AnneOminous
Phoenix Proprietress
- Location
- Orlando, FL
- Pronouns
- She/They
Something is definitely happening between them. Just don't tell them, cuz they clearly haven't figured it out.
Phoenix: Reignited
- Thread starter AnneOminous
- Start date
- Mature Novel
AnneOminous
Phoenix Proprietress
- Location
- Orlando, FL
- Pronouns
- She/They
Awww! Thank you so much! <3
2.15: Empty Chairs at Empty Tables
New
AnneOminous
Phoenix Proprietress
- Location
- Orlando, FL
- Pronouns
- She/They
"Silent night, holy night!"
Ranko beamed to the capacity crowd as she finished Tatsuro Yamashita's Christmas Eve with its final English line. She appreciated having at least the occasional Japanese-language song in her lineup, though the options for Christmas songs in her native tongue were quite slim. At least I understand what the heck I'm talking about with this one. It had been a popular song that holiday season, owing to its heavy use in television commercials.
The effervescent redhead had been on stage for over two hours straight, and was close to wrapping up her second performance of the evening. The first show ran from 6:30 to 9:00, with a half-hour break to clear the bar and sell tickets for the second run through the twenty-one song setlist beginning at 9:30. Still, as tired as she was, Ranko was all waves and smiles as she bounced across her new stage platform, soaking in the cheers and affection of the second crowd of three-hundred-plus patrons that had packed the Phoenix - and its coffers - that evening.
"Okay, everybody," Ranko said into her microphone. "I've got time for one more song, and then I've gotta say good night and let everybody go home! Of course, this place is home, for all of us here at the Phoenix, and that's why it means so much to us all that you came out to celebrate with us tonight! After all, it wouldn't be Christmas without you!"
As she finished speaking, a backing track of jingle bells and a tambourine began playing through the bar's sound system. Ranko swayed on the stage, letting her fur-trimmed green dress dance playfully around her knees over the white lace petticoat Izumi had insisted she wear. She clapped her lace-gloved hands around her rhinestone-studded microphone, doing so gently both to prevent an audible thump on the microphone, and to protect her injured fingers.
A few seconds into the music, the track began a feminine vocal repeating just the singular word, "Christmas", every few beats, and Ranko began singing between the repetitions.
"The snow's coming down! I'm watching it fall! Lots of people around! Baby, please, come home!"
Come on, Ranko. Closing number. Gotta have a big finish. One more big push. You can do it. The young songstress threw herself fully into the performance, adding even more vocal runs and pushing her voice into as high of a register as she dared despite her weariness. She barely had energy to dance after five hours onstage, but she tried to make up for it with her voice and her thousand-watt smile.
Akane, sensing that her once-partner was struggling, stood and clapped along with the music. Just a few more minutes, and you can rest. Feed off of us, Ranko.
"They're singing 'deck the halls', but it's nothin' like Christmas at all, 'cause I remember when you were here…" Ranko flashed a smile at Akane, popping her hip to the side. "And all the fun that we had last year…"
Yui, Ayako, and Izumi darted frantically behind the twin bar counters, filling the final few drink orders before the concert ended. Ayako had to grab one patron by the wrist, encouraging him to blow out the blue flame atop his Dragonfire cocktail before wading back into the crowd for safety reasons.
"Baby, please, come home!"
Hana slipped back through the blue swinging door to her office, a pile of credit card slips and register printouts in her hand.
"Baby, please! Please! Please!"
Mei flipped a few switches, triggering a series of white, red and green strobe lights that flickered all around her younger sister.
"Baby, ple-e-e-e-eaaaaaase, come ho-o-o-ome!"
The stage lights blinked out, and in the dark, Ranko leaned forward. To the roaring audience, it looked as if she was bowing, but Akane knew better. The poor girl was slumped over from sheer exhaustion.
"RAN-KO! RAN-KO! RAN-KO!"
As the blue-haired woman behind the audio equipment raised the house lights, Ranko put on one final stage smile, waving to the crowd as she walked across the edge of the bar's new stage platform. She wanted to make eye contact with each and every person who had given up their night and paid money for no purpose other than to see her sing. "Thanks so much for coming out, everybody! Merry Christmas, we love you, and we'll see you right back here next time, at! The! Phooooooeeeeeeeeeeeeeeenix!"
The young songstress thrust her right fist in the air as the audience roared one final time, even as the folks standing closest to the front door began making their way to the exit. She didn't remember a single time in her life that she had ever felt so tired - or so happy.
Ranko leaned back in her chair, exhaling deeply. She was well and truly exhausted. It was one thing to alternate between singing and her waitress duties, but five hours of performance was draining and fulfilling in truly overwhelming measure. Her four adopted sisters, along with Akane and Izumi's fiancé Kaito, sat around the eight-top round table with her, sharing stories and highlights of the evening.
"Man," Yui said, chuckling as she sipped from a brown bottle of beer. "Forget tickets, we could've paid rent for a month if I'd charged a hundred yen every time somebody asked for Ranko's phone number!"
The redhead flushed, hiding her face in her lace-gloved hands. "Joke's on them! I don't even have a phone!" She didn't notice Akane cringe off to her left.
The barroom, which had been packed to bursting with people just two hours before, was empty save for the seven of them. Everyone had pitched in to put the place back to rights after the party, even Kaito and Akane. The tables and chairs that had been stacked in the corner of the bar had been restored to their proper places, and even the eight large cherry tables that had been hauled up to the rooftop had been carried down the stairs and placed back where they belonged. The floor was freshly swept and the bar counters wiped down. A mountain of glassware was stacked on the service bar close to the dishwasher, waiting for its droning to cease so another load could be run through it. It would probably take three or four loads of both the glassware dishwasher in the front and the commercial washer in the kitchen to get through all of them, but there was always the morning to finish it.
Mei looked around at her exhausted companions. Maybe it'll be the afternoon when we finish it instead, she thought with an intimidated sigh, cradling her head in her hands.
The conversations around the table ceased when the saloon doors opened and Hana emerged, a smile on her face. She wore a white tee shirt and black jeans, having left her trademark black leather jacket on the ratty old couch in her office. The old barkeep said nothing, heaving herself up onto one of the brown vinyl barstools with a grunt of effort and swiveling it to face her family.
After a few moments, Yui broke the tense silence. "Well, Mama?! How'd we do?!"
Hana held up a solar-powered digital calculator with a figure displayed on its little cerulean LCD screen. "We were hoping we'd bring in half of what we needed tonight. If my math is right, we're only about ninety thousand yen from having it all! You girls were absolutely incredible tonight, all of you! I am so proud of you all! And, Aya, Kaito, Akane, thank you so much for all your help tonight! We couldn't have done it without you."
Ayako grinned, shrugging her shoulders gently. As she did, her puffy green jacket fell off the back of her chair onto the floor. "It's what family does, Mama. All you ever had to do was ask."
Rubbing her chin, Yui turned back to the proprietress. "If we keep the themed Christmas drinks up for the rest of the week at a premium price, we might be able to make up that last few thousand, too!"
Izumi looked to her partner, who nodded with a smile, and Izumi stood up. "Actually… Mama?" She reached into the pocket of her long red skirt, pulling out a wad of bills. "Kaito and I would like to finish it off for you."
Hana blinked in shock. "Izzi, honey, no. You don't have to do that! You've got the wedding, and…"
The middle of the Phoenix' five daughters waved Hana off with her empty left hand. "I think we can live with a couple fewer floral arrangements if it means we can take the weight of this off your shoulders. It's the least we can do for you, Ma."
Kaito beamed, standing and putting his arm behind his future wife's back. "Call it a dowry, then, if it'll make you feel better."
"Might wanna rethink that, Kaito," Yui said with a chuckle, draining the rest of her beer into her mouth. "Izzi can get awfully fuckin' expensive."
"Don't I know it," Kaito replied with a loud belly laugh.
Izumi scowled in her partner's direction, giving him a playful punch in the arm. "Hey! Don't say that! It might be true, but… you don't have to admit it!"
A tear ran down Hana's cheek as she dismounted her stool and stepped forward, putting one of her arms around Izumi and the other around her future husband. "Thank you both, truly."
Izumi squeezed her back tightly, growling playfully into the hug. "No, Mama. Thank you. For everything. None of us would even be here without you."
The embrace ended after a few long moments, and Izumi counted out nine worn brown ten-thousand-yen notes, handing them to her mother. Hana slipped them into her pocket as she walked back to the bar counter, updating the total on her calculator. "Well, it looks like I've got bills to pay tomorrow!"
The table erupted in cheers and clapping.
Ayako grinned and raised her pint glass. "The Phoenix rises again!"
The rest of the bar's occupants whooped and raised their glasses and bottles as well, clinking them together over the table. Yui had to jog over to the bar counter and reach over it for a new bottle of beer in order to join in, but she was more than happy to oblige. She tapped it against Mei's pilsner glass before prying it open with a tool dangling from her belt and taking a long draught.
Ranko stood, picking up her green velvet Santa hat from the table and her black heeled boots from the floor. She stretched her arms upward with a loudly-vocalized yawn. Her speaking voice was a bit hoarse and scratchy, almost an octave lower than usual after so much time spent singing. "I don't know about you all, but I'm freakin' beat. I think it's bedtime for me."
She turned behind her, her cheeks afire as she grinned at the high schooler in the white sweater and red corduroy skirt. "Hey, Akane? Are you staying tonight?"
The black-haired girl nodded, her face flushed as well. "If you don't mind. The buses aren't running until morning, and I told Dad I'd be out all night." I wonder how his dinner with the mayor went. Shame I missed it, but I had somewhere more important to be, she thought with a soft smile.
Ranko beamed, her face warming further as Mei, Ayako and Yui made loud whistles and catcalls. "Oh, don't be gross, you girls! Of course I don't mind, Akane. C'mon, you."
As Akane stood, Izumi raised her martini glass again. "To the star of the Phoenix!" A series of cheers and whoops came from the table, and the sound of glass clinking could be heard as Ranko turned with a warm, if exhausted, smile.
"Good night, everybody." Ranko started to make for the saloon door, but she was stopped by a strong pair of hands on her shoulders. She looked up into Hana's eyes - far up, as the old barkeep had about a thirty-centimeter height advantage over her. "Hey, Mama."
Her eyes widened as Hana pulled her into the tightest hug Ranko had ever felt in her life. "Thank you, Ranko," Hana whispered as she squeezed her youngest daughter against her chest.
Ranko hugged the tall woman's waist in return. "After everything you've done for me, you honestly think you have to thank me for singing a few songs? Don't be ridiculous." She released the proprietress after a moment, glancing back at Akane with a smile before returning her eyes to the family's matriarch. "But, if you really want to do something nice for me? Let me go to bed before I fall over."
"You got it, little star," Hana said through a chuckle as she released the teenager. "Good night, Ranko."
"G'night everybody!" Ranko called again as she gave a half-effort wave, following Akane through the blue slatted door at a trudge and hanging a right to ascend the narrow staircase.
When both of them were behind the closed front door of her little apartment, Ranko dropped her shoes at the doorstep, plopping heavily onto the edge her bed. She had to catch her dress from poofing up indecently over her white lace petticoat. "Hopefully getting out of this getup doesn't take as long as getting into it did."
Akane giggled. "Usually not. I'll help you if you want."
Ranko blushed deeply. "Well, Akane… I…"
It was Akane's turn to be flustered. "I, ah… I didn't mean it like that, ya big dummy!"
Ranko gave a quiet, almost disappointed "hm." and turned to her mirror with a shrug, smiling up into the reflection of Akane's eyes from behind her.
"Hey, Ran… Ranko? Can I… ask you something?" Akane fidgeted with her hands as she took a step closer to the young singer.
Ranko started to reach behind herself to unzip her dress, but quickly stopped when she realized Akane hadn't continued, and that there was a timidity in her voice. She patted the bed next to her with a smile. "Of course." Something about hearing Akane call her by her new name always seemed to lift her spirits, as if it were a way of the old life she'd once known finally acquiescing to be replaced by the new.
Akane walked closer with a temerity usually reserved for the dentist, her hands clasped in front of her waist. She slowly sat down a half-meter or so from Ranko, smoothing the lavender duvet cover with her hands nervously. "Did you plan to bring me on stage tonight from the beginning?"
Shaking her head with a tinkling sound, having not yet taken down her braided hair or removed her clip-on jingle bell earrings in order to give Akane her undivided attention, Ranko shrugged her shoulders gently. "I added it just before I went on stage. I hope it's okay. I was really just trying to play around with you. The crowd freaking loved you. I'm sorry if it upset you."
Akane grinned impishly and looked down at her hands again, her crimson cheeks warm enough to melt butter. "Oh, no. It didn't upset me. Surprised me, for sure." She swallowed hard. She had one more question to ask, and she wasn't sure what answer she hoped for. "And what about, you know, what you said before the song? About me?"
The redhead nodded emphatically. "I meant every word. I should have said those things to you a long time ago, Akane. I've had a lot of time to think about the way I treated you when I lived with you. I was a jerk and I didn't know how mean some of the things I said really were at the time. You deserved better. You deserve better. I'm… I'm really sorry, Akane. For all of it."
Akane bobbed her head softly, scooting a little closer to the smaller girl. "Thank you, but you don't need to apologize." She swallowed hard. "Ranma was a jerk sometimes, it's true." Her hand slid across the duvet cover until it rested on Ranko's. She was gentle, careful not to put too much pressure on Ranko's injured knuckles. "But… Ranma's… not here right now, is he?"
Blushing a deeper shade of red than Akane's knee-length skirt, Ranko allowed the smallest of smiles to crack through her mien of shame and exhaustion. "I… I suppose not." She looked up from their joined hands to meet Akane's gaze. "Akane, what are y…"
Akane cut her off by leaning over their clasped hands, planting a quick, tentative kiss on her cheek.
Ranko beamed to the capacity crowd as she finished Tatsuro Yamashita's Christmas Eve with its final English line. She appreciated having at least the occasional Japanese-language song in her lineup, though the options for Christmas songs in her native tongue were quite slim. At least I understand what the heck I'm talking about with this one. It had been a popular song that holiday season, owing to its heavy use in television commercials.
The effervescent redhead had been on stage for over two hours straight, and was close to wrapping up her second performance of the evening. The first show ran from 6:30 to 9:00, with a half-hour break to clear the bar and sell tickets for the second run through the twenty-one song setlist beginning at 9:30. Still, as tired as she was, Ranko was all waves and smiles as she bounced across her new stage platform, soaking in the cheers and affection of the second crowd of three-hundred-plus patrons that had packed the Phoenix - and its coffers - that evening.
"Okay, everybody," Ranko said into her microphone. "I've got time for one more song, and then I've gotta say good night and let everybody go home! Of course, this place is home, for all of us here at the Phoenix, and that's why it means so much to us all that you came out to celebrate with us tonight! After all, it wouldn't be Christmas without you!"
As she finished speaking, a backing track of jingle bells and a tambourine began playing through the bar's sound system. Ranko swayed on the stage, letting her fur-trimmed green dress dance playfully around her knees over the white lace petticoat Izumi had insisted she wear. She clapped her lace-gloved hands around her rhinestone-studded microphone, doing so gently both to prevent an audible thump on the microphone, and to protect her injured fingers.
A few seconds into the music, the track began a feminine vocal repeating just the singular word, "Christmas", every few beats, and Ranko began singing between the repetitions.
"The snow's coming down! I'm watching it fall! Lots of people around! Baby, please, come home!"
Come on, Ranko. Closing number. Gotta have a big finish. One more big push. You can do it. The young songstress threw herself fully into the performance, adding even more vocal runs and pushing her voice into as high of a register as she dared despite her weariness. She barely had energy to dance after five hours onstage, but she tried to make up for it with her voice and her thousand-watt smile.
Akane, sensing that her once-partner was struggling, stood and clapped along with the music. Just a few more minutes, and you can rest. Feed off of us, Ranko.
"They're singing 'deck the halls', but it's nothin' like Christmas at all, 'cause I remember when you were here…" Ranko flashed a smile at Akane, popping her hip to the side. "And all the fun that we had last year…"
Yui, Ayako, and Izumi darted frantically behind the twin bar counters, filling the final few drink orders before the concert ended. Ayako had to grab one patron by the wrist, encouraging him to blow out the blue flame atop his Dragonfire cocktail before wading back into the crowd for safety reasons.
"Baby, please, come home!"
Hana slipped back through the blue swinging door to her office, a pile of credit card slips and register printouts in her hand.
"Baby, please! Please! Please!"
Mei flipped a few switches, triggering a series of white, red and green strobe lights that flickered all around her younger sister.
"Baby, ple-e-e-e-eaaaaaase, come ho-o-o-ome!"
The stage lights blinked out, and in the dark, Ranko leaned forward. To the roaring audience, it looked as if she was bowing, but Akane knew better. The poor girl was slumped over from sheer exhaustion.
"RAN-KO! RAN-KO! RAN-KO!"
As the blue-haired woman behind the audio equipment raised the house lights, Ranko put on one final stage smile, waving to the crowd as she walked across the edge of the bar's new stage platform. She wanted to make eye contact with each and every person who had given up their night and paid money for no purpose other than to see her sing. "Thanks so much for coming out, everybody! Merry Christmas, we love you, and we'll see you right back here next time, at! The! Phooooooeeeeeeeeeeeeeeenix!"
The young songstress thrust her right fist in the air as the audience roared one final time, even as the folks standing closest to the front door began making their way to the exit. She didn't remember a single time in her life that she had ever felt so tired - or so happy.
Ranko leaned back in her chair, exhaling deeply. She was well and truly exhausted. It was one thing to alternate between singing and her waitress duties, but five hours of performance was draining and fulfilling in truly overwhelming measure. Her four adopted sisters, along with Akane and Izumi's fiancé Kaito, sat around the eight-top round table with her, sharing stories and highlights of the evening.
"Man," Yui said, chuckling as she sipped from a brown bottle of beer. "Forget tickets, we could've paid rent for a month if I'd charged a hundred yen every time somebody asked for Ranko's phone number!"
The redhead flushed, hiding her face in her lace-gloved hands. "Joke's on them! I don't even have a phone!" She didn't notice Akane cringe off to her left.
The barroom, which had been packed to bursting with people just two hours before, was empty save for the seven of them. Everyone had pitched in to put the place back to rights after the party, even Kaito and Akane. The tables and chairs that had been stacked in the corner of the bar had been restored to their proper places, and even the eight large cherry tables that had been hauled up to the rooftop had been carried down the stairs and placed back where they belonged. The floor was freshly swept and the bar counters wiped down. A mountain of glassware was stacked on the service bar close to the dishwasher, waiting for its droning to cease so another load could be run through it. It would probably take three or four loads of both the glassware dishwasher in the front and the commercial washer in the kitchen to get through all of them, but there was always the morning to finish it.
Mei looked around at her exhausted companions. Maybe it'll be the afternoon when we finish it instead, she thought with an intimidated sigh, cradling her head in her hands.
The conversations around the table ceased when the saloon doors opened and Hana emerged, a smile on her face. She wore a white tee shirt and black jeans, having left her trademark black leather jacket on the ratty old couch in her office. The old barkeep said nothing, heaving herself up onto one of the brown vinyl barstools with a grunt of effort and swiveling it to face her family.
After a few moments, Yui broke the tense silence. "Well, Mama?! How'd we do?!"
Hana held up a solar-powered digital calculator with a figure displayed on its little cerulean LCD screen. "We were hoping we'd bring in half of what we needed tonight. If my math is right, we're only about ninety thousand yen from having it all! You girls were absolutely incredible tonight, all of you! I am so proud of you all! And, Aya, Kaito, Akane, thank you so much for all your help tonight! We couldn't have done it without you."
