Chapter Text
A heavy breeze swayed branches in the pine woods beneath the dueling arena. It shook the leaves of the apple tree near the Agricultural Club building, sent skirts fluttering as it blew along a walkway, and, lifting to the balcony low on the jutting Chairman’s tower, rustled the row of corn plants next to Kaoru Miki.
Glimpses of white and blue flashed through a thicket of green leaves. A hand extended over the table and clicked a stopwatch on 5:00 exactly. Five was also the number of corn plants growing in the planter by his chair.
“Why did you call this meeting, Juri-san?” he asked.
“I called this meeting,” said Nanami, who was caught limbs akimbo in a haze of fennel leaves, since the fennel’s mighty stalk leaned over her chair. “Although Arisugawa-senpai requested it.”
Juri was untroubled by vegetables, unless you counted how the carrots peeking from the modest planter at her feet out-oranged her pants. “A guest bedroom was recently set up in one of the dorm buildings, but there’s one problem—a pea may have gotten stuck under the mattresses. The staff asked us to find volunteers to look into it.
Past the corn, Miki’s head shifted in what was probably a nod. “That doesn’t sound too hard to deal with. We’d only need to remove the mattress and check underneath.”
“Mattresses,” said Juri.
“I’m sorry?”
Here Nanami found the strength to overcome the fennel stalk. Bringing its cloud of leaves with her, she slammed her hands on the table, “Idiot!” she scoffed. “You don’t check for a pea by looking underneath. A delicate princess lays on top of the mattresses and feels the lump. That’s how you know she’s a real princess.”
“O-oh,” said Miki.
“That’s why I’m the best person to investigate. I volunteer!” Nanami pressed a hand to her yellow-clad chest as if indicating where someone would afterwards pin a medal for selflessness.
“Well, as a fellow member of the Student Council, I’ll help out how I can!” said Miki.
“Thank you both.” Juri pondered the carrot planter.
Nanami, clad in her frilly lavender nightgown, burst into the dark chamber. “It’s time for bed, everybody!”
With a flip of the light switch, she revealed a massive bed dominating the guest room. Eight by twelve feet, its four posts scraped the ceiling. Mattresses were piled up past head height, a motley range of colors and thicknesses. A wooden stepladder had been placed next to the bed.
The only other piece of furniture in the room was a dresser flush against the corner like it feared for its life.
Following Nanami came Utena in long-sleeved pajamas of light blue and Anthy in her nightgown of the same color. Anthy went over to a window that showed the silhouettes of treetops against a darkening sky and closed the curtains.
“Wow,” said Utena, leaning against the closet door. “What if you fall off? You’d break a bone.”
“A real princess would never fall off,” said Nanami.
“I don’t think there’s a fairy tale about princesses falling out of bed. Is there?”
Miki and Kozue entered the room. They wore matching blue pajamas with wide sleeves and form-hugging pants. The five students crowded the space between the bed and the wall.
Kozue looked the bed up and down. “This will be perfect for the orgy.”
“Kozue!” After a momentary loss for words, Miki turned to the others. “Thank you for volunteering to help out.”
“No problem, Mickey,” said Utena.
“Yes, it’s our pleasure,” Anthy added.
Miki occupied himself with smoothing the sleeves of his pajamas while Kozue scowled from behind him.
“The only one you need is me,” said Nanami. “Watch and le—”
A huge yawn from Utena drowned her out. “All these mattresses look pretty comfy. Let’s give it a try." Before Nanami could do more than open her mouth to protest, Utena scaled the stepladder and lay her head on the middle of three pillows.
“Can you feel any lumps?” Miki asked anxiously.
“Give me a minute…”
Nanami crossed her arms. “Of course she doesn’t.”
A hush fell over the guest room. A couple minutes later, it was broken by a gentle snoring from above.
“Utena-sama is worn out from playing basketball,” Anthy whispered.
Nanami charged up the stepladder and stuck her head above the top mattress. “Wake up, would you?”
