Substitute

Frau Eva

There was a desperate screaming inside him, so loud he could not understand the words. When he and Saionji would ride his bike back late on wet and lonely roads, he knew he had done it before. Once he found a small crumpled receipt in his room, the words, "Kiryuu Touga" and "Earrings" marked in clean, computerized hiragana. He had no memory of buying them nor who they were for, but some secret place inside him knew with absolute certainty that it had all happened. Once Nanami nostalgically mentioned the fairy tale, "The Glass Coffin" which he used to read to her, only to receive a harsh and cold stare in return. Long nights in his study gave him such a distinct feeling of deja-vu. But worst of all was the small, struggling memory and restless dreams of the arena shimmering against the night sky, something warm and soft and wonderful in his arms.

Akio had called and told him that Anthy was gone. "But never mind her," he had said with the usual confidence, "I have other plans." Touga had asked where and why she was gone, but Akio never gave him a straight answer. He was used to that.

He awoke one night with the same dream burned into his memory. He saw the castle turning and sparkling in the sky-funny how he could remember this, but no specifics of any duels fought under its shimmering lights. His heart and arms ached with the feeling of holding something so precious that he could not even begin to describe it or give it name. His bedroom suddenly felt empty. He was empty.

He went to the dueling forest that night and was awestruck. White roses had burst forth from the asphalt, their long green vines twining over every available surface. The arena was sealed shut with the small flowers, some benevolent force protecting the world from all that lay inside. Touga ached from the sight of them. Slowly, tentatively, he cupped his hand around a small bud and inhaled.

Her eyes...the color of a perfect summer day, and the way they would close when she laughed. The sound of her voice-growing from a frightened child to the soft and confidant tone of a young woman. The way she's move-so innocently sexual and free-like a child before it learns not to pose like that, don't bend over so, and never move that way when others are around. The silky feeling of her hair and the way it slipped from his hands like water. He could remember it even before Ohtori, his fingers raised from her coffin with soft tendrils of pink. The lingering touch of her hand as she lost his grasp for the last time.

The next day he threw his cell phone into the lake-forsaking both his many girls and him. He retreated to his study and relentlessly ran scenarios through his mind: what he would have done, could have done, should have done. He shouldn't have left her there alone for him to find. He should have listened to Saionji, lifted her up from that coffin, and held her close as he carried her safely home. Late at night he had to close his eyes to hide their burgeoning wetness, a part of him immensely ashamed of himself. Regret is not a welcome feeling to a hedonist.

He used to laugh at the very idea of repentance, that they were only too cowardly to accept their own actions. They were pawns fit to be crushed beneath his heel, beneath anyone with the guts worthy of their work. Now he could see what a fool he had been, and a small part of his old self sneered to see what he had become. His mind was at civil war. "Why?" he asked himself, "If she was going to leave all along, then why couldn't she have left me the way I was?"

It was then that he made Michiko cross his path. It couldn't have been any more obvious if he had left her on his doorstep wrapped in ribbon, complete with a greeting card spouting the lie, "My condolences." She was certainly nothing special. Her made-up blue eyes hid the sort of vain maliciousness that he was used to in rich girls. But she tried to put on the façade that she was something decent, and would twirl her petal-pink hair on her finger in some pathetic attempt to look innocent. Still, she was enough to pretend. He could be the pretend-prince-as he had always been, no matter what he did-and she could be his pretend-princess. Touga knew he didn't deserve anything more.

Some nights Michiko would come to him, purposefully walking in that way which always got her a man's attention. She'd coo and giggle and sit in his lap. He was always both aroused and deeply disgusted. They'd do it hard and fast-too long, and the fantasy would completely crumble. But when Touga was on top of her and she let her face be honest for just a moment, in that instant he could believe. And for that moment only, for the first time in the playboy's life, he was making love.