Ayako grinned, shrugging her shoulders gently. As she did, her puffy green jacket fell off the back of her chair onto the floor. "It's what family does, Mama. All you ever had to do was ask."
Rubbing her chin, Yui turned back to the proprietress. "If we keep the themed Christmas drinks up for the rest of the week at a premium price, we might be able to make up that last few thousand, too!"
Izumi looked to her partner, who nodded with a smile, and Izumi stood up. "Actually… Mama?" She reached into the pocket of her long red skirt, pulling out a wad of bills. "Kaito and I would like to finish it off for you."
Hana blinked in shock. "Izzi, honey, no. You don't have to do that! You've got the wedding, and…"
The middle of the Phoenix' five daughters waved Hana off with her empty left hand. "I think we can live with a couple fewer floral arrangements if it means we can take the weight of this off your shoulders. It's the least we can do for you, Ma."
Kaito beamed, standing and putting his arm behind his future wife's back. "Call it a dowry, then, if it'll make you feel better."
"Might wanna rethink that, Kaito," Yui said with a chuckle, draining the rest of her beer into her mouth. "Izzi can get awfully fuckin' expensive."
"Don't I know it," Kaito replied with a loud belly laugh.
Izumi scowled in her partner's direction, giving him a playful punch in the arm. "Hey! Don't say that! It might be true, but… you don't have to admit it!"
A tear ran down Hana's cheek as she dismounted her stool and stepped forward, putting one of her arms around Izumi and the other around her future husband. "Thank you both, truly."
Izumi squeezed her back tightly, growling playfully into the hug. "No, Mama. Thank you. For everything. None of us would even be here without you."
The embrace ended after a few long moments, and Izumi counted out nine worn brown ten-thousand-yen notes, handing them to her mother. Hana slipped them into her pocket as she walked back to the bar counter, updating the total on her calculator. "Well, it looks like I've got bills to pay tomorrow!"
The table erupted in cheers and clapping.
Ayako grinned and raised her pint glass. "The Phoenix rises again!"
The rest of the bar's occupants whooped and raised their glasses and bottles as well, clinking them together over the table. Yui had to jog over to the bar counter and reach over it for a new bottle of beer in order to join in, but she was more than happy to oblige. She tapped it against Mei's pilsner glass before prying it open with a tool dangling from her belt and taking a long draught.
Ranko stood, picking up her green velvet Santa hat from the table and her black heeled boots from the floor. She stretched her arms upward with a loudly-vocalized yawn. Her speaking voice was a bit hoarse and scratchy, almost an octave lower than usual after so much time spent singing. "I don't know about you all, but I'm freakin' beat. I think it's bedtime for me."
She turned behind her, her cheeks afire as she grinned at the high schooler in the white sweater and red corduroy skirt. "Hey, Akane? Are you staying tonight?"
The black-haired girl nodded, her face flushed as well. "If you don't mind. The buses aren't running until morning, and I told Dad I'd be out all night." I wonder how his dinner with the mayor went. Shame I missed it, but I had somewhere more important to be, she thought with a soft smile.
Ranko beamed, her face warming further as Mei, Ayako and Yui made loud whistles and catcalls. "Oh, don't be gross, you girls! Of course I don't mind, Akane. C'mon, you."
As Akane stood, Izumi raised her martini glass again. "To the star of the Phoenix!" A series of cheers and whoops came from the table, and the sound of glass clinking could be heard as Ranko turned with a warm, if exhausted, smile.
"Good night, everybody." Ranko started to make for the saloon door, but she was stopped by a strong pair of hands on her shoulders. She looked up into Hana's eyes - far up, as the old barkeep had about a thirty-centimeter height advantage over her. "Hey, Mama."
Her eyes widened as Hana pulled her into the tightest hug Ranko had ever felt in her life. "Thank you, Ranko," Hana whispered as she squeezed her youngest daughter against her chest.
Ranko hugged the tall woman's waist in return. "After everything you've done for me, you honestly think you have to thank me for singing a few songs? Don't be ridiculous." She released the proprietress after a moment, glancing back at Akane with a smile before returning her eyes to the family's matriarch. "But, if you really want to do something nice for me? Let me go to bed before I fall over."
"You got it, little star," Hana said through a chuckle as she released the teenager. "Good night, Ranko."
"G'night everybody!" Ranko called again as she gave a half-effort wave, following Akane through the blue slatted door at a trudge and hanging a right to ascend the narrow staircase.
When both of them were behind the closed front door of her little apartment, Ranko dropped her shoes at the doorstep, plopping heavily onto the edge her bed. She had to catch her dress from poofing up indecently over her white lace petticoat. "Hopefully getting out of this getup doesn't take as long as getting into it did."
Akane giggled. "Usually not. I'll help you if you want."
Ranko blushed deeply. "Well, Akane… I…"
It was Akane's turn to be flustered. "I, ah… I didn't mean it like that, ya big dummy!"
Ranko gave a quiet, almost disappointed "hm." and turned to her mirror with a shrug, smiling up into the reflection of Akane's eyes from behind her.
"Hey, Ran… Ranko? Can I… ask you something?" Akane fidgeted with her hands as she took a step closer to the young singer.
Ranko started to reach behind herself to unzip her dress, but quickly stopped when she realized Akane hadn't continued, and that there was a timidity in her voice. She patted the bed next to her with a smile. "Of course." Something about hearing Akane call her by her new name always seemed to lift her spirits, as if it were a way of the old life she'd once known finally acquiescing to be replaced by the new.
Akane walked closer with a temerity usually reserved for the dentist, her hands clasped in front of her waist. She slowly sat down a half-meter or so from Ranko, smoothing the lavender duvet cover with her hands nervously. "Did you plan to bring me on stage tonight from the beginning?"
Shaking her head with a tinkling sound, having not yet taken down her braided hair or removed her clip-on jingle bell earrings in order to give Akane her undivided attention, Ranko shrugged her shoulders gently. "I added it just before I went on stage. I hope it's okay. I was really just trying to play around with you. The crowd freaking loved you. I'm sorry if it upset you."
Akane grinned impishly and looked down at her hands again, her crimson cheeks warm enough to melt butter. "Oh, no. It didn't upset me. Surprised me, for sure." She swallowed hard. She had one more question to ask, and she wasn't sure what answer she hoped for. "And what about, you know, what you said before the song? About me?"
The redhead nodded emphatically. "I meant every word. I should have said those things to you a long time ago, Akane. I've had a lot of time to think about the way I treated you when I lived with you. I was a jerk and I didn't know how mean some of the things I said really were at the time. You deserved better. You deserve better. I'm… I'm really sorry, Akane. For all of it."
Akane bobbed her head softly, scooting a little closer to the smaller girl. "Thank you, but you don't need to apologize." She swallowed hard. "Ranma was a jerk sometimes, it's true." Her hand slid across the duvet cover until it rested on Ranko's. She was gentle, careful not to put too much pressure on Ranko's injured knuckles. "But… Ranma's… not here right now, is he?"
Blushing a deeper shade of red than Akane's knee-length skirt, Ranko allowed the smallest of smiles to crack through her mien of shame and exhaustion. "I… I suppose not." She looked up from their joined hands to meet Akane's gaze. "Akane, what are y…"
Akane cut her off by leaning over their clasped hands, planting a quick, tentative kiss on her cheek.
- Location
- Maryland
I love the tentative expressions with Akane and Ranko at the end. Even with knowledge of the possible future, I am so rooting for them!
AnneOminous
Phoenix Proprietress
- Location
- Orlando, FL
- Pronouns
- She/They
Hey everybody - New Year's Eve got away from me and I missed my post. Bad girl! I'll have chapter 2.16 up shortly...
AnneOminous
Phoenix Proprietress
- Location
- Orlando, FL
- Pronouns
- She/They
We'll see. Ranko isn't really messing around in that world too much right now.
2.16: Pillow Talk
New
AnneOminous
Phoenix Proprietress
- Location
- Orlando, FL
- Pronouns
- She/They
Ranko blinked her eyes open, reacclimating to her surroundings after a blissful few hours of sleep. Man, my dreams were freakin' crazy last night. I could have sworn that Akane… She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, and when they opened again, they fell on her bedroll, still rolled up tightly on the floor. Wait. Why would that be there, unless…
She started to move her arm tentatively, but found she couldn't, as it was being pinned down by the left arm of the person holding her from behind. Her eyes jolted open, and she rolled over on her back to look behind her.
Holy shit. It was real.
Her mind raced through her memories of the evening. After the show, Akane… kissed me. She just helped me out of my outfit, we blushed and stammered at each other for twenty minutes, and we went to bed. I was gonna sleep on the floor, but she invited me to share the bed. We were both girls, so it's okay, right? Nothing else happened. It's not like we had sex or anything… hell, how would two girls even… Ranko shook her head, careful not to let her ponytail fly back and strike the sleeping Akane's face. Yui would know. She swallowed hard enough for her gulp to be audible. Not like I need to know! Not thinking about that! Nope! She'd never want to…
She looked up at the bathroom door, sighing contemplatively as she snuggled back under the lavender duvet cover that enveloped both girls. I really gotta pee, but I don't wanna get up. This feels really nice. Really nice. Doesn't have to be anything gross about it. It's always cold up here at night, and she's so warm. And it just feels good to have somebody… hold me like this. It feels… safe. Plus, if I get up, it'll wake her up.
Ranko played with the white ribbon that still adorned her braided pigtail, sighing happily. After a moment, she scooted backward, ever so gently, until her yellow nightshirt touched the green one she'd loaned Akane. She felt her muscles relax at the touch of the larger girl against her back, and the sleeping woman unconsciously squeezed a bit with the arm draped over Ranko's waist. An involuntary purr escaped the redhead's lips as she was held. Ranko lay there quiet and still for about twenty more minutes before Akane finally stirred.
Akane sat up with a stretch, the pale green nightshirt she had borrowed from Ranko sliding up her arms and barely exposing her white satin panties. "Mmm. Good morning."
Ranko rolled over, smiling up at her companion. "Good morning to you, too." There was a contented glow about her as she lay on her back in her yellow nightshirt, her pigtail laying across her chest. "Want some breakfast?"
Akane shook her head, smiling down at the redhead through a yawn. "Not right now. Thanks, though." I don't want her to get up yet. It feels really good, just being close like this.
The redhead sat up in bed next to Akane, resting her back against the headboard and pulling the duvet back up around her waist. "Akane… about last night…"
Akane blushed, hiding her face behind her splayed fingers and her bed-matted bangs. "I don't know what came over me. I'm really sorry."
Resting her hand on Akane's, Ranko turned her head and gazed sincerely into a pair of smiling brown eyes. "I guess, what I wanted to say is, I'm not."
"Y…you're not?" Akane gasped audibly. "But…"
The redhead shook her head, grateful to no longer sound like a wind chime in a hurricane when she did so owing to her clip-on jingle bell earrings having been removed. "It was… kind of nice, actually. Just unexpected."
Akane swallowed hard, stammering as she fidgeted nervously with her fingers in her lap. "Well, I, ahh, I didn't mean to… I… I should have…"
Her voice quieted when Ranko laid her index finger across her lips. "Shh. Come here." Ranko removed her finger from Akane's lips, closing her eyes and softly kissing her in the spot her finger had just vacated. Holy crap, holy crap, she's not hitting me or nothin'... this is really happening!
Akane was smiling through bright red cheeks when Ranko pulled back out of the kiss. "Well, that was nice."
Ranko nodded. "For me, too." She bit her lip, looking down at her hands with a coy simper. "So… what does this mean? Like, for us?"
"I don't know," Akane said with a shrug, brushing her bangs out of her eyes with her fingers. "What do you want it to mean?"
Sighing heavily, Ranko slumped her shoulders in disappointment. "I'm not sure it matters. We both know it can't happen. Not with me like… this."
Akane rested her hand on the redhead's back, rubbing it reassuringly through her thin cotton night shirt. "I'm willing to try if you are, Ranko."
Ranko blinked up at her in shock. "Y…you are?!"
A nod and a smile came in reply. "Mm-hmm! What about you?"
Diving forward, Ranko wrapped her arms around the black-haired girl, squeezing her tightly enough to almost void the air from her lungs.
Akane hugged back, laughing and kicking her feet excitedly. "I take it that's a yes?"
Ranko let go, sitting up and looking Akane in the face. Taking both of Akane's hands in hers in the space between their laps, Ranko nodded with an ear-to-ear smile. "Yes."
The elder girl smiled brightly, but her expression faded a few moments later as a harsh reality set in. "So, what do we do now? We can't just go back to how things were before, obviously. We're both girls now. Our parents don't even know you're alive."
Ranko laid her head in Akane's lap, resting her right ear on Akane's thigh with a heavy sigh. "For now, let's keep it between us. Just until we figure out what it all means and what to do. But right now, this minute, I don't care what we call it. Worrying about that bullshit with labels and pressure and crap is what got us in trouble last time, back when I lived at your place. For now, all I need to know is, whatever it is, I just don't want it to end."
Akane took a moment to consider her words, and she was right. The couple had been deemed to be engaged by their parents less than two hours after they met, and the pressure it added to their relationship had caused nothing but problems. I've often wondered what would've happened between us if Dad and Mr. Saotome had just butted out and let us figure it out for ourselves, Akane mused. Maybe this is our chance. Although… it's certainly a little different now. "You're right. I care about you, you care about me, and for now, the rest can take care of itself."
No idea how that's actually gonna happen, but… Ranko curled her knees tighter into her chest as Akane idly stroked her hair. I've been thinking about it for weeks, ever since she came that first time. Ever since Nabiki found me, really. Kinda bullshit if you ask me; the minute I accept that I'm stuck as a girl and there's no way I could ever be with her, here she comes, and… She wrapped her arms around Akane's knee. If there was a way, I'd have thought of it by now.
"Now, are you going to get off of me so I can go to the bathroom?" Akane poked the redhead gently on her shoulder. "You're cute and all, but…"
Ranko scooted closer to her, nuzzling her cheek on Akane's thigh as she pulled the down duvet cover up to her shoulders. "Nope. It's too cold."
Akane chuckled. "Listen here, you little brat, I'm gonna…" Her voice devolved into uncontrolled giggling as Ranko reached up and began tickling her ribs at lightning speed. "Hey! Stop that, you!" Akane squirmed, but could not escape Ranko's lightning-quick hands until she was ultimately shown mercy a few moments later.
The roughhousing caused Ranko's still-damaged hand to ache, but the young songstress didn't care much. At least being distracted with the concert and everything, she never made me tell her about Mikado. Last thing I wanna do is look her in the face and think about that asshole again, Ranko thought. I beat him, Akane. I made sure he can't ever hurt me or the people I love ever again. Not Mei, and not… Her breath caught in her throat as she realized exactly who else she had included in the people I love category.
Finally released from Ranko's grasp, Akane stood and walked into the little bathroom. She left the door open for the moment, gazing into the wall-mounted mirror behind the countertop. Her hair was a chaotic mess and the minimal makeup she had worn to the concert was long removed, washed away before the pair went to bed the night before. "Yeesh! I'm a total freakin' wreck."
Ranko shrugged. "Well, I think you're cute."
Akane blushed, popping her head back out of the bathroom. Her face was painted with stunned shock. She's never said that to me! In fact, she usually says the opposite, quite often. "Y... you do?"
Ranko nodded emphatically, beaming at the elder girl. "Yep. Bed head and all."
Akane tried again to tame her hair with her fingers, smirking. "You know, you're pretty cute yourself, missy." She closed the bathroom door as she finished speaking, flashing a wink in Ranko's direction just before the doorknob latched shut.
It was Ranko's turn to blush. In all the times she'd inhabited her now-seemingly-permanent feminine form, she couldn't remember a time where she had expressly wanted to be cute. There had been plenty of times where her appearance or affected feminine mannerisms had proven advantageous as a means to an end, but never had she wanted cuteness for its own sake. At that moment, nothing in the world sounded better, as long as the compliment came from Akane. If I'm gonna subject Akane to all of the stress and bullshit that could come with being with another girl, I damn sure wanna be worth it, she decided. The resolution brought up another question that darkened her heart, and her eyes drooped to the bed. "Is… is that what you want from me?"
Akane opened the bathroom door, giving Ranko a quizzical look and speaking over the sound of the toilet refilling. "What do you mean?"
Aw, man, Ranko thought. You're actually gonna make me say it out loud, Akane?! "I… how to say this?" She bounced her leg on the bed nervously. "I mean… We're both girls. Nothing's gonna change that now."
"Yeah, I think we've established that," Akane said with a slow nod. She retrieved her red knee-length skirt and white sweater from Ranko's open closet, taking a seat back on the edge of the bed. "I thought we were past it."
Ranko frowned, furrowing her brow as she turned her eyes away from Akane to let her dress in privacy. "That's not what I mean." She swallowed hard, picking at a bit of green fingernail polish that had strayed onto her cuticle. "Like, how do you want me to be?"
Having pulled off her borrowed nightshirt, Akane fastened her powder blue bra behind her back and swiveled on the bed. "Ran-chan, you're not making sense. I don't understand what you're asking me." She rested a hand on Ranko's shoulder tentatively, paying no mind to her state of undress.
Ranko looked down and off toward the dinette table rather than turning and risking being accused of peeping. There was a shame in her voice and on her face that Akane had not noticed at any point since Ranko's last night as a guest in her father's home. "Like… Do you expect me to act like a guy again if we're together? I mean, as far as I know, you don't, ya know, like girls. Not like that, anyway."
Akane cringed. That had to have been hard for her to ask, considering everything. "Ranko, listen to me. Look at me. It's okay."
The redhead lifted her eyes from her hands and met Akane's, careful not to let her gaze stray southward at the lithe woman sitting on her bed in nothing but her underwear.
"I don't like girls," Akane began. "I don't like most guys, either. But I like you. I expect you to be you. You're… we're… still learning who that is right now, and that's okay. I'm not exactly a Disney princess all the time either, as this jerk of a boy I used to know was always saying."
She smirked, hoping the moment of levity eased the tension for Ranko. "You are a girl now, and I have no more right to make you act like a boy than you would have to make me be one." Akane leaned over the bed, playing with the ribbon in Ranko's cherry-red hair. "If you want to be cute, then you be cute. If you want to be a tomboy, then do that. But whatever you do, do it for you. Not for me, or Izumi, or anybody but you. If you do that, you'll be amazing no matter how you turn out, and I'll be happy to be along for the ride." As she spoke, she slipped her corduroy skirt up her legs, lifting her backside up on the mattress to shimmy it up to her waist.
Ranko smiled, her cheeks aflame as she took a moment to consider Akane's words. Do I actually want to be… cute? To be… pretty? I mean, if I'm gonna be on stage… but I mean, there's punky girls that do like all black and baggy jeans and stuff and still do music. So I don't have to go all bubblegum princess if I want to sing. But…
"Thanks, Akane," she said, a tentative halt in her voice. "I think… I think I like where I am right now. I mean, it's a lot. The clothes and the makeup and all of that is just so much more… complicated… for girls. I'm not sure I'm gonna do it right. But… even before the Cat's Tongue, I spent the last few years feeling like I couldn't fully be a guy, and I couldn't really be a girl either. So now, I kind of just want to settle into one and do it right, ya know? Feel normal?"
Akane slipped her sweater over her head and stood, walking toward Ranko's closet. She started idly flipping through outfits, looking back over her shoulder at the redhead with a mischievous grin. "Then, I suppose we'd better find my totally normal girlfriend something really pretty to wear, huh?"
She started to move her arm tentatively, but found she couldn't, as it was being pinned down by the left arm of the person holding her from behind. Her eyes jolted open, and she rolled over on her back to look behind her.
Holy shit. It was real.
