OHTORI KENDO TEAM” in large bolded letters certainly wasn’t doing him any favors.

“Do we have to do this here? I’m just trying to get my shit and leave,” the former Vice President snapped back, no small amount of disdain in his voice. 

“As long as you’re in my city, anywhere I see your bitch-ass face is fair game to me,” Utena retorted, crossing her arms in front of her with a smug grin still plastered across her face. 

“What do you mean your city, you just moved in this week.”

Before either of the former Duelists could get another jab in, the tension between the two of them was penetrated by a remark from the aisle over. 

“Hey Utena, I think they’re out of the yuzu chūhai, would you mind if we got the grapefruit instead?”

Utena, it seemed, wasn’t alone.

“Utena? I mean they’ve also got lime, but I know you didn’t love that flavor last time we tried i—“

Out from one of the aisles stepped none other than Shinohara Wakaba, in the flesh. Kozue, who’d taken a step to the side to spectate the pissing contest playing out between the two, had to stifle her laugh with a mock-cough, barely holding it together at the sight of the former Student Council member’s horrified expression. As the redhead emerged to meet Utena, a drink in each hand, Saionji was convinced that some sort of karmic retribution must’ve finally begun to rear its head.

Kozue, by some miracle, summoned the wherewithal to back away from the scene about to unfold in front of her, making do with a promise to herself to intensively harass the former Student Council member about this all later. From the way Wakaba froze, her question all but forgotten as she stood staring like a deer in headlights at an equally spooked Saionji, the two seemed to be caught just as off-guard. 

“Not my circus, not my monkeys— but have fun catching up you guys!” Kozue chipped in as she gave Saionji a hearty slap on the back, skipping off to browse the 99-cent shooters as the man glared daggers after her. It seemed noone was quite sure what to do next, and so Utena took it upon herself to break the ice once more. 

“Grapefruit is fine with me, Wakaba,” Utena replied, her gaze remaining fixed on Saionji, as she extended a hand out to the girl besid her, “Let me go ring us out so we can get out of here— it seems like this place has a rodent problem.”

“Seriously? A rodent problem? How old are you?” Saionji scoffed, but Utena was already halfway to the counter, bottles in hand. That left, of course, Wakaba, who remained fixed where she’d been left behind. Saionji wasn’t sure which was worse, the horribly uncomfortable silence wedged in between the two of them, or the nauseating prospect of trying to make some sort of ice-breaking small talk. What was there to talk about? What were you supposed to say to someone you shared that sort of history with? At the very least, the former Student Council Vice President could safely assume the taste he’d left in her mouth after all these years couldn’t have been pleasant. 

The Wakaba Issue was complicated.

Saionji Kyouichi knew he wasn’t innocent of course, and that he’d done more than his share of wrong towards the girl. Wakaba surely wasn’t the only person he’d wronged back during his days at the academy, being that the amount of people with bones to pick with the former Student Council member had to at least be in the upper-double digits. The fact that he wasn’t a good person back at Ohtori, (and arguably wasn’t now either), was less of a subjective moral judgement, but a basic observation to be accepted.

In Wakaba’s case, however, he could say without a doubt that his treatment of her was on the worse side of his transgressions. Earlier on, he’d been, as many teenage boys are, an absolute dick. 

He’d gotten the school year off to a great start by tacking up a love-letter the girl had left him on the courtyard bulletin board, making her an object of public ridicule for his own amusement. It would be one thing if he’d done it for some greater reason, goal-oriented in knowing what he’d done would be the catalyst for Utena to enter the arena, but Saionji couldn’t spin the incident that way, not by any stretch of the imagination. Forget the dueling circuit, he’d had no idea the two girls were friends, let alone who Utena even was at the time. What was a brief flash of amusement to him likely turned out to be a formative, awful memory for the younger girl. That said, as awful as it may have been, it could be chalked up to shitty behavior from a nasty, arrogant teenage boy. Worthy of a fair bit of guilt and remorse, but more or less cut and dry past that. 

It was past that where things began to complicate themselves.

His expulsion.

Now, whether or not the then-Student Council member deserved to be expelled was a matter of subjective judgement. Saionji himself hadn’t been able to keep a consistent opinion on the issue, and usually found it changed with the perspective one took on the situation. 

What do you do when your best friend constructs a multi-tiered plan to manipulate you into bringing about your own expulsion for his own gain and, were this somehow not enough already, knowingly and performatively risks his life in the process to ensure its success? What kind of freak throws himself in front of a blade to get a peer expelled?

Fucked-up as it was, there was a practical perspective to be taken on the matter, and Saionji knew this. There were elements to the situation in which he was a victim, no doubt, but it would be reductive to say he’d been completely innocent.

It could be argued, and argue Saionji would, that he had been manipulated into making his way to the dueling arena that night with the information he’d been falsely supplied leading up to the incident, and most certainly by the bullshit Touga had pulled at the end of the impromptu duel, but there was a hearty amount of blame to be had all on his own. The entire plan had hinged on the (accurate) assumption of where the former Vice President’s violently unstable temperament, complete lack of impulse control, and ever-present delusions of grandeur would lead him, but, in the end, the former Student Council Vice President knew that no one could have forced him to act upon these traits. 

No one had forced Saionji to abduct Anthy and force his way into the dueling arena, knowing the potential risk in doing so. You’d think, with the danger he’d put the Rose Bride in, the girl he’d claimed to be so in love with, Saionji would have been relieved to see her safe, even by Tenjou’s hand. Sure, there was no small amount of shame in the events leading up to that point, but at least Utena had succeeded where he’d failed, and at least Anthy was alive and well!