Utena woke with a jerk and sat up, rubbing her eyes. “Oh, sorry guys, this bed is really comfortable. I sure didn’t notice anything wrong with it.”
She dropped down to the floor, Nanami taking her place atop the bed. Nanami made a show of stretching, then lay down on the central spot.
“Oh!” she shrieked, writhing around on top of the quilt. “Oh, it’s unbearable! It’s like a giant boulder!”
“Um, are you all right?” Miki inquired.
“I’m dying!”
“Maybe you should come down?” said Utena.
Nanami sat up with an expectant look, as if people might enter the room flinging rose petals and set a crown upon her triumphant brow. When this failed to happen, she swooned down the stepladder with grace and called, “Tsuwabuki! My smelling salts!”
The closet door flew open, making Utena jump. Tsuwabuki Mitsuru emerged proffering a leather valise above his head. “At once, Nanami-sama!”
Nanami seated herself on the bottom step of the ladder. “There’s a pea under there, all right! I’m positively covered in bruises!”
“Well, that answers our question. Maybe,” said Miki.
An astringent yet floral whiff filled the room, and Nanami sniffed loudly at the vial Tsuwabuki held beneath her nose. “And my tiara,” she ordered. The elementary schooler took a golden tiara studded with jewels that may or may not have been real out of the valise and set it on her brow.
“What a pretty tiara,” said Anthy. “My cow Nanami has one just like it.”
Utena didn’t bother to suppress a laugh.
Cupping her hand to Tsuwabuki’s ear, Nanami said in a stage whisper, “Himemiya Anthy is a real weirdo, don’t you think?”
Tsuwabuki gave Anthy and Utena an apologetic look.
“I still want to try,” Kozue said. Catching the side of the stepladder, she climbed over the annoyed Nanami and lay on her back on the impression in the quilt left by Nanami’s squirming.
After a pause, she said, “Hmm. Must be more of a micro-pea. It’s gotta be bigger than that for me to feel anything.”
“Of course you’re too shameless to be able to sense it,” said Nanami. “Oh! I’m sorry, Miki.”
“Kozue, get down from there.” Miki whipped his stopwatch out of a pajama pocket and clicked it. It displayed a perfect 69 seconds. He stared at it in horror.
“And after you asked for volunteers…” As she descended the stepladder, Kozue looked pleased with herself.
Miki thrust the stopwatch back into his pajama pants. “Anyway, Himemiya-san, do you think you’d be able to tell? You have ‘princess’ in your name, after all, and I think that’s very...nice…”
Anthy gave him a smile. “Of course.”
Nanami cleared the stepladder with an “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.”
Atop the bed, Anthy waved her arms and legs like she was making a snow angel. Then she remained motionless, concentrating, a distant look in her eye.
“Anything yet?” asked Utena.
Anthy sat up, smoothing her tied-back hair. “There’s certainly a pea under there.”
“That proves it,” Miki said eagerly, “thanks to the two people felt it.”
Utena yawned again. “So, what’s next? We take the bed apart and throw away the pea?”
“That’s right.”
“First thing tomorrow morning, before…” Nanami gave a massive, unladylike yawn, “...before it injures anyone else.”
“Wait, I have to check too,” said Miki.
“How would you be able to feel it, Miki? You’re a boy.” Nanami’s eyelids were drooping more and more by the second. No doubt delicate princesses had early bedtimes as well as a sensitivity to legumes.
“That would also be valuable data,” he replied.
Miki insisted on checking every section of the bed, not just the center, and measured thirty seconds in each spot. While they waited for him to finish—Kozue with a look of fond exasperation—the others established that they’d all brushed their teeth already, even Tsuwabuki.
The sleepover phase of the night began. Anthy set her glasses and Nanami her tiara on top of the dresser.