Her mind raced through her memories of the evening. After the show, Akane… kissed me. She just helped me out of my outfit, we blushed and stammered at each other for twenty minutes, and we went to bed. I was gonna sleep on the floor, but she invited me to share the bed. We were both girls, so it's okay, right? Nothing else happened. It's not like we had sex or anything… hell, how would two girls even… Ranko shook her head, careful not to let her ponytail fly back and strike the sleeping Akane's face. Yui would know. She swallowed hard enough for her gulp to be audible. Not like I need to know! Not thinking about that! Nope! She'd never want to…
She looked up at the bathroom door, sighing contemplatively as she snuggled back under the lavender duvet cover that enveloped both girls. I really gotta pee, but I don't wanna get up. This feels really nice. Really nice. Doesn't have to be anything gross about it. It's always cold up here at night, and she's so warm. And it just feels good to have somebody… hold me like this. It feels… safe. Plus, if I get up, it'll wake her up.
Ranko played with the white ribbon that still adorned her braided pigtail, sighing happily. After a moment, she scooted backward, ever so gently, until her yellow nightshirt touched the green one she'd loaned Akane. She felt her muscles relax at the touch of the larger girl against her back, and the sleeping woman unconsciously squeezed a bit with the arm draped over Ranko's waist. An involuntary purr escaped the redhead's lips as she was held. Ranko lay there quiet and still for about twenty more minutes before Akane finally stirred.
Akane sat up with a stretch, the pale green nightshirt she had borrowed from Ranko sliding up her arms and barely exposing her white satin panties. "Mmm. Good morning."
Ranko rolled over, smiling up at her companion. "Good morning to you, too." There was a contented glow about her as she lay on her back in her yellow nightshirt, her pigtail laying across her chest. "Want some breakfast?"
Akane shook her head, smiling down at the redhead through a yawn. "Not right now. Thanks, though." I don't want her to get up yet. It feels really good, just being close like this.
The redhead sat up in bed next to Akane, resting her back against the headboard and pulling the duvet back up around her waist. "Akane… about last night…"
Akane blushed, hiding her face behind her splayed fingers and her bed-matted bangs. "I don't know what came over me. I'm really sorry."
Resting her hand on Akane's, Ranko turned her head and gazed sincerely into a pair of smiling brown eyes. "I guess, what I wanted to say is, I'm not."
"Y…you're not?" Akane gasped audibly. "But…"
The redhead shook her head, grateful to no longer sound like a wind chime in a hurricane when she did so owing to her clip-on jingle bell earrings having been removed. "It was… kind of nice, actually. Just unexpected."
Akane swallowed hard, stammering as she fidgeted nervously with her fingers in her lap. "Well, I, ahh, I didn't mean to… I… I should have…"
Her voice quieted when Ranko laid her index finger across her lips. "Shh. Come here." Ranko removed her finger from Akane's lips, closing her eyes and softly kissing her in the spot her finger had just vacated. Holy crap, holy crap, she's not hitting me or nothin'... this is really happening!
Akane was smiling through bright red cheeks when Ranko pulled back out of the kiss. "Well, that was nice."
Ranko nodded. "For me, too." She bit her lip, looking down at her hands with a coy simper. "So… what does this mean? Like, for us?"
"I don't know," Akane said with a shrug, brushing her bangs out of her eyes with her fingers. "What do you want it to mean?"
Sighing heavily, Ranko slumped her shoulders in disappointment. "I'm not sure it matters. We both know it can't happen. Not with me like… this."
Akane rested her hand on the redhead's back, rubbing it reassuringly through her thin cotton night shirt. "I'm willing to try if you are, Ranko."
Ranko blinked up at her in shock. "Y…you are?!"
A nod and a smile came in reply. "Mm-hmm! What about you?"
Diving forward, Ranko wrapped her arms around the black-haired girl, squeezing her tightly enough to almost void the air from her lungs.
Akane hugged back, laughing and kicking her feet excitedly. "I take it that's a yes?"
Ranko let go, sitting up and looking Akane in the face. Taking both of Akane's hands in hers in the space between their laps, Ranko nodded with an ear-to-ear smile. "Yes."
The elder girl smiled brightly, but her expression faded a few moments later as a harsh reality set in. "So, what do we do now? We can't just go back to how things were before, obviously. We're both girls now. Our parents don't even know you're alive."
Ranko laid her head in Akane's lap, resting her right ear on Akane's thigh with a heavy sigh. "For now, let's keep it between us. Just until we figure out what it all means and what to do. But right now, this minute, I don't care what we call it. Worrying about that bullshit with labels and pressure and crap is what got us in trouble last time, back when I lived at your place. For now, all I need to know is, whatever it is, I just don't want it to end."
Akane took a moment to consider her words, and she was right. The couple had been deemed to be engaged by their parents less than two hours after they met, and the pressure it added to their relationship had caused nothing but problems. I've often wondered what would've happened between us if Dad and Mr. Saotome had just butted out and let us figure it out for ourselves, Akane mused. Maybe this is our chance. Although… it's certainly a little different now. "You're right. I care about you, you care about me, and for now, the rest can take care of itself."
No idea how that's actually gonna happen, but… Ranko curled her knees tighter into her chest as Akane idly stroked her hair. I've been thinking about it for weeks, ever since she came that first time. Ever since Nabiki found me, really. Kinda bullshit if you ask me; the minute I accept that I'm stuck as a girl and there's no way I could ever be with her, here she comes, and… She wrapped her arms around Akane's knee. If there was a way, I'd have thought of it by now.
"Now, are you going to get off of me so I can go to the bathroom?" Akane poked the redhead gently on her shoulder. "You're cute and all, but…"
Ranko scooted closer to her, nuzzling her cheek on Akane's thigh as she pulled the down duvet cover up to her shoulders. "Nope. It's too cold."
Akane chuckled. "Listen here, you little brat, I'm gonna…" Her voice devolved into uncontrolled giggling as Ranko reached up and began tickling her ribs at lightning speed. "Hey! Stop that, you!" Akane squirmed, but could not escape Ranko's lightning-quick hands until she was ultimately shown mercy a few moments later.
The roughhousing caused Ranko's still-damaged hand to ache, but the young songstress didn't care much. At least being distracted with the concert and everything, she never made me tell her about Mikado. Last thing I wanna do is look her in the face and think about that asshole again, Ranko thought. I beat him, Akane. I made sure he can't ever hurt me or the people I love ever again. Not Mei, and not… Her breath caught in her throat as she realized exactly who else she had included in the people I love category.
Finally released from Ranko's grasp, Akane stood and walked into the little bathroom. She left the door open for the moment, gazing into the wall-mounted mirror behind the countertop. Her hair was a chaotic mess and the minimal makeup she had worn to the concert was long removed, washed away before the pair went to bed the night before. "Yeesh! I'm a total freakin' wreck."
Ranko shrugged. "Well, I think you're cute."
Akane blushed, popping her head back out of the bathroom. Her face was painted with stunned shock. She's never said that to me! In fact, she usually says the opposite, quite often. "Y... you do?"
Ranko nodded emphatically, beaming at the elder girl. "Yep. Bed head and all."
Akane tried again to tame her hair with her fingers, smirking. "You know, you're pretty cute yourself, missy." She closed the bathroom door as she finished speaking, flashing a wink in Ranko's direction just before the doorknob latched shut.
It was Ranko's turn to blush. In all the times she'd inhabited her now-seemingly-permanent feminine form, she couldn't remember a time where she had expressly wanted to be cute. There had been plenty of times where her appearance or affected feminine mannerisms had proven advantageous as a means to an end, but never had she wanted cuteness for its own sake. At that moment, nothing in the world sounded better, as long as the compliment came from Akane. If I'm gonna subject Akane to all of the stress and bullshit that could come with being with another girl, I damn sure wanna be worth it, she decided. The resolution brought up another question that darkened her heart, and her eyes drooped to the bed. "Is… is that what you want from me?"
Akane opened the bathroom door, giving Ranko a quizzical look and speaking over the sound of the toilet refilling. "What do you mean?"
Aw, man, Ranko thought. You're actually gonna make me say it out loud, Akane?! "I… how to say this?" She bounced her leg on the bed nervously. "I mean… We're both girls. Nothing's gonna change that now."
"Yeah, I think we've established that," Akane said with a slow nod. She retrieved her red knee-length skirt and white sweater from Ranko's open closet, taking a seat back on the edge of the bed. "I thought we were past it."
Ranko frowned, furrowing her brow as she turned her eyes away from Akane to let her dress in privacy. "That's not what I mean." She swallowed hard, picking at a bit of green fingernail polish that had strayed onto her cuticle. "Like, how do you want me to be?"
Having pulled off her borrowed nightshirt, Akane fastened her powder blue bra behind her back and swiveled on the bed. "Ran-chan, you're not making sense. I don't understand what you're asking me." She rested a hand on Ranko's shoulder tentatively, paying no mind to her state of undress.
Ranko looked down and off toward the dinette table rather than turning and risking being accused of peeping. There was a shame in her voice and on her face that Akane had not noticed at any point since Ranko's last night as a guest in her father's home. "Like… Do you expect me to act like a guy again if we're together? I mean, as far as I know, you don't, ya know, like girls. Not like that, anyway."
Akane cringed. That had to have been hard for her to ask, considering everything. "Ranko, listen to me. Look at me. It's okay."
The redhead lifted her eyes from her hands and met Akane's, careful not to let her gaze stray southward at the lithe woman sitting on her bed in nothing but her underwear.
"I don't like girls," Akane began. "I don't like most guys, either. But I like you. I expect you to be you. You're… we're… still learning who that is right now, and that's okay. I'm not exactly a Disney princess all the time either, as this jerk of a boy I used to know was always saying."
She smirked, hoping the moment of levity eased the tension for Ranko. "You are a girl now, and I have no more right to make you act like a boy than you would have to make me be one." Akane leaned over the bed, playing with the ribbon in Ranko's cherry-red hair. "If you want to be cute, then you be cute. If you want to be a tomboy, then do that. But whatever you do, do it for you. Not for me, or Izumi, or anybody but you. If you do that, you'll be amazing no matter how you turn out, and I'll be happy to be along for the ride." As she spoke, she slipped her corduroy skirt up her legs, lifting her backside up on the mattress to shimmy it up to her waist.
Ranko smiled, her cheeks aflame as she took a moment to consider Akane's words. Do I actually want to be… cute? To be… pretty? I mean, if I'm gonna be on stage… but I mean, there's punky girls that do like all black and baggy jeans and stuff and still do music. So I don't have to go all bubblegum princess if I want to sing. But…
"Thanks, Akane," she said, a tentative halt in her voice. "I think… I think I like where I am right now. I mean, it's a lot. The clothes and the makeup and all of that is just so much more… complicated… for girls. I'm not sure I'm gonna do it right. But… even before the Cat's Tongue, I spent the last few years feeling like I couldn't fully be a guy, and I couldn't really be a girl either. So now, I kind of just want to settle into one and do it right, ya know? Feel normal?"
Akane slipped her sweater over her head and stood, walking toward Ranko's closet. She started idly flipping through outfits, looking back over her shoulder at the redhead with a mischievous grin. "Then, I suppose we'd better find my totally normal girlfriend something really pretty to wear, huh?"
AnneOminous
Phoenix Proprietress
- Location
- Orlando, FL
- Pronouns
- She/They
I am so very sorry that today's chapter is late! New Year's really... hit me hard in a lot of ways. But, I'm back - and we'll have a regular chapter drop tomorrow, too.
AnneOminous
Phoenix Proprietress
- Location
- Orlando, FL
- Pronouns
- She/They
The start of a brand-new arc in Reignited! I'm so excited about these next few chapters; Ayako has long been a gaping hole in Phoenix and I'm looking forward to letting you all get to know her better!
Also… Happy New Year, Firebirds! Hope 2025 is amazing for you all!
Also… Happy New Year, Firebirds! Hope 2025 is amazing for you all!
2.17: Checking It Twice
New
AnneOminous
Phoenix Proprietress
- Location
- Orlando, FL
- Pronouns
- She/They
Ranko sighed, rubbing her eyes as she waited for the ceramic tea kettle to whistle on the two-burner glass cooktop in her apartment. Come on. Go faster. I still gotta let you cool some before I can put you in my face, and I need caffeine, like, urgently, she thought.
Remembering something Kasumi used to say about watched kettles never boiling, she wandered back to the narrow bathroom at the far corner of the little studio apartment above the Phoenix, setting to work brushing her hair. Gods, it looks like freakin' ferrets nested in it. I really gotta start washing the hair spray out before I go to bed. She'd opted against a shower before bed, owing both to it being almost three in the morning by the time she and her sisters had finished cleaning up the bar, and not wanting to go to bed with wet hair.
Grateful though she was to have the apartment and not still be living on the street, the old brick buiiding's central heating system was optimized for the bar area downstairs, and her room still got quite chilly at night in late December. It didn't help that she owned nearly no warm clothes, as nearly everything she possessed, and everything she'd been loaned by Izumi, had been intended for the stage. I just need to convince Izzi that boys find sweat pants and a soft, fuzzy sweater sexy, and I'm golden, she mused hopefully.
I mean, I used to be a boy, and I did. When it was Akane wearin' it, at least.
Her cheeks flushed hot, and she hid them in her hands even though no one was in the apartment with her to see them.
Ranko wore the warmest outfit she did own, a mauve sweater dress that came nearly to the middle of her calves. She had tried to wear her black gi pants under it to add an extra layer, but they kept bunching uncomfortably under the dress. Beyond that, the two fabrics rubbing against each other kept producing static electricity that periodically zapped her as she touched random surfaces. Better to shiver than spark, she presumed.
Having declared styling her still-tacky hair to be a lost cause and coaxed it back into a simple ponytail, she emerged from the bathroom just as her tea kettle began to whistle. Freakin' finally! She took it off the burner carefully, pouring its contents into a teapot at the maximum extension of her arm. Hot, hot hot hot! Not today, boy mode and agony. Not today.
While her tea steeped, Ranko opened her half-size refrigerator, sticking her head in it to look around. Eggs. Eggs. Where are you, eggs? Crap, did I use them all?
"Ranko?!" A loud rapping came at the front door of the little shoebox of a studio apartment. "You up?"
The redhead jumped, startled by the sudden sound, and struck the back of her head on the roof of the refrigerator's cold compartment with a hollow bonk.
"Owww… Come in…" Ranko was still rubbing the back of her skull and blushing when the door swung inward and Ayako entered in a white cable-knit turtleneck sweater and a pair of black jeans.
"Good morning, little sister!" Ayako grinned, tossing a brown paper bag onto the white pine dinette table and setting a clear plastic cup of brown liquid next to it. "Breakfast is served!"
Ranko beamed, opening the bag and finding her sense of smell had not betrayed her. She extracted a large chocolate muffin, still warm from the oven, from the bag and shoved a straw down into the cup of iced coffee. "Aya, have I told you lately that you're my favorite sister?" she asked with her mouth still full of the first bite.
The taller woman chuckled, shaking her head. "No, but clearly, it's because my pastry deliveries have been slow in coming." She motioned to her younger sister's attire. "That dress is so freaking cute on you."
Ranko shrugged, swallowing. "Thanks. It's just warmer than most'a what I have. It gets a little chilly up here sometimes."
Ayako cringed a little, nodding as she watched her sister shiver through her breakfast. "Yeah, you're right. I should have remembered we emptied the place out when Mei moved in with Yui. There used to be extra blankets in the closet, but Mei took them with her. I'm sorry. We should have thought of it. We'll get you some new ones, promise, and maybe a space heater too, if you need. But, hurry up and eat. We got a busy day planned."
"News to me," Ranko said. "We handled most of the cleanup last night, so… what am I missing? And what are you even doing here?"
With a dismissive wave of her hand, Ayako slipped into the dinette chair opposite her sister. "Baby, you just single-handedly saved the bar. I think it's probably earned you a day off. And I'm taking you shopping. After all, it's almost Christmas. Only a few days left!"
Ranko frowned, her shoulders slumping over her half-eaten muffin. "Yeah, about that. I… don't really have too much money. As it is, I've been trying to get a few things I need here and there when I get paid, but there's not a lot of extra."
Again, Ayako waved her sister's protest away with the back of her hand. "I kinda thought you'd say something like that, but don't worry about it. I'm the big sister. It's my job to take care of you for your first Christmas with us. I'll spot ya enough to get some gifts for everybody. It'll be our little secret."
The redhead's eyes bulged and her cheeks reddened around the straw in her mouth. "Aya, I can't ask you to do that. I'm…"
"Hush," Ayako said with a soft smile. "You weren't asking. I was insisting. C'mon. I've been there. I know it's not a great feeling when you're just getting started and you're broke around Christmas time. I wanna help, honey. Besides, it's a good excuse to just hang out with you. I feel bad; I've been so preoccupied with Kage and his family and everything that I haven't had much time to spend getting to know my new baby sister. I'm sorry about that."
Ayako grinned broadly at the sight of Ranko's further blushing. "I feel like I'm closer to Yui, Izzi and Mei because I've spent more time with them, and I'm sure you feel that way, too, but I don't want that for us. You're my family, too, Ran-chan. I love you just as much as our other sisters."
Ranko shrugged, but she couldn't help cracking a gentle smile at the idea. "It's okay. I know you're busy and everything. I didn't, like, take offense or anything. I mean, you're a newlywed, and I'm… well, whatever I am, I guess."
Ayako stood, walking to the kitchenette counter as Ranko popped the last bite of her muffin into her mouth. She returned a moment later, walking up behind the redhead and plopping her green velvet hat onto her head. Its white faux fur trim tickled Ranko's skin between her eyes. "Come on, Santa. Sleigh's a-waitin'."
"Here, we know that Christmas will be green and bright! The sun will shine by day, and all the stars at night! Mele kalikimaka is the wise way to say Merry Christmas to you!"
Ranko giggled as she sang along with the car radio and waved her arms in front of herself, letting her wrists flow like waves over the dashboard of Ayako's black Honda Civic. She only occasionally flubbed the lyrics, despite the fact that she was largely just mimicking the sounds of the unfamiliar English vocabulary. Her backside wiggled in the tan vinyl seat, doing the best impression of a hula dance that her seat belt would allow.
Ayako pulled the car into one of the vacant parking spaces in front of the Shibuya shopping mall where, just barely a month ago, Izumi had given Ranko her first real outing as a woman. The place was a bustle of activity, with people frantically darting to and fro with arms overflowing with bags and wrapped packages. "That's a fun song," Ayako said as she turned the key to silence the engine and the car radio with it. "You seemed to be enjoying it."
The redhead nodded, blushing. "Sorry, was I getting too…"
With a wave of her hand and a shake of her head, Ayako reached for her car door. "Not at all. You're a performer. You're supposed to be a little over the top."
Ranko's blush took on a whole new level, and she looked down at her hands. "I… I guess I am, huh?" She grinned, popping the door handle inward and stepping out of the vehicle. "Aya, what's a kalikimaka? It's in an English song, but it sounds Japanese. So, I feel like I should recognize it, but I don't."
Ayako laughed as she pushed her car door closed behind her. "It's Hawaiian, honey. That's what the whole song is about. Mele Kalikimaka is the Hawaiian phrase that means Merry Christmas."
"But…" Ranko huddled closer to her sister to step out of the way of a frantic-looking woman who struggled to carry her armloads of bags and parcels back toward the parking lot. "Hawai'i is in America. They speak English, right?"
"They do," the elder woman said, pulling the heavy glass door of the colossal shopping plaza open and holding it for her sister, "but Hawai'i has only been a part of America for about ninety years. Before that, it was its own kingdom, with its own native language."
"Huh!" Ranko shrugged. "Learn something new every day, I guess." She sighed contentedly as her body adjusted to the warmth of the artificial heating inside the crowded shopping venue. "It's so crazy in here. Look at all these freakin' people!"