This in mind, it was all his own choice to, rather than give anything approaching a sane, situationally-appropriate response, flip his shit and try to murder Utena. That alone was enough to earn the former Duelist’s ire back at Ohtori, here, and far beyond this liquor store for decades to come, and Saionji wouldn’t be pressed to contend that.

Had Kiryuu Touga taken advantage of this? Had the former Student Council Vice President incited it to begin with? Yes, but no one had forced Saionji to act as he had. Sure, Touga knew exactly what he was doing as he threw himself in front of Saionji’s blade, reveling in the fallout to come as he watched the soon-to-be Ex-Ohtori Student lunge towards him with no small amount of satisfaction, but no one had forced the attack in the first place. While he may have been victimized to some degree, Saionji was just as much so an autonomous, blatantly guilty actor in the whole thing and, at the very least, deserved to be expelled. 

Expelled, however, under normal circumstances. His actions had been perfectly fair grounds for expulsion, given the school in question was run in a normal manner, by a normal administration, and wasn’t a goddamn cult. Had that been the case, none of the ensuing chain of events would have had to happen in the first place. Fair or unfair, guilty or innocent, Saionji Kyouichi had been expelled, and there was no way around it. It was from there, of course, that the question of what to do next arose.

The right answer, the reasonable answer would have been to cut his losses, pack his things, and go home. Disappointing as it may have been, expulsion wasn’t the end of the world, (pun intended). There were several fine options, from public school, to trade school, to taking time off to recoup, an apprenticeship, perhaps—literally anything other than what Saionji had gone on to do.

These were reasonable options. Saionji Kyouichi, in the storm of his adolescence, was anything but reasonable. Therefore, the disgraced Student Council member decided he would be staying at the school, and that he would be getting readmitted. 

At any cost. 

Pangs of guilt about it all came in waves, and the cost in question had begun to feel less and less worth it as the years went by. In all truthfulness, the former Student Council Vice President had come to the shaky resolution that, so long as he never had need to again, he would spend the rest of his life repressing the mess that period in his life had been, seeing the rehashing of it all as far more trouble than it was worth. It wasn’t, of course, as if he would possibly encounter anything that would force any sort of confronation with his past, years after fully picking up his life and moving to the heart of a big city, hours and hundreds of kilometers away from where it all went down. 

Seeing one ghost was a coincidence, but seeing two, with the second clearly about to attempt some sort of small talk with him in the aisles of the tiny liquor store in which he stood, was surely some sort of cosmic punishment sent to have him atone for the sins of his past. 

That, or his luck was just dog-shit awful. 

“Long time no see, huh? Your hair is still green!” Wakaba blurted out, her clear attampt at breaking the ice causing her face to fall in embarassment before the words were halfway out her mouth. Saionji, selfishly, would’ve almost preferred she say nothing at all, as he was now somehow strapped to provide a response. 

“Yes, my hair is green,” he sputtered, shoving his hands in his back pockets to give his hands something to do, “and yours is still red?”

‘And yours is still red?’ Saionji thought to himself, wishing for nothing more than a hole in the ground to crawl into and die. Seriously?

“Yes? Um, it’s always been red?” Wakaba replied with an awkward laugh, the exchange so far doing nothing to thin out the tension permeating the room. Saionji decided to take a second crack at it, succeeding in relaxing the girl a bit with a question she could actually answer at-length. 

“Do you, uh, live in the city?”

“No, actually, I’m about an hour’s drive away— I’m just in town this week helping Utena move some stuff from her storage unit into the apartment! It’s so great she was able to move here with Anth—“

“Wakaba, can we please not give details about our personal lives to the rodents,” Utena chastised, paper bag of drinks in hand, moving to walk past as she nodded her head in the direction of the store’s exit.

“Utena, stop it,” Wakaba protested, swatting the other girl away with a roll of her eyes, before turning back out towards Saionji, “we can’t just be rude to people like that!”

“That’s not a ‘person’, Wakaba, that is Saionji. From Ohtori. Big difference.”

“I’m right here, you know,” Saionji glowered, but his pink-haired former peer couldn’t have cared less.

“I’m aware. Do me a solid and let me know what curling iron you use when I see you at work on Monday, so I can be sure to avoid it,” 

“Nice one!” Kozue yelled from the aisle over, earning a grin from Utena and, to his dismay, a poorly-veiled giggle from Wakaba.

“Kozue, shut the fuck up,” the former Vice president shouted back. Before he could say anything more to the two, Utena had already re-situated the paper bag in her arms and broken into a stride, not so much as turning to glance back at the former Student Council member as she made her way out of the store. 

“Sorry about that— maybe we’ll see you around! Have a nice night!”

“No we won’t,” Utena made sure to tag on before grabbing Wakaba’s hand and ushering the two of them out of the store. 

“Kozue, where the fuck are you— let’s just leave,” the former Vice President groaned, snatching a fifth of Fireball off the shelf to his left to bring to the register, the attendant behind the counter doing his best to act as if he hadn’t been present for the entirety of what’d just gone down. 

Saionji wished he hadn’t been either. 

Notes:

in case it was unclear, this narrative is from the perspective and headspace of saionji. if utena seems a bit antagonistic or overly aggressive here, i assure you i have made her come across this way to saionji *intentionally* at this point in the story, and you will see the payoff of exactly why i did so in later chapters.

also, please remember that saionji would, in this case, be an unreliable narrator in terms of how he interprets the behavior and motivations of those around him, and in particular utena, (who i will remind you all he tried to murder at one point). utena is my little meow meow and i would never forsake her for a man i prommie

Notes:

i assure you my lovely audience that every single shitty thing saionji has ever canonically done will be addressed over the course of this fic. it’s aaaaaaall written out in my outline this man is going to get his ass handed to him on a silver platter so don’t worry <3