Miki reported that he’d felt nothing protruding under any section of the bed, and offered to take the center to spare Anthy and Nanami any discomfort or agony, respectively. When the two supposed princesses graciously accepted his offer, new problems arose: Kozue refused to let Miki sleep next to another girl, while Nanami declared that she could never sleep next to a man, besides, of course, her dear brother.
In the end, Kozue snuggled beneath the sheets between the wall and her twin. Tsuwabuki placed himself between Miki and Nanami and a buffer.
“It’s okay because I’m like Nanami-sama’s big brother,” Tsuwabuki explained. He had changed into long pajamas. They had firetrucks on them.
Utena remained below the tower of mattresses; she was pulling extra blankets and pillows from the closet. “Oh, is that how it works?” She handed the blankets and pillows up to Anthy, then turned off the light. A nightlight shaped like a crescent moon shared its glow by the base of the bed.
Laying perpindicular to the others, Utena and Anthy settled at the end of the bed with their own blankets. Under cover of darkness, Anthy let down her hair.
“Tsuwabuki, my eye mask,” ordered Nanami.
“At once, Nanami-sama.” There was a rustling as the eye mask was handed over and put on.
“Utena-sama, did you know that horses aren’t the only animal that wears blinders?” Anthy whispered. “There are blinders for chickens, too. They’re supposed to reduce aggression.”
And maybe it was true, because no objections broke the peaceful silence.
The next voice to rise in the darkness was Miki’s. “Uh, maybe it’s too late to say this, but should I really be sleeping in the same bed as—as—”
“Girls?” supplied Kozue. “Other than me, no.”
“You don’t like having a harem?” Utena said, gently teasing. “Seriously, though, if you’re anxious, it’s okay if you sleep somewhere else.”
“N-no, it’s fine! I volunteered. If everyone else is fine with it, then so am I!”
Anthy was safe from any feet between Utena and the baseboard. “Maybe it’s your harem, Utena-sama.”
Kozue’s voice: “Well, I wouldn’t say no…”
Quiet laughter broke out, Utena’s self-conscious, but no less real. A pair of steady breaths sounded faintly from Nanami and Tsuwabuki’s side of the bed.
A greater silence, a deeper peace, filled the night; occasionally, Nanami murmured in her sleep (“Another serving, please”) or someone rolled over. Maybe miracles were real after all, if only modest ones, because no sleeper crowded anyone else into a corner.
Long past nightfall in Ohtori Academy, a clock nonexistent beneath daylight tolled twelve distant chimes. The crescent moon nightlight cast the shadows of two girls on the opposite wall.
The first, a large bow on her head, tried to sweep away the small shadows of peas on the floor, but they remained stubbornly immobile. “Ugh! These peas are so much trouble, they’re killing me!
The second, hair in a bubbly ponytail, joined in with her own broom. “How awful! Your life would be perfect if not for these!”
The scene blinked to the next. Jagged rocks replaced the peas. The two girls continued their vain efforts to sweep them away. “I’m much too delicate to deal with peas,” the first complained.
Another cut. The rocks had become boulders. Lying atop a boulder, the first girl writhed in mock agony while the second girl prodded her with her broom. “This is more than I can stand!” she cried.
Then she sat up, and the two girls chorused, “Do you know, do you know, do you know what it means?”
On top of the mattresses, Utena rolled over and mumbled something about learning to rock climb.
Nanami sat up, mussed blond hair falling over her shoulders, and pulled off her eye mask. She was the last to wake up; the others had crept past her to reach the ladder while she finished her peaceful slumber. Sunlight streamed through a gap in the curtains, and sparrows greeted the day with a storm of raucous chirps.
Utena, still in her pajamas, stood in the sun’s warmth brushing her hair. She and Nanami were the only two in the room—at least, the only two to be seen.
“I had the most lovely dream last night,” Nanami said to her only available audience. Her blue eyes were still lost in the wonder of the dream.
“Oh?” said Utena, looking up.
“I went to a market out in the countryside and there were stalls and stalls of the freshest vegetables. And there were no farm animals or butchers at all! Only a pet rabbit nibbling on lettuce.”