Ayako peered over a kiosk displaying a map of the mall, nodding absently as she planned their first step. "Well, yeah, blockhead! It's three days before Christmas!"
"Like…" Ranko motioned to a long line of people - mostly parents with small children - snaking around what appeared to be a small cottage erected in the middle of the mall's common area. The little house couldn't have been bigger than Hana's office. It had a bright green roof and red walls, and was brightly decorated in tinsel, colored lights in fake snow, with a fence of red-and-white striped candy canes surrounding the whole of it. "What the hell is going on over there? Whatever they're selling, it's going like freakin' hotcakes."
The raven-haired woman turned to follow Ranko's gesture, and her jaw fell open. "You… don't know what that is? Really?!"
Shrugging, Ranko playfully swatted the white cotton ball at the tip of her hat out of her face. "No clue. Looks like… a candy store, maybe?" She looked up to her much taller sister, blinking as Ayako took her hand and began pulling her toward the little indoor cottage. "Umm, Aya… what are we…"
"You'll see." Ayako pulled her sister into the queue behind a woman shepherding her two children. The little girl couldn't have been more than six years old, and she was wearing a bright white dress cinched with a glittery silver belt. The other child, this one a boy probably a year or two younger than his sister, was dressed in black dress shirt with a pair of red suspenders holding up his black pants. "So. Do you know what you're thinking about getting for the girls? We've got a minute here, so, let's plan of attack this thing."
Ranko frowned, looking down at her shoes as they stepped forward in the line. "I… I don't know. I mean, I don't know how much money I'm supposed to work with, and…" She sighed heavily. "I feel like, I've only been here a couple'a weeks, and everybody's been so focused on getting to know me, that I haven't really gotten a chance to get to know them very much. I guess… that makes me kind of a shitty sister, huh?" She made a pair of air quotes with her fingers at the use of the word sister.
"In fairness, you've been a sister for barely a month, Ran-chan. Of course you're still figuring it out." Ayako nudged the diminutive teen's shoulder with her hand. "C'mon. Don't be so hard on yourself, honey. First of all, some of us aren't so good at talking about ourselves to begin with - Mama and Yui especially. And… for most of us - with the exception of maybe Mei because she was the newest of us before you - understand that when someone new joins us, there's a period where we sort of have to give her our undivided focus. Like, me and Yui and Iz and Mei, we're all… ya know, mostly okay now. I mean, we're works in progress, and we probably always will be, but like…"
Ranko nodded softly. "I get it. I was a hot mess. You ain't gotta remind me."
Ayako shook her head, advancing in the line again. "It's not that. I mean, yeah, you were, but no worse than any of us were when we found the Phoenix, in our own ways. But, like, that's been our focus. Getting you stabilized and on your feet, so you can start figuring out how to thrive. You're just lucky there's five of us now to team up on you. You're getting the full-on intensive care routine."
The redhead nodded, giving Ayako the smallest of smiles. "It definitely is intense, I'll give ya that. But… it's felt… nice, having a family. Like, one that gives a damn, anyhow. I just don't know how I'm supposed to repay everything you and the girls have been doing for me."
"We absolutely give a damn," Aya began. "And, the reality is, nobody expects you to repay anything. I mean, hell, you've only been with us a month, and you've already saved our asses, so it's not like this isn't a two-way street here already. You're taking care of us, too. That's what family does. I wash your back, you wash mine, and we don't keep score. There is no, I did this for you, so now you have to do this for me, and you're beholden to me until you do. It's more like, my sister needs help and I can help, so I will help.
"Maybe tomorrow, I'll be the one who needs help, and you or one of the other girls can be there for me. We do those things for each other not because we owe each other, but just because we love each other and want to help each other when we can. Right now, you need a lot of help, so I can understand why you might feel like you're taking more than you're giving. But, Ranko, I promise you, more days like this week will come where all of us are sitting around a table going, thank the gods for Ranko! She really came through for us."
Ranko smiled brightly at the thought of being helpful. "I hope so! I really wanna be worth everything you're all putting into me." She stepped forward in line again, standing on her tiptoes to try and see what it was she was queued for, but her barely one-and-a-half meter frame was insufficient to crane over the line that doubled over itself at least three times.
Ayako shook her head, wagging a finger in Ranko's face. "You stop that now, girl. You hear me?! I'm trying to tell you, it's not transactional. There's no sense of, like, we have to get such-and-such out of Ranko or she was a waste of effort. I don't know how many times we have to tell you, Ranko, but you…"
"I know, I know. I am wanted, I have worth, and I have people who care about me," Ranko said through a chuckle in an almost singsong tone, stepping forward in line again. "It's just…"
Aya sighed. "Nuh-uh. No justs, and no buts. You are the reason you're worth it. Nothing you can do for us, no amount of asses in the seats at the Phoenix listening to you sing, is ever going to be more important to this family than your being a part of it. You are all the reward we need, sweetheart, just exactly the way you are. It scares the living shit out of me - all of us, really - how hard it's been to convince you of that."
Ranko shrugged sadly, a distant frown crossing her lips. Her voice took on a hollow tone. "Yeah, well, you try getting sold for a bowl of rice and a couple pickles sometime - I think there might have been a fish - and it'll make you think awfully hard about what people think you're worth, too." She grunted loudly as she was grabbed and pulled into Ayako's grasp and tight against her sister's chest.
"You listen to me, Miss Tendo," Ayako said as she squeezed her sister tight. "I love you. There is no price on Earth that would make that not so, and Mama or any one of the other girls would say the same. You are our family. You are part of us, and we wouldn't be whole without you." She leaned down, kissing the smaller girl on the forehead just below the white fuzzy trim of her green velvet hat. "We love you so much. You don't even know. Not yet, anyway. But you will."
The redhead froze in Ayako's arms. "You… you really do?" She'd heard the phrase a few times from the denizens of the Phoenix, but she still struggled to understand at times what it meant in the context of being a live-in waitress who also got spoiled with the occasional gift, and the far less-occasional hug.
Ayako nodded, giving her sister one final squeeze before letting her go and turning the corner to double back in the line. "Of course I do. We all do. You're something special, kiddo. We're all so excited to see what you grow into. And we wouldn't ever let a silly thing like you not knowing what Mei's favorite video game is after four flippin' weeks get in the way of that. That kind of shit will come. I mean, hell, kid, you barely know who you are right now."
Ain't that the truth, Ranko mused as she stepped forward again. "Then… what do we do? How does it get better?"
"We talk. We get to know each other." The taller woman reached down, rumpling the crushed velvet hat on her teenage companion's head. "We be sisters."
Ranko beamed, nodding intently. "I think I can do that!"
Ayako threw her arm around her sister's shoulder again. "You bet your ass you can. Now, let's get down to business. Anybody you got ideas for? Who do you need help with?"
The redhead stroked her chin after returning Ayako's side hug, smiling as she glanced down at the black cross-body bag whose strap rested between her breasts. "Well, Izzi saw a bag she really liked when she took me shopping for my birthday, but she didn't get it, so… maybe that, if it's not too much?"
The elder sister giggled. "Well, you've got her dead to rights. Buy that girl a nice purse, and she'll have your baby."
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Ranko said with a giggle. "I mean, I've only known her for a month!"
Ayako grinned as she stepped forward again. "True, and besides, we wouldn't want to make Akane jealous!"
"I… wha… huh?" Ranko stammered, but no coherent words came out of her mouth. "It's… I…"
"Oh, please," Ayako said, tittering at her sister's flustration. "Look me in the eyes and tell me you don't love that girl, and I'll eat that fluffy-ass hat you're wearing." She stepped forward again, all but watching steam escape her little sister's ears.
Ranko gasped, stomping her foot defiantly. "I do n…" She blinked at the skeptical look in her sister's eyes. "I… I…"
Ayako giggled, bopping her kid sister playfully on the nose with the tips of her fingers. "Aaaaand, it looks like I'll still have room for lunch."
"But, I… I… aww, damn it!" Ranko shrunk under her sister's tittering gaze, looking down at the floor as she trudged forward in the line.
The taller woman nudged her sister to get her attention again. "You ready? We're almost there!"
"Ready for what?" Ranko lifted her eyes from the ground as she reached the front row of the snaking line, only then seeing what it was she was actually queued for. The little cottage had what seemed like a small stage built in front of it, and on it sat a large, green velvet chair with gold-painted trim that could have almost been mistaken for a throne. It was backed by an arc of five brightly-decorated Christmas trees festooned with oversized glittery balls of every color, roughly the size of Ranko's head. Long ribbons spiraled to their tops, capped by silver sparkling stars, and soft, white twinkling lights illuminated them ethereally from within their branches.
Seated on the great throne was a large, chubby man, wearing a coat and matching pants of bright red, a thick black belt with a brass buckle cinching it around his rotund waist. He wore a fairly obviously false long white beard, and a matching red conical hat atop his head. A young girl of no more than six, in a sparkly white dress, was balanced on his right knee.
Two tall, blonde women, both wearing striped red-and-green leggings over green tunics, shuttled about between the line and the seated man. A third attendant, a young man with a pronounced square jaw that was probably about Mei's age, was similarly attired, frantically clicking at the flash button of a professional camera on a tripod.
"Aya, what the hell is…"
Ranko's sister laughed, though there was a tinge of sadness in it. She threw her arm over her companion's shoulder again. "Yeah, I kinda figured you didn't know what this was. That's why you've gotta do it."
As she spoke, one of the attendants collected the little girl from the seated man's knee, holding her by the hand as she toddled back toward her parents. The other attendant ushered the little girl's younger brother forward. She lifted him up, depositing him onto the rotund man's lap.
"Aya, I don't understand. What's this about?" Ranko looked around nervously. "Like, these are all little kids and stuff…"
Ranko's elder companion smiled reassuringly. "So, we're gonna go visit with Santa there. It's easy! You just sit on his lap and tell him what you want for Christmas, and they take a super cute picture."
"I am not sitting on some dude's lap!" Ranko's eyes widened, and she shook her head emphatically. "I don't even do that for guys when they ask at work, and they're paying customers!"
Ayako cackled, shaking her head in amused disbelief. "Oh, honey. What are we gonna do with you? This is different. It's okay. If it'll make you feel better, I'll do it first. You'll see there's nothing gross or weird about it. He won't do anything. It's not like the drunks at the bar."
Ranko looked around, ensuring most of the small children were distracted enough to not be listening to her, and leaned in close to her sister. "Like, these kids do know that's not really Santa Claus, right?"
Snickering as she wrapped her arms around her sister's neck, Ayako responded in a similarly lowered voice, close to her ear. "How do you know it's not?"
"Because it's…" Ranko gesticulated in the direction of the portly man sitting on the velvet throne. "I mean, come on!"
Smirking deviously, Ayako gave a little shrug in the direction of her sister. "A test, then," she said, still keeping her voice lowered. "They do it all the time in the movies. When you get up there, you ask Santa for something impossible. Something that couldn't possibly happen without magic. And then, if you get what you asked for, you'll know."
As Ayako finished her challenge, one of the attendants carried the boy in black back to his parents. The other, the taller of the two women, approached Ayako. "You're up. Just you?"
Ayako gestured to her right with a bright smile. "And my baby sister. It's her first time meeting Santa!"
"Awwww. Well, come on up, ladies!" The slender, attractive young attendant in the elf costume gave Ranko a thousand-watt smile as she led Ayako and the blushing redhead up onto the little stage. Tinsel and fake snow was spread all over it, other than a small red carpeted area immediately surrounding the oversized chair. Ayako approached the throne readily, but Ranko held a step or two back.
"Well, hello there, young lady," Santa said, emitting a deep ho, ho, ho! as she approached his seat. "Merry Christmas!"
Smiling reassuringly at Ranko, Ayako gingerly lowered herself to the man's right knee, careful to keep most of her weight on the floor. "Merry Christmas to you, too, Santa!"
I swear, that dude's hand gets within the same postal code as her butt, and he's gonna need eight reindeer to haul his fat ass to the emergency room, Ranko thought with a watchful glare, feeling her fist clench at her side.
"So, tell me, miss…"
"Ayako," replied the woman in the mall Santa's lap, in response to his unspoken question.
Santa chuckled merrily, nodding with a smile under his false white beard. "Ayako! Of course! And tell me, miss Ayako… what would you like for Christmas?"
The black-haired woman crossed her ankles, shifting more of her weight to the gold-painted wooden arm of the velvet chair. "Well, I'd love a new wok, I think!"
Good to know, Aya, Ranko thought, cracking a small smile through her protective watchfulness. I didn't have the foggiest freakin' idea what to get for you. Great job, Santa. Look at you, helping out after all.
Santa grinned, nodding. "A practical girl. Fair enough. Santa will see what he can do! Ho, ho, ho!"
Ayako rose to her feet, walking back over to Ranko and taking her hand. "C'mon, kiddo. Your turn." She dragged her recalcitrant sister closer to the green plush chair. "Santa, this is my baby sister. She's never actually gotten to meet you before."
The seated man reached out his arm invitingly for the nervous redhead, waving her closer. "Well, don't be shy. Come closer, honey."
I really don't wanna… but… all these people are watchin'. I'm gonna embarrass Aya if I don't… dammit. Ranko trepidatiously approached, and Santa patted his thigh through his thick red winter pants.
Don't be weird… please don't be weird…
Ranko slowly rested her backside on Santa's lap, crossing her ankles tightly enough to crush a watermelon between her knees under her sweater dress. She looked up at the man, forcing herself to smile through the flicker of multiple hot white camera flashes.
"What's your name, little girl," Santa asked excitedly, seeming to put a bit more effort into his performance than he had with Ayako.
The young redhead flushed hot enough to boil water at being called a little girl. Whether his extra ebullience was because Ayako had told him it was a new experience for her, or to try to allay her nerves, Ranko did not know, but her smile softened and became more sincere in response to his question. While she'd gotten accustomed to giving her new name to hundreds of customers a night at the Phoenix, both at their tables and from the stage, she rarely got an opportunity to do so outside of work. Something about the simple act of saying her name outside those four walls, and having no one question it, made her identity feel more real to her, as if it helped to convince her that it wasn't still just an act she was putting on for the benefit of the family that ran the bar and called itself her own. "I'm Ranko, Santa! Good to meet you."
"It's wonderful to meet you too, miss Ranko! Now, tell Santa… have you been a good girl this year?" The red-clad man lowered his voice as he asked, as if to imply to her that if she hadn't, it would be their little secret.
Ranko swallowed hard, her face glowing brighter than the quintet of Fraser firs behind the throne at the idea of being a good girl. Her mirthful grin faded a bit as she thought about it, though.
Well, let's see, she thought pensively. Back in February, I lost a fight with an old woman and turned into a girl forever. Then I spent six months hating everybody and everything, and ran away from home. I abandoned Akane and everybody I ever knew. I tried to punch my way into a job, and when that didn't work, I damn near offed myself in a city park. I lied to a nice old lady and her daughters so I could get a job slinging beers in short skirts. I kissed a girl yesterday, right after deciding to try to be one. Oh, and I almost killed a dude in an alley last week with my bare hands. He kinda had it coming though, so…
"I'm really trying, Santa."
The mall Santa threw his head back, letting out a deep ho, ho, ho that shook the whole of his body under Ranko's backside. "Aren't we all, honey? I'm sure you're doing a wonderful job, and Santa is very proud of you."
Man, Ranko thought, biting her lip gently. Pretty fuckin' sad that you're a fuckin' fairy tale, and you're also the first man to ever say that to me.
"So, Ranko…" Santa reached out, giving the girl on his lap a gentle poke on the nose with his white-gloved index finger. "... what would you like for Christmas? More than anything else in the world, what do you want?"
The redhead's face flushed crimson again. Ask for something impossible, huh, Aya? She leaned in close, putting her arm over the back of the chair and whispering something in the man's ear. To do so, she had to rest nearly all of her weight on his lap.
Beneath her, Santa coughed and sputtered as if he'd nearly choked on his own tongue. His eyes bulged and his face reddened as if he'd just been fed a fistful of wasabi. "I, ummm. Well. I… I'll have… I'll have to… just… see what I can do."
Ranko giggled brightly, hopping to her feet with a bit of a self-satisfied flounce. "Merry Christmas, Santa!"
"M… merry C-christmas," the mall Santa sputtered as Ranko flitted off the stage with a bounce in her step to rejoin Ayako, who was holding the photos from both girls' encounters with Father Christmas in her hand.
Ayako led the tittering redhead away from the crowd, turning to her once they'd cleared the group by a few dozen meters. "You little minx! What did you say to that poor man?!" She smirked, rolling her eyes and joining her in her laughter. "You asked him something about Akane, didn't you?!"
Ranko flashed her sister a spritely grin. "Oh, c'mon, now, Aya! You know how it works." She winked her right eye, nibbling mischievously on the corner of her lower lip.
"If you tell people what you wish for, it doesn't come true."
Remembering something Kasumi used to say about watched kettles never boiling, she wandered back to the narrow bathroom at the far corner of the little studio apartment above the Phoenix, setting to work brushing her hair. Gods, it looks like freakin' ferrets nested in it. I really gotta start washing the hair spray out before I go to bed. She'd opted against a shower before bed, owing both to it being almost three in the morning by the time she and her sisters had finished cleaning up the bar, and not wanting to go to bed with wet hair.
Grateful though she was to have the apartment and not still be living on the street, the old brick buiiding's central heating system was optimized for the bar area downstairs, and her room still got quite chilly at night in late December. It didn't help that she owned nearly no warm clothes, as nearly everything she possessed, and everything she'd been loaned by Izumi, had been intended for the stage. I just need to convince Izzi that boys find sweat pants and a soft, fuzzy sweater sexy, and I'm golden, she mused hopefully.
I mean, I used to be a boy, and I did. When it was Akane wearin' it, at least.
Her cheeks flushed hot, and she hid them in her hands even though no one was in the apartment with her to see them.
Ranko wore the warmest outfit she did own, a mauve sweater dress that came nearly to the middle of her calves. She had tried to wear her black gi pants under it to add an extra layer, but they kept bunching uncomfortably under the dress. Beyond that, the two fabrics rubbing against each other kept producing static electricity that periodically zapped her as she touched random surfaces. Better to shiver than spark, she presumed.
Having declared styling her still-tacky hair to be a lost cause and coaxed it back into a simple ponytail, she emerged from the bathroom just as her tea kettle began to whistle. Freakin' finally! She took it off the burner carefully, pouring its contents into a teapot at the maximum extension of her arm. Hot, hot hot hot! Not today, boy mode and agony. Not today.
While her tea steeped, Ranko opened her half-size refrigerator, sticking her head in it to look around. Eggs. Eggs. Where are you, eggs? Crap, did I use them all?
"Ranko?!" A loud rapping came at the front door of the little shoebox of a studio apartment. "You up?"
The redhead jumped, startled by the sudden sound, and struck the back of her head on the roof of the refrigerator's cold compartment with a hollow bonk.
"Owww… Come in…" Ranko was still rubbing the back of her skull and blushing when the door swung inward and Ayako entered in a white cable-knit turtleneck sweater and a pair of black jeans.
"Good morning, little sister!" Ayako grinned, tossing a brown paper bag onto the white pine dinette table and setting a clear plastic cup of brown liquid next to it. "Breakfast is served!"
Ranko beamed, opening the bag and finding her sense of smell had not betrayed her. She extracted a large chocolate muffin, still warm from the oven, from the bag and shoved a straw down into the cup of iced coffee. "Aya, have I told you lately that you're my favorite sister?" she asked with her mouth still full of the first bite.
The taller woman chuckled, shaking her head. "No, but clearly, it's because my pastry deliveries have been slow in coming." She motioned to her younger sister's attire. "That dress is so freaking cute on you."
Ranko shrugged, swallowing. "Thanks. It's just warmer than most'a what I have. It gets a little chilly up here sometimes."
Ayako cringed a little, nodding as she watched her sister shiver through her breakfast. "Yeah, you're right. I should have remembered we emptied the place out when Mei moved in with Yui. There used to be extra blankets in the closet, but Mei took them with her. I'm sorry. We should have thought of it. We'll get you some new ones, promise, and maybe a space heater too, if you need. But, hurry up and eat. We got a busy day planned."
"News to me," Ranko said. "We handled most of the cleanup last night, so… what am I missing? And what are you even doing here?"
With a dismissive wave of her hand, Ayako slipped into the dinette chair opposite her sister. "Baby, you just single-handedly saved the bar. I think it's probably earned you a day off. And I'm taking you shopping. After all, it's almost Christmas. Only a few days left!"
Ranko frowned, her shoulders slumping over her half-eaten muffin. "Yeah, about that. I… don't really have too much money. As it is, I've been trying to get a few things I need here and there when I get paid, but there's not a lot of extra."
Again, Ayako waved her sister's protest away with the back of her hand. "I kinda thought you'd say something like that, but don't worry about it. I'm the big sister. It's my job to take care of you for your first Christmas with us. I'll spot ya enough to get some gifts for everybody. It'll be our little secret."
The redhead's eyes bulged and her cheeks reddened around the straw in her mouth. "Aya, I can't ask you to do that. I'm…"
"Hush," Ayako said with a soft smile. "You weren't asking. I was insisting. C'mon. I've been there. I know it's not a great feeling when you're just getting started and you're broke around Christmas time. I wanna help, honey. Besides, it's a good excuse to just hang out with you. I feel bad; I've been so preoccupied with Kage and his family and everything that I haven't had much time to spend getting to know my new baby sister. I'm sorry about that."
Ayako grinned broadly at the sight of Ranko's further blushing. "I feel like I'm closer to Yui, Izzi and Mei because I've spent more time with them, and I'm sure you feel that way, too, but I don't want that for us. You're my family, too, Ran-chan. I love you just as much as our other sisters."
Ranko shrugged, but she couldn't help cracking a gentle smile at the idea. "It's okay. I know you're busy and everything. I didn't, like, take offense or anything. I mean, you're a newlywed, and I'm… well, whatever I am, I guess."
Ayako stood, walking to the kitchenette counter as Ranko popped the last bite of her muffin into her mouth. She returned a moment later, walking up behind the redhead and plopping her green velvet hat onto her head. Its white faux fur trim tickled Ranko's skin between her eyes. "Come on, Santa. Sleigh's a-waitin'."
"Here, we know that Christmas will be green and bright! The sun will shine by day, and all the stars at night! Mele kalikimaka is the wise way to say Merry Christmas to you!"
Ranko giggled as she sang along with the car radio and waved her arms in front of herself, letting her wrists flow like waves over the dashboard of Ayako's black Honda Civic. She only occasionally flubbed the lyrics, despite the fact that she was largely just mimicking the sounds of the unfamiliar English vocabulary. Her backside wiggled in the tan vinyl seat, doing the best impression of a hula dance that her seat belt would allow.
Ayako pulled the car into one of the vacant parking spaces in front of the Shibuya shopping mall where, just barely a month ago, Izumi had given Ranko her first real outing as a woman. The place was a bustle of activity, with people frantically darting to and fro with arms overflowing with bags and wrapped packages. "That's a fun song," Ayako said as she turned the key to silence the engine and the car radio with it. "You seemed to be enjoying it."
The redhead nodded, blushing. "Sorry, was I getting too…"
With a wave of her hand and a shake of her head, Ayako reached for her car door. "Not at all. You're a performer. You're supposed to be a little over the top."
Ranko's blush took on a whole new level, and she looked down at her hands. "I… I guess I am, huh?" She grinned, popping the door handle inward and stepping out of the vehicle. "Aya, what's a kalikimaka? It's in an English song, but it sounds Japanese. So, I feel like I should recognize it, but I don't."
Ayako laughed as she pushed her car door closed behind her. "It's Hawaiian, honey. That's what the whole song is about. Mele Kalikimaka is the Hawaiian phrase that means Merry Christmas."
"But…" Ranko huddled closer to her sister to step out of the way of a frantic-looking woman who struggled to carry her armloads of bags and parcels back toward the parking lot. "Hawai'i is in America. They speak English, right?"
"They do," the elder woman said, pulling the heavy glass door of the colossal shopping plaza open and holding it for her sister, "but Hawai'i has only been a part of America for about ninety years. Before that, it was its own kingdom, with its own native language."
"Huh!" Ranko shrugged. "Learn something new every day, I guess." She sighed contentedly as her body adjusted to the warmth of the artificial heating inside the crowded shopping venue. "It's so crazy in here. Look at all these freakin' people!"
Ayako peered over a kiosk displaying a map of the mall, nodding absently as she planned their first step. "Well, yeah, blockhead! It's three days before Christmas!"
"Like…" Ranko motioned to a long line of people - mostly parents with small children - snaking around what appeared to be a small cottage erected in the middle of the mall's common area. The little house couldn't have been bigger than Hana's office. It had a bright green roof and red walls, and was brightly decorated in tinsel, colored lights in fake snow, with a fence of red-and-white striped candy canes surrounding the whole of it. "What the hell is going on over there? Whatever they're selling, it's going like freakin' hotcakes."
The raven-haired woman turned to follow Ranko's gesture, and her jaw fell open. "You… don't know what that is? Really?!"
Shrugging, Ranko playfully swatted the white cotton ball at the tip of her hat out of her face. "No clue. Looks like… a candy store, maybe?" She looked up to her much taller sister, blinking as Ayako took her hand and began pulling her toward the little indoor cottage. "Umm, Aya… what are we…"
"You'll see." Ayako pulled her sister into the queue behind a woman shepherding her two children. The little girl couldn't have been more than six years old, and she was wearing a bright white dress cinched with a glittery silver belt. The other child, this one a boy probably a year or two younger than his sister, was dressed in black dress shirt with a pair of red suspenders holding up his black pants. "So. Do you know what you're thinking about getting for the girls? We've got a minute here, so, let's plan of attack this thing."
Ranko frowned, looking down at her shoes as they stepped forward in the line. "I… I don't know. I mean, I don't know how much money I'm supposed to work with, and…" She sighed heavily. "I feel like, I've only been here a couple'a weeks, and everybody's been so focused on getting to know me, that I haven't really gotten a chance to get to know them very much. I guess… that makes me kind of a shitty sister, huh?" She made a pair of air quotes with her fingers at the use of the word sister.
"In fairness, you've been a sister for barely a month, Ran-chan. Of course you're still figuring it out." Ayako nudged the diminutive teen's shoulder with her hand. "C'mon. Don't be so hard on yourself, honey. First of all, some of us aren't so good at talking about ourselves to begin with - Mama and Yui especially. And… for most of us - with the exception of maybe Mei because she was the newest of us before you - understand that when someone new joins us, there's a period where we sort of have to give her our undivided focus. Like, me and Yui and Iz and Mei, we're all… ya know, mostly okay now. I mean, we're works in progress, and we probably always will be, but like…"
Ranko nodded softly. "I get it. I was a hot mess. You ain't gotta remind me."
Ayako shook her head, advancing in the line again. "It's not that. I mean, yeah, you were, but no worse than any of us were when we found the Phoenix, in our own ways. But, like, that's been our focus. Getting you stabilized and on your feet, so you can start figuring out how to thrive. You're just lucky there's five of us now to team up on you. You're getting the full-on intensive care routine."
The redhead nodded, giving Ayako the smallest of smiles. "It definitely is intense, I'll give ya that. But… it's felt… nice, having a family. Like, one that gives a damn, anyhow. I just don't know how I'm supposed to repay everything you and the girls have been doing for me."
"We absolutely give a damn," Aya began. "And, the reality is, nobody expects you to repay anything. I mean, hell, you've only been with us a month, and you've already saved our asses, so it's not like this isn't a two-way street here already. You're taking care of us, too. That's what family does. I wash your back, you wash mine, and we don't keep score. There is no, I did this for you, so now you have to do this for me, and you're beholden to me until you do. It's more like, my sister needs help and I can help, so I will help.
"Maybe tomorrow, I'll be the one who needs help, and you or one of the other girls can be there for me. We do those things for each other not because we owe each other, but just because we love each other and want to help each other when we can. Right now, you need a lot of help, so I can understand why you might feel like you're taking more than you're giving. But, Ranko, I promise you, more days like this week will come where all of us are sitting around a table going, thank the gods for Ranko! She really came through for us."
Ranko smiled brightly at the thought of being helpful. "I hope so! I really wanna be worth everything you're all putting into me." She stepped forward in line again, standing on her tiptoes to try and see what it was she was queued for, but her barely one-and-a-half meter frame was insufficient to crane over the line that doubled over itself at least three times.
Ayako shook her head, wagging a finger in Ranko's face. "You stop that now, girl. You hear me?! I'm trying to tell you, it's not transactional. There's no sense of, like, we have to get such-and-such out of Ranko or she was a waste of effort. I don't know how many times we have to tell you, Ranko, but you…"
"I know, I know. I am wanted, I have worth, and I have people who care about me," Ranko said through a chuckle in an almost singsong tone, stepping forward in line again. "It's just…"
Aya sighed. "Nuh-uh. No justs, and no buts. You are the reason you're worth it. Nothing you can do for us, no amount of asses in the seats at the Phoenix listening to you sing, is ever going to be more important to this family than your being a part of it. You are all the reward we need, sweetheart, just exactly the way you are. It scares the living shit out of me - all of us, really - how hard it's been to convince you of that."
Ranko shrugged sadly, a distant frown crossing her lips. Her voice took on a hollow tone. "Yeah, well, you try getting sold for a bowl of rice and a couple pickles sometime - I think there might have been a fish - and it'll make you think awfully hard about what people think you're worth, too." She grunted loudly as she was grabbed and pulled into Ayako's grasp and tight against her sister's chest.
"You listen to me, Miss Tendo," Ayako said as she squeezed her sister tight. "I love you. There is no price on Earth that would make that not so, and Mama or any one of the other girls would say the same. You are our family. You are part of us, and we wouldn't be whole without you." She leaned down, kissing the smaller girl on the forehead just below the white fuzzy trim of her green velvet hat. "We love you so much. You don't even know. Not yet, anyway. But you will."
The redhead froze in Ayako's arms. "You… you really do?" She'd heard the phrase a few times from the denizens of the Phoenix, but she still struggled to understand at times what it meant in the context of being a live-in waitress who also got spoiled with the occasional gift, and the far less-occasional hug.
Ayako nodded, giving her sister one final squeeze before letting her go and turning the corner to double back in the line. "Of course I do. We all do. You're something special, kiddo. We're all so excited to see what you grow into. And we wouldn't ever let a silly thing like you not knowing what Mei's favorite video game is after four flippin' weeks get in the way of that. That kind of shit will come. I mean, hell, kid, you barely know who you are right now."
Ain't that the truth, Ranko mused as she stepped forward again. "Then… what do we do? How does it get better?"
"We talk. We get to know each other." The taller woman reached down, rumpling the crushed velvet hat on her teenage companion's head. "We be sisters."
Ranko beamed, nodding intently. "I think I can do that!"
Ayako threw her arm around her sister's shoulder again. "You bet your ass you can. Now, let's get down to business. Anybody you got ideas for? Who do you need help with?"
The redhead stroked her chin after returning Ayako's side hug, smiling as she glanced down at the black cross-body bag whose strap rested between her breasts. "Well, Izzi saw a bag she really liked when she took me shopping for my birthday, but she didn't get it, so… maybe that, if it's not too much?"
The elder sister giggled. "Well, you've got her dead to rights. Buy that girl a nice purse, and she'll have your baby."
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Ranko said with a giggle. "I mean, I've only known her for a month!"
Ayako grinned as she stepped forward again. "True, and besides, we wouldn't want to make Akane jealous!"
"I… wha… huh?" Ranko stammered, but no coherent words came out of her mouth. "It's… I…"
"Oh, please," Ayako said, tittering at her sister's flustration. "Look me in the eyes and tell me you don't love that girl, and I'll eat that fluffy-ass hat you're wearing." She stepped forward again, all but watching steam escape her little sister's ears.
Ranko gasped, stomping her foot defiantly. "I do n…" She blinked at the skeptical look in her sister's eyes. "I… I…"
Ayako giggled, bopping her kid sister playfully on the nose with the tips of her fingers. "Aaaaand, it looks like I'll still have room for lunch."
"But, I… I… aww, damn it!" Ranko shrunk under her sister's tittering gaze, looking down at the floor as she trudged forward in the line.
The taller woman nudged her sister to get her attention again. "You ready? We're almost there!"
"Ready for what?" Ranko lifted her eyes from the ground as she reached the front row of the snaking line, only then seeing what it was she was actually queued for. The little cottage had what seemed like a small stage built in front of it, and on it sat a large, green velvet chair with gold-painted trim that could have almost been mistaken for a throne. It was backed by an arc of five brightly-decorated Christmas trees festooned with oversized glittery balls of every color, roughly the size of Ranko's head. Long ribbons spiraled to their tops, capped by silver sparkling stars, and soft, white twinkling lights illuminated them ethereally from within their branches.
Seated on the great throne was a large, chubby man, wearing a coat and matching pants of bright red, a thick black belt with a brass buckle cinching it around his rotund waist. He wore a fairly obviously false long white beard, and a matching red conical hat atop his head. A young girl of no more than six, in a sparkly white dress, was balanced on his right knee.
Two tall, blonde women, both wearing striped red-and-green leggings over green tunics, shuttled about between the line and the seated man. A third attendant, a young man with a pronounced square jaw that was probably about Mei's age, was similarly attired, frantically clicking at the flash button of a professional camera on a tripod.
"Aya, what the hell is…"
Ranko's sister laughed, though there was a tinge of sadness in it. She threw her arm over her companion's shoulder again. "Yeah, I kinda figured you didn't know what this was. That's why you've gotta do it."
As she spoke, one of the attendants collected the little girl from the seated man's knee, holding her by the hand as she toddled back toward her parents. The other attendant ushered the little girl's younger brother forward. She lifted him up, depositing him onto the rotund man's lap.
"Aya, I don't understand. What's this about?" Ranko looked around nervously. "Like, these are all little kids and stuff…"
Ranko's elder companion smiled reassuringly. "So, we're gonna go visit with Santa there. It's easy! You just sit on his lap and tell him what you want for Christmas, and they take a super cute picture."
"I am not sitting on some dude's lap!" Ranko's eyes widened, and she shook her head emphatically. "I don't even do that for guys when they ask at work, and they're paying customers!"
Ayako cackled, shaking her head in amused disbelief. "Oh, honey. What are we gonna do with you? This is different. It's okay. If it'll make you feel better, I'll do it first. You'll see there's nothing gross or weird about it. He won't do anything. It's not like the drunks at the bar."
Ranko looked around, ensuring most of the small children were distracted enough to not be listening to her, and leaned in close to her sister. "Like, these kids do know that's not really Santa Claus, right?"
Snickering as she wrapped her arms around her sister's neck, Ayako responded in a similarly lowered voice, close to her ear. "How do you know it's not?"
"Because it's…" Ranko gesticulated in the direction of the portly man sitting on the velvet throne. "I mean, come on!"
Smirking deviously, Ayako gave a little shrug in the direction of her sister. "A test, then," she said, still keeping her voice lowered. "They do it all the time in the movies. When you get up there, you ask Santa for something impossible. Something that couldn't possibly happen without magic. And then, if you get what you asked for, you'll know."
As Ayako finished her challenge, one of the attendants carried the boy in black back to his parents. The other, the taller of the two women, approached Ayako. "You're up. Just you?"
Ayako gestured to her right with a bright smile. "And my baby sister. It's her first time meeting Santa!"
"Awwww. Well, come on up, ladies!" The slender, attractive young attendant in the elf costume gave Ranko a thousand-watt smile as she led Ayako and the blushing redhead up onto the little stage. Tinsel and fake snow was spread all over it, other than a small red carpeted area immediately surrounding the oversized chair. Ayako approached the throne readily, but Ranko held a step or two back.
"Well, hello there, young lady," Santa said, emitting a deep ho, ho, ho! as she approached his seat. "Merry Christmas!"
Smiling reassuringly at Ranko, Ayako gingerly lowered herself to the man's right knee, careful to keep most of her weight on the floor. "Merry Christmas to you, too, Santa!"
I swear, that dude's hand gets within the same postal code as her butt, and he's gonna need eight reindeer to haul his fat ass to the emergency room, Ranko thought with a watchful glare, feeling her fist clench at her side.
"So, tell me, miss…"
"Ayako," replied the woman in the mall Santa's lap, in response to his unspoken question.
Santa chuckled merrily, nodding with a smile under his false white beard. "Ayako! Of course! And tell me, miss Ayako… what would you like for Christmas?"
The black-haired woman crossed her ankles, shifting more of her weight to the gold-painted wooden arm of the velvet chair. "Well, I'd love a new wok, I think!"
Good to know, Aya, Ranko thought, cracking a small smile through her protective watchfulness. I didn't have the foggiest freakin' idea what to get for you. Great job, Santa. Look at you, helping out after all.
Santa grinned, nodding. "A practical girl. Fair enough. Santa will see what he can do! Ho, ho, ho!"
Ayako rose to her feet, walking back over to Ranko and taking her hand. "C'mon, kiddo. Your turn." She dragged her recalcitrant sister closer to the green plush chair. "Santa, this is my baby sister. She's never actually gotten to meet you before."
The seated man reached out his arm invitingly for the nervous redhead, waving her closer. "Well, don't be shy. Come closer, honey."
I really don't wanna… but… all these people are watchin'. I'm gonna embarrass Aya if I don't… dammit. Ranko trepidatiously approached, and Santa patted his thigh through his thick red winter pants.
Don't be weird… please don't be weird…
Ranko slowly rested her backside on Santa's lap, crossing her ankles tightly enough to crush a watermelon between her knees under her sweater dress. She looked up at the man, forcing herself to smile through the flicker of multiple hot white camera flashes.
"What's your name, little girl," Santa asked excitedly, seeming to put a bit more effort into his performance than he had with Ayako.
The young redhead flushed hot enough to boil water at being called a little girl. Whether his extra ebullience was because Ayako had told him it was a new experience for her, or to try to allay her nerves, Ranko did not know, but her smile softened and became more sincere in response to his question. While she'd gotten accustomed to giving her new name to hundreds of customers a night at the Phoenix, both at their tables and from the stage, she rarely got an opportunity to do so outside of work. Something about the simple act of saying her name outside those four walls, and having no one question it, made her identity feel more real to her, as if it helped to convince her that it wasn't still just an act she was putting on for the benefit of the family that ran the bar and called itself her own. "I'm Ranko, Santa! Good to meet you."
"It's wonderful to meet you too, miss Ranko! Now, tell Santa… have you been a good girl this year?" The red-clad man lowered his voice as he asked, as if to imply to her that if she hadn't, it would be their little secret.
Ranko swallowed hard, her face glowing brighter than the quintet of Fraser firs behind the throne at the idea of being a good girl. Her mirthful grin faded a bit as she thought about it, though.
Well, let's see, she thought pensively. Back in February, I lost a fight with an old woman and turned into a girl forever. Then I spent six months hating everybody and everything, and ran away from home. I abandoned Akane and everybody I ever knew. I tried to punch my way into a job, and when that didn't work, I damn near offed myself in a city park. I lied to a nice old lady and her daughters so I could get a job slinging beers in short skirts. I kissed a girl yesterday, right after deciding to try to be one. Oh, and I almost killed a dude in an alley last week with my bare hands. He kinda had it coming though, so…
"I'm really trying, Santa."