“Huh, sounds nice. I dreamed that—”
The door opened and Anthy slipped in, dressed in her school uniform.
“—oh hey, Himemiya! I can’t really remember, but I think I dreamed about rock climbing.”
“Hmph. Sounds like too much effort,” said Nanami, who may or may not have gone rock climbing in a foreign country.
Anthy said, “I dreamed I was on top of a mountain.”
Utena held up her hairbrush. “Maybe that was the mountain I climbing!”
“Maybe. There was a thunderstorm over the mountain, and it was very steep and slippery, so I hope not. Anyway, we’re done making breakfast.”
Over rice, salad, hardboiled eggs, and miso soup, Nanami announced that the bed was the most comfortable she’d ever slept in when a pea wasn’t lurking directly underneath to destroy her spine.
“I didn’t feel any lumps either,” said Miki, though the bags under his eyes indicated that he hadn’t gotten enough sleep for other reasons. His gaze became unfocused. “So that’s what a sleepover is like…”
Kozue, a slice of cucumber speared on her fork, shot a mischievous look at the other girls. “Not exactly. We forgot to show each other our boobs.”
“Kozue!”
After breakfast, the students got to work. Aided by a second stepladder, they wrestled the topmost mattress to the floor and dragged it into the hallway. Nanami delegated Tsuwabuki to work on her behalf, watching with crossed arms, but when he vanished between the mattress and the wall, she faced a judgemental look from Utena and Kozue’s “So you’re weaker than an elementary schooler?” At which point she rolled up her banana-yellow sleeves and set her shoulder to the mattress, heaving it down the hall two inches at a time.
Utena pulled Tsuwabuki out from behind the mattress and said kindly, “Why don’t you take off the pillowcases?”
Tsuwabuki settled by the dresser with a stack of pillows.
One by one, Utena and Anthy removed the mattresses and other layers from the bed. The floor soon held a layer of futons and thin pads; Kozue kneaded her sock feet into an unusually soft futon. Nanami crouched to scrutinize it, but found no offending legume.
When two-thirds of the layers had been removed, Anthy pulled a mattress pad aside to reveal a hole in the middle of the mattresses below.
“What’s this? Utena crawled onto the bed, and Anthy joined her.
The rectangular hole cut through the remaining layers to the base of the bed, which contained air holes and a trap door much too small for a human being. However, it was the perfect size for—
“Chu!” Chu-chu sprang from a nest of bedding made from two rose-patterned dishtowels. He chittered in scolding alarm at the two girls while sidling towards the trap door.
“Oh, there you are!” Anthy plucked Chu-chu out of his hideaway by the nape of his neck and sat up. Chu-chu was holding a miniature briefcase.
“Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen him around recently…” said Utena.
Anthy set Chu-chu on her knee, where he hung his head, abashed. As the other students watched, she opened the tiny briefcase to reveal a single pea. Nanami gasped, her hand flying to her mouth.
“Now, now, you shouldn’t go sulk simply because you don’t want to eat your vegetables,” said Anthy, and fed the pea to Chu-chu, who swallowed it obediently.
“We’ve resolved the problem with the guest bed,” announced Miki.
Today the balcony was clear of any obstructions, vegetable or otherwise. Miki appeared well-rested after several nights sleeping alone in his own bed.
“Thank goodness,” said Nanami. “That pea hurt. I was the one who felt it.”
“Sometimes things that should be small hurt the most…” Juri said, brushing her locket with her fingers.
“Would you stop being so cryptic?” snapped Nanami, but her words had no effect on Juri, or indeed the world.
Miki clicked his stopwatch and smiled in relief as it stopped on a number with no significance whatsoever. “Now we can move on to the next item.”
Juri gave a wistful sigh.
“Yes?” said Nanami, glaring like she anticipated another cryptic statement.
“I could really go for a salad.”
The Student Council adjourned for lunch.