The mall Santa threw his head back, letting out a deep ho, ho, ho that shook the whole of his body under Ranko's backside. "Aren't we all, honey? I'm sure you're doing a wonderful job, and Santa is very proud of you."
Man, Ranko thought, biting her lip gently. Pretty fuckin' sad that you're a fuckin' fairy tale, and you're also the first man to ever say that to me.
"So, Ranko…" Santa reached out, giving the girl on his lap a gentle poke on the nose with his white-gloved index finger. "... what would you like for Christmas? More than anything else in the world, what do you want?"
The redhead's face flushed crimson again. Ask for something impossible, huh, Aya? She leaned in close, putting her arm over the back of the chair and whispering something in the man's ear. To do so, she had to rest nearly all of her weight on his lap.
Beneath her, Santa coughed and sputtered as if he'd nearly choked on his own tongue. His eyes bulged and his face reddened as if he'd just been fed a fistful of wasabi. "I, ummm. Well. I… I'll have… I'll have to… just… see what I can do."
Ranko giggled brightly, hopping to her feet with a bit of a self-satisfied flounce. "Merry Christmas, Santa!"
"M… merry C-christmas," the mall Santa sputtered as Ranko flitted off the stage with a bounce in her step to rejoin Ayako, who was holding the photos from both girls' encounters with Father Christmas in her hand.
Ayako led the tittering redhead away from the crowd, turning to her once they'd cleared the group by a few dozen meters. "You little minx! What did you say to that poor man?!" She smirked, rolling her eyes and joining her in her laughter. "You asked him something about Akane, didn't you?!"
Ranko flashed her sister a spritely grin. "Oh, c'mon, now, Aya! You know how it works." She winked her right eye, nibbling mischievously on the corner of her lower lip.
"If you tell people what you wish for, it doesn't come true."
Seylerius
Verified Sionnach Tobar
- Location
- Washington
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I am so curious what she asked for. Was it a way to sort out her ID as Ranko? Something cute and gay? Something to do with her curse, like a way to lift the cat's tongue and also lock her in girl mode, so she can enjoy hot showers again?
AnneOminous
Phoenix Proprietress
- Location
- Orlando, FL
- Pronouns
- She/They
A lady never tells. You want her wish to come true, don't you?
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Ranko deserves good things, yes.
Seylerius
Verified Sionnach Tobar
- Location
- Washington
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yep. We'll have to wait and see what it is. Only a few more days to Christmas in the story.
2.18: Sleigh, Girl
New
AnneOminous
Phoenix Proprietress
- Location
- Orlando, FL
- Pronouns
- She/They
"Alright, that's Mei and Izzi done! What you thinkin' next, superstar? Yui, maybe?" Ayako grinned at her family's youngest charge as the pair exited the mall's only store specializing in video games. She looks like she's having so much fun. I can tell how badly she wanted to do this, and she just didn't want to ask for help to pull it off.
She sighed happily, an easy smile forming on her slightly-chapped lips as she remembered a very similar shopping trip she'd been on in the very same mall three Christmases prior. Poor Mei was in the middle of detoxing, and she still had the time of her life that day. I'm so grateful to Mama for suggesting I take her back then. I guess me doing it twice with the new girl before her first Christmas with us makes it officially a family tradition.
Ranko shrugged in her sister's direction. "I am completely drawing a blank on her, Aya. She just doesn't talk to me about anything except work, and… well, me, I guess. But, she's been so good to me. I really want to do something special for her, and I don't even know where to start." She strode the mall's cavernous interior central corridor at a brisk pace alongside her companion as she spoke.
"Don't take it personally, sis. Yui's a tough nut to crack. She's…" Ayako sighed as the happy memory was replaced with a sadder one, brushing her rail-straight black hair out of her eyes and trying not to let the plastic bag dangling from her wrist whack her in the face. "She's not in as good of shape as she lets on, sometimes. I know you look at us, coming to us as you did, like we're all these paragons of wisdom and shit-put-together-ness, but the reality is, all of us are still healing from the circumstances that brought us together in the first place, too. We probably always will be, in some form or another. And Yui… she had a deep friggin' hole to dig out of, and… she just doesn't really like to scratch at the surface of it too much, so she just glosses over it and hides behind that bar seven days a week."
The redhead nodded, motioning to the two shopping bags hanging from her sister's wrist. "You sure you don't want me to carry that stuff?" Receiving a shake of Ayako's head in the negative by way of reply, she continued. "You seem to be closer to her than any of us. How did you manage it?"
Ayako sighed, looking up at the mall's frosted glass ceiling as she walked as if trying to hide from the memories for another moment. "I mean, part of that is just because we were the first two. We've been together the longest. Yui was my first sibling, and vice-versa, and all we had was each other and Mama. Beyond that… well, you may have noticed we've all but gone at you with a jackhammer trying to get you to open up about things. Me and Mama both tried that with Yui when she first came to us, too, with mixed results. Not gonna lie, it was hard sledding for a while, for sure."
"So, what did it take to get her to finally open up to you? Hugs? The mantra?" Ranko watched her sister intently, eager for Ayako's help and guidance to connect with the woman that was rapidly becoming her favorite of her four sisters - not that Ranko would ever in a thousand years have admitted as much to Ayako, Izumi, or Mei.
A dark chuckle came in reply. "Vast quantities of Tennessee bourbon."
Ranko giggled spritely. "So that's why she calls Jack Daniels lip lube sometimes!"
"You got it, kiddo!" As Ayako answered, the last few notes of We Wish You a Merry Christmas faded from the public address speakers overhead.
A lively rock guitar tune began blaring from them in its place. A bank of brass instruments - probably trumpets, Ranko thought, quickly joined in. She'd performed the song during her Christmas concert that had saved the Phoenix not two full days prior. The young redhead raised her arms over her head, crossing her wrists and beginning to rock her hips in her reddish-purple sweater dress. She thrashed her head to the left to face her sister, wearing a smile that dwarfed the noonday sun in radiance. Her ponytail flew up behind, nearly coiling itself around her right bicep. "Oh, I freakin' love this song!"
"Out of all the reindeers, you know you're the mastermind! Run, run, Rudolph! Randolph ain't too far behind!"
The impromptu performance escalated, with Ranko slashing back and forth on her ankles in front of her sister. With every step, she launched the chunky heels of her black stage boots - the warmest shoes she owned - up high enough behind her to almost kick herself in the ass as she danced. Her hips moved like they were full of water; always fluid, and never for a moment still.
"Get it, girl! Wooooo!" Ayako laughed as she watched her sister dance, noticing that a trickle of other shoppers had begun to stop and watch as well.
"Said Santa to a boy child, 'What have you been longin' for?' … Whoa, 'All I want for Christmas is a rock n' roll electric guitar!'..."
Ranko giggled as she bopped through the mall's tiled center concourse, the infectious guitar animating her body like a musical marionette. "It's not my fault! I can't help it! It's just too much freakin' fun!"
It was only then that she noticed the first few people who had paused their shopping trip to watch her. She blushed, but the quiet, timid part of her that coaxed her to stop embarrassing herself was immediately shouted down by the thundering demand in her heart. I am a performer. Aya said so herself.
"And then, away went Rudolph, whizzin' like a shoo-oo-tin' star!"
She blinked in surprise as she felt a pair of strong hands on her rocking hips from behind. Ranko's hand came down from its position, raised in front of her face with her fingers splayed wide over her thousand-watt smile. She clenched her fingers tight, preparing to throw a punch on instinct at whomever had grabbed her. She flashed her eyes behind her, and they landed on Ayako just as her much taller sister lifted her slender frame up off of the floor. Ranko was deposited on her feet, her black heeled boots resting on the edge of a raised concrete planter that stood about waist high to the redhead.
The assembling shoppers whooped as Ranko was elevated, and Ranko beamed as she realized why she'd been lifted up from the mall concourse floor.
Aya gave me a stage.
The jubilant redhead had already been the picture of joy, but the simple realization that she was entertaining a crowd rocketed through her soul like a quadruple shot of espresso. She smiled so broadly it hurt her cheeks as she reached over her shoulder behind herself, pulling the white ribbon out of her ponytail and letting it fall to the white tile floor off the edge of the planter. As the gathering crowd cheered, she thrashed her head back and forth, letting her newly-freed hair fly in flaming waves over her shoulders as they cascaded out from the faux fur-trimmed bottom of her green Santa hat. She cared not for the few strands of hair that caught on the backs of the golden heart studs in her earlobes that were almost ready to be replaced.
"Run, run, Rudolph! Santa's gotta make it to town, yeah! Santa, make him hurry! Tell him he can take the freeway down! And then, away went Rudolph, whizzin' like a merry-go-round!"
The young performer had no microphone, so she made no effort to sing along with the jaunty tune. Her black leather purse clapped repeatedly against her left hip as she moved. Screw it. I'll use it, she decided in the space between heartbeats. She playfully swatted the bag back against her thigh with her open palm in time with the beat as she bopped across the three-meter-wide square planter.
Even Ayako, easily the least extroverted of the Phoenix' quintet of wayward girls, bopped in place with the beat, dropping Ranko's purchases at her feet and clapping her hands as she watched. The bottom hem of her cinnamon-colored peacoat swayed around the hips of her black jeans like a heavy skirt as she danced along with her sister. She was far from the only onlooker to do so.
"Said Santa to a girl child, 'What would you like most to get?' 'Whoa, I want a baby doll that can cry, drink, and scream, whoa, yeah! And then away went Rudolph, whizzin' like a Saber jet!"
Ranko stalked the edge of the square concrete planter as if it were her own personal runway, wiggling and giggling as she rested her hand on the thin braided trunk of the Guiana chestnut tree planted in its center. She rocked her backside in her tight sweater dress as she made a full orbit around the tree trunk, waving to people on all four sides of her makeshift stage. It was as if the tree had been planted there years ago for the explicit purpose of being Ranko Tendo's dance prop on some random Friday morning in some future December.
The song ended, and Ranko gave a bow at the waist to the sixty or so assembled onlookers. Two large men, both of whom had been watching with their wives, approached the planter, offering up their hands to her.
What the… Ranko blinked, watching them skeptically. What the heck do you guys want?
"C'mon, let us help you down," the tall blond man on Ranko's left coaxed. "Long way to jump in those heels."
The redhead's face caught fire. They wanna… help me? Like, don't they know who I am? I'm a world-class martial artist, buddy. I can run on chain-link fences. I can do capoeira blindfolded. I'm freaking unstoppable - until you hit me, anyway. Then I'm… low key kinda fucked. But anyway. Let's not worry about that too much right now. In any case, I'm not helpless! I can get down off of a half-meter ledge, dude!
She was about to swat the blond man's hand away when she spied Ayako in the corner of her eye. Ranko's sister gave her a go ahead gesture with a flick of her wrist, as if shooing a child off to school.
Ranko sighed, trying not to let the men see it. Oh, merciful fuck. She's right. Gotta keep up appearances. Dainty little airhead mode, go, I guess. Forcing herself into a tittering smile, she offered her hands down to the two gentlemen. "Omigods! Thanks, you guys!"
Each man took one of her hands and lifted her by the arms, finding it effortless to support the weight of the slender performer. She had not been particularly heavy even before leaving the Tendo home, but her body had yet to fully return to its normal weight after two months of barely subsisting on the occasional rice ball from the subway station vending machines.
Ranko felt the man on her left reach behind her. Dude, if you grab my ass, I swear, I'm gonna fuck you up right here in front of your kids, she thought with a defensive glare. The man's strong hand landed respectfully on the small of her back, however, helping to support her as she was lowered to the mall concourse floor. The sensation of his hand sliding on her skin through her soft sweater dress sent a shiver up her spine, which Ranko did her best to block from her mind.
"Isn't that the girl from Phoenix bar, in Minato?!" A hopeful-looking college student, a shlubby-looking boy maybe two years her senior, approached as the two gentlemen released Ranko's hands. Ranko noticed that one or two of his words had been slightly misspoken, but she was able to parse his meaning. His accent definitely was not Japanese.
Ranko's cheeks could have fried an egg. People recognize me? Like, this far away from the bar?! She beamed, nodding emphatically. "That's me! Ranko Tendo, cocktail waitress extraordinaire and singer… well, regular ordinaire, I guess!"
The trepidatious collegiate fumbled in his green plastic bag, bearing the logo of the same video game store where Ranko had bought Mei"s Christmas gift. He produced from it a long receipt on crinkly thermal paper. "Would you… sign?" He held the coiling scroll out to her in a trembling hand.
"Oh, I…" Ranko covered her mouth with her splayed fingers. "I… sure! Does anyone have a pen or something?"
Ayako approached, digging in her burgundy leather purse for a fine-point black marker and handing it to her sister.
Ranko looked the man over as she took the receipt paper from his hand, noticing the rainbow logo on his shirt. "University of Hawai'i, huh?"
The young fan nodded, smiling through a nervous chuckle. "Yep! First time in Japan. Checking it in on my Christmas break."
With a bright grin, Ranko laid the receipt flat on the edge of the planter that had just been pressed into service as her makeshift stage. Let's try this, she thought as she began to write. A moment later, she handed the thin, translucent strip of paper back to the young gentleman.
"What does…" He held it up to her, gesturing to the seven katakana symbols she had written in a tight row above her romaji signature.
Ranko giggled brightly. "Just read them out loud, if you can?"
With the slow, careful consideration it took for a non-native Japanese speaker to recognize each symbol, he began to pronounce the symbols in order. "Me. Re. Ka. Ri. Ki. Ma. Ka."
The redhead nodded, beaming in pride. "Yep! That's how you say Merry Christmas in Hawai'i, right?!" Look at me! I'm so freaking smart.
The Hawaiian man laughed, his grin widening. "Close enough!" He reached back into his bag for a thick, magazine-sized paperback book, a strategy guide for Final Fantasy II. He opened the book to a page near its middle, pressing the receipt between the pages to protect it as he slipped it back into the plastic bag. "Thank you so much!"
"You got it! Thanks for watching!" Ranko turned back to Ayako as the autograph-seeker disappeared back into the bustling holiday crowd, capping the marker and reaching out to hand it back to her sister. "Thanks, Aya. I can't believe somebody way out in freaking Shibuya is asking me to sign shit. Like, what?!"
Ayako giggled, shaking her head and gesturing back toward Ranko with her neck. "Keep it in your purse." She reached out, draping her arm over her diminutive sister's shoulders.
"Something tells me you're gonna need it, kiddo."
She sighed happily, an easy smile forming on her slightly-chapped lips as she remembered a very similar shopping trip she'd been on in the very same mall three Christmases prior. Poor Mei was in the middle of detoxing, and she still had the time of her life that day. I'm so grateful to Mama for suggesting I take her back then. I guess me doing it twice with the new girl before her first Christmas with us makes it officially a family tradition.
Ranko shrugged in her sister's direction. "I am completely drawing a blank on her, Aya. She just doesn't talk to me about anything except work, and… well, me, I guess. But, she's been so good to me. I really want to do something special for her, and I don't even know where to start." She strode the mall's cavernous interior central corridor at a brisk pace alongside her companion as she spoke.
"Don't take it personally, sis. Yui's a tough nut to crack. She's…" Ayako sighed as the happy memory was replaced with a sadder one, brushing her rail-straight black hair out of her eyes and trying not to let the plastic bag dangling from her wrist whack her in the face. "She's not in as good of shape as she lets on, sometimes. I know you look at us, coming to us as you did, like we're all these paragons of wisdom and shit-put-together-ness, but the reality is, all of us are still healing from the circumstances that brought us together in the first place, too. We probably always will be, in some form or another. And Yui… she had a deep friggin' hole to dig out of, and… she just doesn't really like to scratch at the surface of it too much, so she just glosses over it and hides behind that bar seven days a week."
The redhead nodded, motioning to the two shopping bags hanging from her sister's wrist. "You sure you don't want me to carry that stuff?" Receiving a shake of Ayako's head in the negative by way of reply, she continued. "You seem to be closer to her than any of us. How did you manage it?"
Ayako sighed, looking up at the mall's frosted glass ceiling as she walked as if trying to hide from the memories for another moment. "I mean, part of that is just because we were the first two. We've been together the longest. Yui was my first sibling, and vice-versa, and all we had was each other and Mama. Beyond that… well, you may have noticed we've all but gone at you with a jackhammer trying to get you to open up about things. Me and Mama both tried that with Yui when she first came to us, too, with mixed results. Not gonna lie, it was hard sledding for a while, for sure."
"So, what did it take to get her to finally open up to you? Hugs? The mantra?" Ranko watched her sister intently, eager for Ayako's help and guidance to connect with the woman that was rapidly becoming her favorite of her four sisters - not that Ranko would ever in a thousand years have admitted as much to Ayako, Izumi, or Mei.
A dark chuckle came in reply. "Vast quantities of Tennessee bourbon."
Ranko giggled spritely. "So that's why she calls Jack Daniels lip lube sometimes!"
"You got it, kiddo!" As Ayako answered, the last few notes of We Wish You a Merry Christmas faded from the public address speakers overhead.
A lively rock guitar tune began blaring from them in its place. A bank of brass instruments - probably trumpets, Ranko thought, quickly joined in. She'd performed the song during her Christmas concert that had saved the Phoenix not two full days prior. The young redhead raised her arms over her head, crossing her wrists and beginning to rock her hips in her reddish-purple sweater dress. She thrashed her head to the left to face her sister, wearing a smile that dwarfed the noonday sun in radiance. Her ponytail flew up behind, nearly coiling itself around her right bicep. "Oh, I freakin' love this song!"
"Out of all the reindeers, you know you're the mastermind! Run, run, Rudolph! Randolph ain't too far behind!"
The impromptu performance escalated, with Ranko slashing back and forth on her ankles in front of her sister. With every step, she launched the chunky heels of her black stage boots - the warmest shoes she owned - up high enough behind her to almost kick herself in the ass as she danced. Her hips moved like they were full of water; always fluid, and never for a moment still.
"Get it, girl! Wooooo!" Ayako laughed as she watched her sister dance, noticing that a trickle of other shoppers had begun to stop and watch as well.
"Said Santa to a boy child, 'What have you been longin' for?' … Whoa, 'All I want for Christmas is a rock n' roll electric guitar!'..."
Ranko giggled as she bopped through the mall's tiled center concourse, the infectious guitar animating her body like a musical marionette. "It's not my fault! I can't help it! It's just too much freakin' fun!"
It was only then that she noticed the first few people who had paused their shopping trip to watch her. She blushed, but the quiet, timid part of her that coaxed her to stop embarrassing herself was immediately shouted down by the thundering demand in her heart. I am a performer. Aya said so herself.
"And then, away went Rudolph, whizzin' like a shoo-oo-tin' star!"
She blinked in surprise as she felt a pair of strong hands on her rocking hips from behind. Ranko's hand came down from its position, raised in front of her face with her fingers splayed wide over her thousand-watt smile. She clenched her fingers tight, preparing to throw a punch on instinct at whomever had grabbed her. She flashed her eyes behind her, and they landed on Ayako just as her much taller sister lifted her slender frame up off of the floor. Ranko was deposited on her feet, her black heeled boots resting on the edge of a raised concrete planter that stood about waist high to the redhead.
The assembling shoppers whooped as Ranko was elevated, and Ranko beamed as she realized why she'd been lifted up from the mall concourse floor.
Aya gave me a stage.
The jubilant redhead had already been the picture of joy, but the simple realization that she was entertaining a crowd rocketed through her soul like a quadruple shot of espresso. She smiled so broadly it hurt her cheeks as she reached over her shoulder behind herself, pulling the white ribbon out of her ponytail and letting it fall to the white tile floor off the edge of the planter. As the gathering crowd cheered, she thrashed her head back and forth, letting her newly-freed hair fly in flaming waves over her shoulders as they cascaded out from the faux fur-trimmed bottom of her green Santa hat. She cared not for the few strands of hair that caught on the backs of the golden heart studs in her earlobes that were almost ready to be replaced.
"Run, run, Rudolph! Santa's gotta make it to town, yeah! Santa, make him hurry! Tell him he can take the freeway down! And then, away went Rudolph, whizzin' like a merry-go-round!"
The young performer had no microphone, so she made no effort to sing along with the jaunty tune. Her black leather purse clapped repeatedly against her left hip as she moved. Screw it. I'll use it, she decided in the space between heartbeats. She playfully swatted the bag back against her thigh with her open palm in time with the beat as she bopped across the three-meter-wide square planter.
Even Ayako, easily the least extroverted of the Phoenix' quintet of wayward girls, bopped in place with the beat, dropping Ranko's purchases at her feet and clapping her hands as she watched. The bottom hem of her cinnamon-colored peacoat swayed around the hips of her black jeans like a heavy skirt as she danced along with her sister. She was far from the only onlooker to do so.
"Said Santa to a girl child, 'What would you like most to get?' 'Whoa, I want a baby doll that can cry, drink, and scream, whoa, yeah! And then away went Rudolph, whizzin' like a Saber jet!"
Ranko stalked the edge of the square concrete planter as if it were her own personal runway, wiggling and giggling as she rested her hand on the thin braided trunk of the Guiana chestnut tree planted in its center. She rocked her backside in her tight sweater dress as she made a full orbit around the tree trunk, waving to people on all four sides of her makeshift stage. It was as if the tree had been planted there years ago for the explicit purpose of being Ranko Tendo's dance prop on some random Friday morning in some future December.
The song ended, and Ranko gave a bow at the waist to the sixty or so assembled onlookers. Two large men, both of whom had been watching with their wives, approached the planter, offering up their hands to her.
What the… Ranko blinked, watching them skeptically. What the heck do you guys want?
"C'mon, let us help you down," the tall blond man on Ranko's left coaxed. "Long way to jump in those heels."
The redhead's face caught fire. They wanna… help me? Like, don't they know who I am? I'm a world-class martial artist, buddy. I can run on chain-link fences. I can do capoeira blindfolded. I'm freaking unstoppable - until you hit me, anyway. Then I'm… low key kinda fucked. But anyway. Let's not worry about that too much right now. In any case, I'm not helpless! I can get down off of a half-meter ledge, dude!
She was about to swat the blond man's hand away when she spied Ayako in the corner of her eye. Ranko's sister gave her a go ahead gesture with a flick of her wrist, as if shooing a child off to school.
Ranko sighed, trying not to let the men see it. Oh, merciful fuck. She's right. Gotta keep up appearances. Dainty little airhead mode, go, I guess. Forcing herself into a tittering smile, she offered her hands down to the two gentlemen. "Omigods! Thanks, you guys!"
Each man took one of her hands and lifted her by the arms, finding it effortless to support the weight of the slender performer. She had not been particularly heavy even before leaving the Tendo home, but her body had yet to fully return to its normal weight after two months of barely subsisting on the occasional rice ball from the subway station vending machines.
Ranko felt the man on her left reach behind her. Dude, if you grab my ass, I swear, I'm gonna fuck you up right here in front of your kids, she thought with a defensive glare. The man's strong hand landed respectfully on the small of her back, however, helping to support her as she was lowered to the mall concourse floor. The sensation of his hand sliding on her skin through her soft sweater dress sent a shiver up her spine, which Ranko did her best to block from her mind.
"Isn't that the girl from Phoenix bar, in Minato?!" A hopeful-looking college student, a shlubby-looking boy maybe two years her senior, approached as the two gentlemen released Ranko's hands. Ranko noticed that one or two of his words had been slightly misspoken, but she was able to parse his meaning. His accent definitely was not Japanese.
Ranko's cheeks could have fried an egg. People recognize me? Like, this far away from the bar?! She beamed, nodding emphatically. "That's me! Ranko Tendo, cocktail waitress extraordinaire and singer… well, regular ordinaire, I guess!"
The trepidatious collegiate fumbled in his green plastic bag, bearing the logo of the same video game store where Ranko had bought Mei"s Christmas gift. He produced from it a long receipt on crinkly thermal paper. "Would you… sign?" He held the coiling scroll out to her in a trembling hand.
"Oh, I…" Ranko covered her mouth with her splayed fingers. "I… sure! Does anyone have a pen or something?"
Ayako approached, digging in her burgundy leather purse for a fine-point black marker and handing it to her sister.
Ranko looked the man over as she took the receipt paper from his hand, noticing the rainbow logo on his shirt. "University of Hawai'i, huh?"
The young fan nodded, smiling through a nervous chuckle. "Yep! First time in Japan. Checking it in on my Christmas break."
With a bright grin, Ranko laid the receipt flat on the edge of the planter that had just been pressed into service as her makeshift stage. Let's try this, she thought as she began to write. A moment later, she handed the thin, translucent strip of paper back to the young gentleman.
"What does…" He held it up to her, gesturing to the seven katakana symbols she had written in a tight row above her romaji signature.
Ranko giggled brightly. "Just read them out loud, if you can?"
With the slow, careful consideration it took for a non-native Japanese speaker to recognize each symbol, he began to pronounce the symbols in order. "Me. Re. Ka. Ri. Ki. Ma. Ka."
The redhead nodded, beaming in pride. "Yep! That's how you say Merry Christmas in Hawai'i, right?!" Look at me! I'm so freaking smart.
The Hawaiian man laughed, his grin widening. "Close enough!" He reached back into his bag for a thick, magazine-sized paperback book, a strategy guide for Final Fantasy II. He opened the book to a page near its middle, pressing the receipt between the pages to protect it as he slipped it back into the plastic bag. "Thank you so much!"
"You got it! Thanks for watching!" Ranko turned back to Ayako as the autograph-seeker disappeared back into the bustling holiday crowd, capping the marker and reaching out to hand it back to her sister. "Thanks, Aya. I can't believe somebody way out in freaking Shibuya is asking me to sign shit. Like, what?!"
Ayako giggled, shaking her head and gesturing back toward Ranko with her neck. "Keep it in your purse." She reached out, draping her arm over her diminutive sister's shoulders.
"Something tells me you're gonna need it, kiddo."
AnneOminous
Phoenix Proprietress
- Location
- Orlando, FL
- Pronouns
- She/They
Your story is like a bowl of chicken soup while sick.
Which is good cause i currently am sick
I'm so sorry you're not feeling well but I am so glad you're enjoying Phoenix! Thank you so much for reading and commenting! *Hugs*
Before I decide to jump to the other version or not, how different are they going to be? I noticed you mentioned someone is getting a lot more fleshed out, and you added something to the mall (honestly surprised nobody got decked during the ear pearcing), just want to know if i should keep up here, or jump to the older version.
AnneOminous
Phoenix Proprietress
- Location
- Orlando, FL
- Pronouns
- She/They
Nothing will ever be retconned. Reignited will always be "backwards compatible" to jump over at any time, though sometimes the chapters won't line up one to one (for example so far in book 2, four small chapters were combined into two decent sized ones, and the current arc is brand new.)
If you want to jump over, it'll be fine. But if you don't also keep up on Reignited as it releases you'll miss out on some "deleted scenes" and such to come. Hope that answers your question!
2.19: Present, Accounted For
New
AnneOminous
Phoenix Proprietress
- Location
- Orlando, FL
- Pronouns
- She/They
"Try this!" Ranko slid a trapezoidal paper container across the table to her sister, jabbing her chopsticks into the box. "That's really good!"
Ayako took the chopsticks, scooping a bite of the pork lo mein out of the white takeout container and popping it into her mouth. "Mm!" "I don't know what they did to that, but wow! I knew I should'a got that." She glanced to her left as she swallowed, grinning a bit and handing her little sister a napkin. "Here. You've got something right over here," she mentioned, gesturing to the left corner of her mouth.
Blushing, Ranko took the napkin and wiped her face. "Sorry! Hard to be clean when they're dripping like that."
"Yeah, maybe," Ayako said, lowering her voice and widening her smile. "But you wanna be cute when the guys at the next table are checking you out, don'cha?"
Ranko's eyes widened almost as much as her mouth. "They what?!" She snapped her head to the right, by which time both of the college-aged men at the next table over had averted their eyes.
Laughing, Ayako shook her head and let her forehead fall into her palm, her elbow resting on the resin tabletop of their two-top in the mall food court. "Good gods, kiddo," she whispered. "You have absolutely no chill for this kind of stuff, do ya? You're not supposed to let 'em know you caught 'em looking!"
"Well, then they shouldn't look!" Ranko glanced back at the table, where the two men were clearing their trash. They're probably haulin' ass 'cause we noticed 'em. She lowered her voice, leaning over the table. "Besides, I'm…"
"Gay," Ayako whispered just as her sister finished her sentence with "taken."
The redhead swallowed hard, rocking back in her chair. I never thought of it that way. It was always that I liked girls 'cause I was a dude, but… I'm a girl now. So if I still like girls… I mean, it makes sense, I just never thought about it like that, with that actual word. It makes it so much more complicated. She sighed heavily. Akane's never gonna be okay with that, even if she does know I used to be a dude.
Ayako broke her companion's melancholy with a giggle. "Well, both, I suppose." She reached across the table, nudging the teenager in the shoulder through her mauve sweater dress. "Don't look so embarrassed. It's no big deal. Just ask Yui."
Ranko winced. You mean the girl whose girlfriend killed herself when her parents found out? And almost made Yui do the same? She's the one who's gonna tell me there's nothing to worry about? She tried to distract herself with a bite of her lo mein, buying herself a moment to think.
The elder woman must have noticed the consternation in the younger's face, because she shook her head and smiled even before Ranko could finish chewing. "Look, Ranko. Yui had a bad experience, it's true. She had about as bad of an experience with it as you can have. But it didn't scare her off of it. She hasn't dated anybody since, but it's not because it's bad to be… what she is, and what you are. She just works all the time, and like we talked about, she doesn't really open up to anybody. She'll find the right girl when she's ready. We can't all be as lucky as you, with our soulmates delivering themselves to our doorstep with a bow on their heads."
Akane?! My… soulmate?! Ranko almost choked on her noodles. Her face went crimson, and not entirely from the coughing and sputtering. I mean, I can't deny how I feel when I'm around her. At least, not anymore.
"I wish I could have known Yui, before," Ranko said, poking at her food with her disposable bamboo chopsticks. "Before she got so sad, and so closed-off."
Ayako sat back in her chair, sucking thoughtfully on the plastic straw delivering cold green tea to her lips. "What do you want to know?"
"Huh?" Ranko blinked in surprise, putting her chopsticks back down in the receptacle.
The black-haired woman grinned. "I said she didn't talk much, not that she didn't talk any. And I'm not sworn to secrecy. Well, not about most things, anyway."
Ranko thought for a moment, trying to choose a question to ask. Yui was rapidly becoming her favorite sister, and also her best friend, and she knew nearly nothing about the woman beyond her age and her name. She wanted to know everything, but knew it was far too much to ask. As she thought, she glanced down at the bags in the chair tucked under the table between her and her sister, containing the Christmas gifts she'd already purchased for Mei and Izumi. "What kinds of things does she like?"
Ayako smiled more softly, giving her sister a gentle nod. "She doesn't get much into television or movies, or reading either. Rarely has the time. She used to watch rugby on the TVs in the bar, but we started turning 'em off when the karaoke got more popular. Of course, that was before you showed up, and now nobody wants to sing karaoke, either. Can't say as I blame 'em. Who the hell would wanna follow your act?!" The tall woman smirked, tipping her cup in her sister's direction.
"Does she collect anything?" Ranko asked hopefully.
"She told me one time that, before she moved out of her parents' place, she used to have mounds of stuffed animals. They all had names, and she'd talk to them about stuff. She was an only child, before us anyway, and as you might've guessed, her parents weren't exactly the open type. Must've been lonely for her."
The redhead grinned broadly. Explains why she couldn't stop looking at that giant-ass bear they left me when I got hurt in the bar. It felt good to imagine Yui getting to be so innocent, before the harsh realities of the world had hardened her heart. "I'm surprised. I went over to her place one time; her and Mei invited me over for lunch one day. I didn't see any in her room at all, I don't think."
Nodding sagely, Ayako took another draught of her tea. "She had to leave 'em all behind when she left home. I offered to get her one, when she first came to us, and nothing really came of it. She always says it's a silly thing to spend money on. I'm a grown-up now, I've got bills and shit, that sorta thing."
"Did she, by chance, ever tell you what her favorite was?" Ranko leaned forward hopefully, the gears beginning to turn in her mind.
With another sharp nod, and a widening smile, Ayako set her empty paper cup on the tabletop. "A dolphin, if memory serves."
Ranko rocketed out of her seat, snatching up her mostly-depleted takeout container and both empty drink cups. "C'mon, Aya! We've got a mission!"
Hauling three large plastic bags over her shoulder, Ranko plodded after Ayako through the center of the mall. After three hours, she was beginning to get tired, but she made no show of it to her elder sister. Can't have her thinking I don't appreciate what she's doing. I'm so glad to be able to do stuff for the girls for Christmas. It broke my heart not to be able to before she offered.
"Okay," Ayako said, slowing down to let Ranko catch up. She carried a bag of her own, a pair of blue jeans she'd picked up for her husband Kage at the same store where Ranko had bought one for Izumi's husband Kaito. "How we holding up, kiddo?"
Ranko beamed, looking down at her haul. "Well, we've got Yui, Izzi, Mei, Kaito, and Hoshi dealt with. I can't shop for you while you're here with me, obviously!"
The taller woman crinkled her nose and gave a slight shake of her head. "You don't have to do anything for me."
"Yes I do," Ranko insisted. "I can do at least that much on my own. You've made it possible for me to be a part of a real Christmas with a… with our family for the first time, Aya. It's the least I can do. I know what I'm getting you and Kage, too, I'll just need to catch a train to a store tomorrow."
Shrugging, Ayako nodded. "Alright, if you're sure. But don't go too crazy, okay? Kage and I are still struggling to find places in the new place for all the stuff we already have."
"Promise!" Ranko agreed, scanning the nearby stores with her eyes as she walked. "So that just leaves Mama."
Giggling, Ayako raised one eye skeptically down at her sister. "You sure you're not forgetting anybody?"
Ranko's eyes roamed over her bags again. "I don't think so, unless you're hiding another sister somewhere you haven't told me about yet," she replied with a tittering laugh.
"What about Akane?" Aya asked, a devious smirk on her lips. "Wouldn't wanna wind up in the doghouse already, now, would you?"
The redhead swallowed hard, her cheeks warming until she could swear she felt steam escaping from her ears. "I… I didn't think w… we were gonna…."
"Of course we are, ya blockhead!" Ayako replied with a chuckle. "If she's important to you, I want to make sure you can get her something. And if that face is telling me anything, it's the undeniable fact that that girl is important to you." She flashed her younger sister a mischievous wink, motioning over her shoulder with her thumb. "There's a lingerie store over there…"
Ranko choked on her own saliva, her eyes bulging as if all the air in her lungs was trying to escape through her eye sockets at once. "Are you out of your… what?!"
Ayako cackled at her sister's reaction. "I mean, if you don't know her size, you at least know yours, right? Maybe we should just focus on wrapping her present."
"Ayako Jirito!" Ranko's face could have boiled water - not that she wanted anything to do with boiling water in her current form. "Are you fucking crazy?!"
"Oh, honey," Akayo said between mirthful belly laughs. "The look on your face, girl! Seriously, though, if that's what you wanna do…"
Ranko shook her head vigorously, her eyes still wide. "No way! We aren't… doing that. I'm not sure if we're even gonna do that!" I'm not even sure how we would do that!
"Alright, alright!" Ayako tittered brightly, throwing her arm over the shorter girl's shoulders and pinning her ponytail to her back with it. "Deep breath, kiddo. I didn't mean to fluster you. Well, okay, I did, but not, like, in a bad way. We can do something else for her."
Yeah, but what? Ranko walked a few steps to the center of the aisle between the shops, batting the fluffy ball of her green Santa hat out of her eyes as she read over the backlit directory of stores. It can't be anything too mushy and scare her off. It can't be anything too personal, that her dad or Kasumi would figure out about m… us. Nothing too athletic or sporty; don't want her to think I'm doing the whole 'uncute tomboy' thing again. Shit, this is harder than I thought.
As she pondered the directory of some two hundred businesses, the last few notes of Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree faded from the air, pumped through the vast array of recess-mount speakers dotting the ceiling of the huge enclosed space. Man, they're really hammering the Christmas stuff in here. I guess it makes people buy more shit. A new song began, the lyrics preceding the first note of instrumentation.
"I really can't stay…"
The redhead grinned, swaying a bit with the music. Less than two days ago, she and Akane had sung the song together in front of a full house at the Phoenix. Ranko had spared her the embarrassment in the second performance, instead replacing Baby, It's Cold Outside with I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus in the set list. Still, Ranko couldn't help but replay the few minutes she'd shared with Akane on her stage - the center of her universe - in her mind. She seemed to have so much fun with me… and it made her wanna ki…
She hid her face in her hands, feeling the warmth of her cheeks in her palms. The butterflies doing loop-the-loops through the nest of lo mein in her stomach showed no signs of stopping. When she looked up from her fingers, though, the spark of an idea lit her ice-blue eyes, and she began looking over the directory with a new intent. There's gotta be a music store in here somewhere. That'd be something that would tell her exactly how special that night was to me - and nobody would ever guess what it meant or who it was from unless they were in the bar that night.
Ranko walked out of the record store, a small pink bag containing a pair of cassettes dangling from her wrist and a smile on her lips. "Alright! Just one to go!" She turned her head to the left, grinning toward Ayako. "What in the actual hell do we do for Mama? I mean, the woman doesn't even fuckin' wear clothes. It's just her jacket, the same two pairs of black jeans and whatever free tee shirts the booze vendors drop off for her."
Ayako shrugged her shoulders, the remainder of Ranko's purchases slapping against her hips through her long coat. "I normally get her gift certificates, and it wouldn't surprise me if the old bat spends 'em on freakin' groceries. She's the no-frills queen of the world, I gotta tell ya. Izzi definitely didn't get her fabulous streak from her, that's for sure!"
The redhead nodded furtively. "And I have no idea what she'd need at her place; I've never even been there. Can you think of anything?"
Stopping to pile the several bulky bags she carried on a nearby bench at the center of the main concourse, Ayako shrugged again. "You'll see it on Christmas; we always do presents at her place on Christmas and then dinner after. But that's too late. I can't really think of much, honestly. It's pretty sparse there too; I mean, she's hardly ever there except to sleep. Woman practically lives at the bar." She winced a bit as she took in her sister's expression. "I didn't mean anything by…"
"I know," Ranko said, dismissing Ayako's concern with a wave of her hand. "I get it. I mean, even her office is so… depressing. It's a shame. She's such an amazing person, and she spends all her time in that cave surrounded by old bills and dead plants. She deserves better."
Ayako smirked. "Do I detect the hint of an idea forming in that brain of yours?"
Ranko blushed. "Why, is there smoke comin' outta my ears?" Snickering, she slowly swiveled in place on her feet, looking over the surrounding storefronts. There's gotta be something… "Hey," she called to Ayako just as the elder woman's backside had made contact with the wooden bench next to Ranko's bags. "You think there's room on the wall behind her desk for a picture?" She gestured across the mall's central thoroughfare to a small shop jammed full of canvas pictures, some framed, some not. "Just something to… I dunno, give it some life in there?"
"Behind her desk, no," Ayako thought, closing her eyes and picturing the space in her mind. "But behind the couch, maybe, if it wasn't too huge."
Nodding, Ranko reached for her bags. "I'm gonna go check out that art store over there. Maybe I can find something. You wanna come, or do you need to chill a minute?"
Ayako sighed, looking down at her heavy, faux fur-lined suede boots. "Yeah, gimme a sec, and I'll be right behind you. You can leave the bags with me; there's not a lot of room in there."
"Thanks!" Ranko stuffed the bag with Akane's gifts down into the larger bag containing Mei's, flitting off in the direction of the shop. She was glad for the form-fitting sweater dress she wore; the aisles were so narrow that she was certain a more loose-fitting skirt would have knocked pictures off of their precarious perches on the racks. On the floor, other canvases stood six and seven deep leaned against the slatted wall, and several other shoppers were slowly flipping through one stack after another to try to browse all of the available options.
What the heck would I even get her a picture of? I mean, all the woman likes is beer. Ranko exhaled heavily, beginning to flip through the first stack. It contained mostly prints of impressionist paintings; reproductions of van Goghs, Monets, and works from other European artists the teenager hadn't heard of, either. Sheesh. It's a bar, not a museum. Boooo-ring.
Letting the wooden frames fall back against the wall with a loud series of clacks, she began thumbing through the second column of placards. This one featured still-lifes of various plants; a bowl of fruit here, a vase of roses there. Ranko thought of the picture above her bed, a purple vase full of vibrant lavender orchids, and it made her smile. But what kinds of plants does Mama like? She has pots for plants in her office, but they're all crispier than the potato skins we serve. I think there's cactuses in the Sahara that have gotten water more recently. Resolving herself to keep up on caring for the family matriarch's plants as long as she lived above the bar, provided Hana ever got any more, Ranko's search continued.
The third column of pictures were all photographs printed at poster size and framed under glass. There were two featuring sports cars, one depicting a well-tanned blonde in a skin-tight red swimsuit with an orange bodyboard under her arm, and an aerial photograph of a packed soccer stadium. Well, I found the designated boy section, Ranko thought with a smirk as she flipped past a poster of a dark-skinned boxer standing over a fallen opponent.
As the frames rattled back against the wall, a brief flash of red and orange caught the corner of her eye as the young couple to her left rifled through the selections. Wait… was that what I thought it was? Ranko waited to delve into the fourth array of canvases, waiting until the pair ahead of her chose a reproduced painting of a cherry blossom tree and made their way toward the register. She skipped over several rows of pictures to reach the one the couple had vacated, ignoring the rolling French countryside in a white frame and the blue frame containing a scene from a rustic Italian kitchen.
Yes. Oh, fuck, yes.
She pulled out a jet-black frame, nearly a meter tall and half that across. It had no glass covering the canvas within. The portrait's background was a deep red, save for an orangish yellow oval at the center that looked like the sun - or perhaps just a ball of fire. Silhouetted against it was a majestic red phoenix, its wings and beak pointed skyward as it prepared to take off from some perch obscured by its deep red plumage of flame. The firebird looked positively regal, as if it were the most beautiful creature ever to grace the earth, and it knew it.
Ranko swallowed hard as her eyes rose to the upper right corner of the frame, but before she could read the yellow price sticker she found there, a hand reached out from behind her and covered it with long, feminine fingers.
"Don't even worry about it," Ayako said as Ranko turned to look up at her sister. "It's perfect."
Ayako took the chopsticks, scooping a bite of the pork lo mein out of the white takeout container and popping it into her mouth. "Mm!" "I don't know what they did to that, but wow! I knew I should'a got that." She glanced to her left as she swallowed, grinning a bit and handing her little sister a napkin. "Here. You've got something right over here," she mentioned, gesturing to the left corner of her mouth.
Blushing, Ranko took the napkin and wiped her face. "Sorry! Hard to be clean when they're dripping like that."
"Yeah, maybe," Ayako said, lowering her voice and widening her smile. "But you wanna be cute when the guys at the next table are checking you out, don'cha?"
Ranko's eyes widened almost as much as her mouth. "They what?!" She snapped her head to the right, by which time both of the college-aged men at the next table over had averted their eyes.
Laughing, Ayako shook her head and let her forehead fall into her palm, her elbow resting on the resin tabletop of their two-top in the mall food court. "Good gods, kiddo," she whispered. "You have absolutely no chill for this kind of stuff, do ya? You're not supposed to let 'em know you caught 'em looking!"
"Well, then they shouldn't look!" Ranko glanced back at the table, where the two men were clearing their trash. They're probably haulin' ass 'cause we noticed 'em. She lowered her voice, leaning over the table. "Besides, I'm…"
"Gay," Ayako whispered just as her sister finished her sentence with "taken."
The redhead swallowed hard, rocking back in her chair. I never thought of it that way. It was always that I liked girls 'cause I was a dude, but… I'm a girl now. So if I still like girls… I mean, it makes sense, I just never thought about it like that, with that actual word. It makes it so much more complicated. She sighed heavily. Akane's never gonna be okay with that, even if she does know I used to be a dude.
Ayako broke her companion's melancholy with a giggle. "Well, both, I suppose." She reached across the table, nudging the teenager in the shoulder through her mauve sweater dress. "Don't look so embarrassed. It's no big deal. Just ask Yui."
Ranko winced. You mean the girl whose girlfriend killed herself when her parents found out? And almost made Yui do the same? She's the one who's gonna tell me there's nothing to worry about? She tried to distract herself with a bite of her lo mein, buying herself a moment to think.
The elder woman must have noticed the consternation in the younger's face, because she shook her head and smiled even before Ranko could finish chewing. "Look, Ranko. Yui had a bad experience, it's true. She had about as bad of an experience with it as you can have. But it didn't scare her off of it. She hasn't dated anybody since, but it's not because it's bad to be… what she is, and what you are. She just works all the time, and like we talked about, she doesn't really open up to anybody. She'll find the right girl when she's ready. We can't all be as lucky as you, with our soulmates delivering themselves to our doorstep with a bow on their heads."
Akane?! My… soulmate?! Ranko almost choked on her noodles. Her face went crimson, and not entirely from the coughing and sputtering. I mean, I can't deny how I feel when I'm around her. At least, not anymore.
"I wish I could have known Yui, before," Ranko said, poking at her food with her disposable bamboo chopsticks. "Before she got so sad, and so closed-off."
Ayako sat back in her chair, sucking thoughtfully on the plastic straw delivering cold green tea to her lips. "What do you want to know?"
"Huh?" Ranko blinked in surprise, putting her chopsticks back down in the receptacle.
The black-haired woman grinned. "I said she didn't talk much, not that she didn't talk any. And I'm not sworn to secrecy. Well, not about most things, anyway."
Ranko thought for a moment, trying to choose a question to ask. Yui was rapidly becoming her favorite sister, and also her best friend, and she knew nearly nothing about the woman beyond her age and her name. She wanted to know everything, but knew it was far too much to ask. As she thought, she glanced down at the bags in the chair tucked under the table between her and her sister, containing the Christmas gifts she'd already purchased for Mei and Izumi. "What kinds of things does she like?"
Ayako smiled more softly, giving her sister a gentle nod. "She doesn't get much into television or movies, or reading either. Rarely has the time. She used to watch rugby on the TVs in the bar, but we started turning 'em off when the karaoke got more popular. Of course, that was before you showed up, and now nobody wants to sing karaoke, either. Can't say as I blame 'em. Who the hell would wanna follow your act?!" The tall woman smirked, tipping her cup in her sister's direction.
"Does she collect anything?" Ranko asked hopefully.
"She told me one time that, before she moved out of her parents' place, she used to have mounds of stuffed animals. They all had names, and she'd talk to them about stuff. She was an only child, before us anyway, and as you might've guessed, her parents weren't exactly the open type. Must've been lonely for her."
The redhead grinned broadly. Explains why she couldn't stop looking at that giant-ass bear they left me when I got hurt in the bar. It felt good to imagine Yui getting to be so innocent, before the harsh realities of the world had hardened her heart. "I'm surprised. I went over to her place one time; her and Mei invited me over for lunch one day. I didn't see any in her room at all, I don't think."
Nodding sagely, Ayako took another draught of her tea. "She had to leave 'em all behind when she left home. I offered to get her one, when she first came to us, and nothing really came of it. She always says it's a silly thing to spend money on. I'm a grown-up now, I've got bills and shit, that sorta thing."
"Did she, by chance, ever tell you what her favorite was?" Ranko leaned forward hopefully, the gears beginning to turn in her mind.
With another sharp nod, and a widening smile, Ayako set her empty paper cup on the tabletop. "A dolphin, if memory serves."
Ranko rocketed out of her seat, snatching up her mostly-depleted takeout container and both empty drink cups. "C'mon, Aya! We've got a mission!"
Hauling three large plastic bags over her shoulder, Ranko plodded after Ayako through the center of the mall. After three hours, she was beginning to get tired, but she made no show of it to her elder sister. Can't have her thinking I don't appreciate what she's doing. I'm so glad to be able to do stuff for the girls for Christmas. It broke my heart not to be able to before she offered.
"Okay," Ayako said, slowing down to let Ranko catch up. She carried a bag of her own, a pair of blue jeans she'd picked up for her husband Kage at the same store where Ranko had bought one for Izumi's husband Kaito. "How we holding up, kiddo?"
Ranko beamed, looking down at her haul. "Well, we've got Yui, Izzi, Mei, Kaito, and Hoshi dealt with. I can't shop for you while you're here with me, obviously!"
The taller woman crinkled her nose and gave a slight shake of her head. "You don't have to do anything for me."
"Yes I do," Ranko insisted. "I can do at least that much on my own. You've made it possible for me to be a part of a real Christmas with a… with our family for the first time, Aya. It's the least I can do. I know what I'm getting you and Kage, too, I'll just need to catch a train to a store tomorrow."
Shrugging, Ayako nodded. "Alright, if you're sure. But don't go too crazy, okay? Kage and I are still struggling to find places in the new place for all the stuff we already have."
"Promise!" Ranko agreed, scanning the nearby stores with her eyes as she walked. "So that just leaves Mama."
Giggling, Ayako raised one eye skeptically down at her sister. "You sure you're not forgetting anybody?"
Ranko's eyes roamed over her bags again. "I don't think so, unless you're hiding another sister somewhere you haven't told me about yet," she replied with a tittering laugh.
"What about Akane?" Aya asked, a devious smirk on her lips. "Wouldn't wanna wind up in the doghouse already, now, would you?"
The redhead swallowed hard, her cheeks warming until she could swear she felt steam escaping from her ears. "I… I didn't think w… we were gonna…."
"Of course we are, ya blockhead!" Ayako replied with a chuckle. "If she's important to you, I want to make sure you can get her something. And if that face is telling me anything, it's the undeniable fact that that girl is important to you." She flashed her younger sister a mischievous wink, motioning over her shoulder with her thumb. "There's a lingerie store over there…"
Ranko choked on her own saliva, her eyes bulging as if all the air in her lungs was trying to escape through her eye sockets at once. "Are you out of your… what?!"
Ayako cackled at her sister's reaction. "I mean, if you don't know her size, you at least know yours, right? Maybe we should just focus on wrapping her present."
"Ayako Jirito!" Ranko's face could have boiled water - not that she wanted anything to do with boiling water in her current form. "Are you fucking crazy?!"
"Oh, honey," Akayo said between mirthful belly laughs. "The look on your face, girl! Seriously, though, if that's what you wanna do…"
Ranko shook her head vigorously, her eyes still wide. "No way! We aren't… doing that. I'm not sure if we're even gonna do that!" I'm not even sure how we would do that!
"Alright, alright!" Ayako tittered brightly, throwing her arm over the shorter girl's shoulders and pinning her ponytail to her back with it. "Deep breath, kiddo. I didn't mean to fluster you. Well, okay, I did, but not, like, in a bad way. We can do something else for her."
Yeah, but what? Ranko walked a few steps to the center of the aisle between the shops, batting the fluffy ball of her green Santa hat out of her eyes as she read over the backlit directory of stores. It can't be anything too mushy and scare her off. It can't be anything too personal, that her dad or Kasumi would figure out about m… us. Nothing too athletic or sporty; don't want her to think I'm doing the whole 'uncute tomboy' thing again. Shit, this is harder than I thought.
As she pondered the directory of some two hundred businesses, the last few notes of Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree faded from the air, pumped through the vast array of recess-mount speakers dotting the ceiling of the huge enclosed space. Man, they're really hammering the Christmas stuff in here. I guess it makes people buy more shit. A new song began, the lyrics preceding the first note of instrumentation.
"I really can't stay…"
The redhead grinned, swaying a bit with the music. Less than two days ago, she and Akane had sung the song together in front of a full house at the Phoenix. Ranko had spared her the embarrassment in the second performance, instead replacing Baby, It's Cold Outside with I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus in the set list. Still, Ranko couldn't help but replay the few minutes she'd shared with Akane on her stage - the center of her universe - in her mind. She seemed to have so much fun with me… and it made her wanna ki…
She hid her face in her hands, feeling the warmth of her cheeks in her palms. The butterflies doing loop-the-loops through the nest of lo mein in her stomach showed no signs of stopping. When she looked up from her fingers, though, the spark of an idea lit her ice-blue eyes, and she began looking over the directory with a new intent. There's gotta be a music store in here somewhere. That'd be something that would tell her exactly how special that night was to me - and nobody would ever guess what it meant or who it was from unless they were in the bar that night.
Ranko walked out of the record store, a small pink bag containing a pair of cassettes dangling from her wrist and a smile on her lips. "Alright! Just one to go!" She turned her head to the left, grinning toward Ayako. "What in the actual hell do we do for Mama? I mean, the woman doesn't even fuckin' wear clothes. It's just her jacket, the same two pairs of black jeans and whatever free tee shirts the booze vendors drop off for her."
Ayako shrugged her shoulders, the remainder of Ranko's purchases slapping against her hips through her long coat. "I normally get her gift certificates, and it wouldn't surprise me if the old bat spends 'em on freakin' groceries. She's the no-frills queen of the world, I gotta tell ya. Izzi definitely didn't get her fabulous streak from her, that's for sure!"
The redhead nodded furtively. "And I have no idea what she'd need at her place; I've never even been there. Can you think of anything?"
Stopping to pile the several bulky bags she carried on a nearby bench at the center of the main concourse, Ayako shrugged again. "You'll see it on Christmas; we always do presents at her place on Christmas and then dinner after. But that's too late. I can't really think of much, honestly. It's pretty sparse there too; I mean, she's hardly ever there except to sleep. Woman practically lives at the bar." She winced a bit as she took in her sister's expression. "I didn't mean anything by…"
"I know," Ranko said, dismissing Ayako's concern with a wave of her hand. "I get it. I mean, even her office is so… depressing. It's a shame. She's such an amazing person, and she spends all her time in that cave surrounded by old bills and dead plants. She deserves better."
Ayako smirked. "Do I detect the hint of an idea forming in that brain of yours?"
Ranko blushed. "Why, is there smoke comin' outta my ears?" Snickering, she slowly swiveled in place on her feet, looking over the surrounding storefronts. There's gotta be something… "Hey," she called to Ayako just as the elder woman's backside had made contact with the wooden bench next to Ranko's bags. "You think there's room on the wall behind her desk for a picture?" She gestured across the mall's central thoroughfare to a small shop jammed full of canvas pictures, some framed, some not. "Just something to… I dunno, give it some life in there?"
"Behind her desk, no," Ayako thought, closing her eyes and picturing the space in her mind. "But behind the couch, maybe, if it wasn't too huge."
Nodding, Ranko reached for her bags. "I'm gonna go check out that art store over there. Maybe I can find something. You wanna come, or do you need to chill a minute?"
Ayako sighed, looking down at her heavy, faux fur-lined suede boots. "Yeah, gimme a sec, and I'll be right behind you. You can leave the bags with me; there's not a lot of room in there."
"Thanks!" Ranko stuffed the bag with Akane's gifts down into the larger bag containing Mei's, flitting off in the direction of the shop. She was glad for the form-fitting sweater dress she wore; the aisles were so narrow that she was certain a more loose-fitting skirt would have knocked pictures off of their precarious perches on the racks. On the floor, other canvases stood six and seven deep leaned against the slatted wall, and several other shoppers were slowly flipping through one stack after another to try to browse all of the available options.
What the heck would I even get her a picture of? I mean, all the woman likes is beer. Ranko exhaled heavily, beginning to flip through the first stack. It contained mostly prints of impressionist paintings; reproductions of van Goghs, Monets, and works from other European artists the teenager hadn't heard of, either. Sheesh. It's a bar, not a museum. Boooo-ring.
Letting the wooden frames fall back against the wall with a loud series of clacks, she began thumbing through the second column of placards. This one featured still-lifes of various plants; a bowl of fruit here, a vase of roses there. Ranko thought of the picture above her bed, a purple vase full of vibrant lavender orchids, and it made her smile. But what kinds of plants does Mama like? She has pots for plants in her office, but they're all crispier than the potato skins we serve. I think there's cactuses in the Sahara that have gotten water more recently. Resolving herself to keep up on caring for the family matriarch's plants as long as she lived above the bar, provided Hana ever got any more, Ranko's search continued.
The third column of pictures were all photographs printed at poster size and framed under glass. There were two featuring sports cars, one depicting a well-tanned blonde in a skin-tight red swimsuit with an orange bodyboard under her arm, and an aerial photograph of a packed soccer stadium. Well, I found the designated boy section, Ranko thought with a smirk as she flipped past a poster of a dark-skinned boxer standing over a fallen opponent.
As the frames rattled back against the wall, a brief flash of red and orange caught the corner of her eye as the young couple to her left rifled through the selections. Wait… was that what I thought it was? Ranko waited to delve into the fourth array of canvases, waiting until the pair ahead of her chose a reproduced painting of a cherry blossom tree and made their way toward the register. She skipped over several rows of pictures to reach the one the couple had vacated, ignoring the rolling French countryside in a white frame and the blue frame containing a scene from a rustic Italian kitchen.
Yes. Oh, fuck, yes.
She pulled out a jet-black frame, nearly a meter tall and half that across. It had no glass covering the canvas within. The portrait's background was a deep red, save for an orangish yellow oval at the center that looked like the sun - or perhaps just a ball of fire. Silhouetted against it was a majestic red phoenix, its wings and beak pointed skyward as it prepared to take off from some perch obscured by its deep red plumage of flame. The firebird looked positively regal, as if it were the most beautiful creature ever to grace the earth, and it knew it.
Ranko swallowed hard as her eyes rose to the upper right corner of the frame, but before she could read the yellow price sticker she found there, a hand reached out from behind her and covered it with long, feminine fingers.
"Don't even worry about it," Ayako said as Ranko turned to look up at her sister. "It's perfect."
AnneOminous
Phoenix Proprietress
- Location
- Orlando, FL
- Pronouns
- She/They
I'm so very sorry this is a day late, Firebirds. I have zero backlog right now after some grueling times during the holidays, and with a commitment to release four chapters a week - all of them new this week during this new arc in Reignited, it's been a tough slog. As soon as I'm done posting this chapter everywhere, I'm downing another energy drink and cranking out the finale to this arc, so you will get a chapter tomorrow too, even if it's late in the evening like this.
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Ayako is living her best life right now.
AnneOminous
Phoenix Proprietress
- Location
- Orlando, FL
- Pronouns
- She/They
And you thought Yui was the chief shit-stirrer of the Phoenix...
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
This is a position that changes based upon the needs of the situation.