The Phoenix Saga

"Ooh, what about this one?" Akane held up Ranko's lacy mint party dress, giggling and swishing the skirt about a bit on the hanger as she carried it from the couple's closet toward the bed. "This is one of my favorites on you." 

Ranko groaned, letting her back flop to the mattress with her calves still dangling off the edge of the bed to the floor. She wore nothing but a pair of white cotton panties. "You're making a way bigger deal outta this than it is, 'Kane!"

Akane tittered brightly as Ranko's arms flopped to her sides on the bed. "Oh, come on, Ranko! You wanna be all pretty for your big date, don't you?!"

"I told you, it's not a fucking date!" Ranko sat up on the bed again, the frustration in her eyes reaching a fever pitch. "It's just a stupid school thing! That's it!"

Akane snickered, sitting on the edge of the bed and draping Ranko's dress over her wife's mostly-nude body. "I don't know… A handsome boy is taking you to a fancy restaurant for lunch. Sounds like a date to me…"

"Would you quit it?! I toldja, he's just gonna ask me some questions for his stupid school report, that's all! Why do you gotta get all weird about it?!" Ranko let herself fall back to the bed with a loud grumble.

Akane rolled onto her hip, looking down at her wife with adoring eyes. "Is that why you spent more than an hour on your makeup, princess? You can be honest… I won't tell anybody." Her playful giggles only served to draw even more visible frustration out of her lover.

"There's probably gonna be pictures and shit. That's all!" Ranko sighed heavily. The last thing I want right now is to be alone with a guy I don't really know, Akane. Especially where there's drinks. Why can't you see that?!

Akane nodded, sliding her hand under the light green lace dress and caressing her lover's chest with the barest whisper of a touch, a hungry look developing in her eyes. "Well, okay. If you're sure you're still my girl, then… we probably have a little time before you need to get going…"

Ranko shivered under her touch, but the moment Akane lifted her hand to reposition it, the redhead rolled over on her side on the bed. She turned her back to Akane, covering herself with the dress as best she could. "Please don't."

The songstress' wife frowned, pulling her hand back. What the heck is wrong with her? She never wants me to touch her anymore. Not since she's been home. What's wrong with you, Ranko? Her eyes clouded with hurt and worry. "Look, I was just teasing you, baby. Ya don't gotta be mad."

Ranko shook her head, curling her knees up to her chest. "I'm not mad. I just… don't wanna play right now. I'm sorry. I wish I didn't have to go to this thing."

Akane nodded, stroking her lover's scalp through a shock of as-yet-unbrushed red hair. "I know, but you gave Sora your word. It'll mess his grades up if you don't do it now, and that wouldn't be fair to him. You want me to come with you? I'm not above being your plus-one."

Yes. Desperately. But if you did, everybody would see us together, and there'd be pictures, and the guy writing my whole fucking life story would know about us, and then Yokai… Ranko bit her lip, shaking her head slightly after a long moment. "I'll be okay."

"Alright. If you're sure. But you should probably start getting dressed, baby girl. C'mon, I'll help you do your hair." Akane patted her wife gently on the bare thigh.

Ranko nodded, sitting up with a quiet grumble and laying the dress out on the bed. She brushed her hair out of her eyes as Akane walked to the dresser, willing her hands to stop shaking as they passed her eyes. "Remember, we're going to Enzo's, in Shibuya." 

"I know, dummy. You've told me three times already. You don't have to rub it in so much that he's taking you to one of the best places in town, ya know." Akane rolled her eyes as she returned with a hairbrush in hand.

I'm not, Akane. Ranko looked down at her hands in silence as her wife began to run a pink chrome detangling brush through her hair. I just want you to know where to start looking for me if I don't come home. 

* * *

"Good afternoon! Welcome to Enzo's, ma'am. Do you have a reservation?"

Ranko looked up at the elderly maitre'd at his sidewalk podium, holding the skirt of her mint dress down to guard against a sudden gust of wind. Don't need to pull a Marilyn today, thank you. "Yes, please. It should be under Tendo?"

"Hmmm." The attendant scoured his notebook, looking back up at the songstress in dismay. "I'm afraid I don't have anything under that name, ma'am."

Ranko sighed, shaking her head. Of course not, dummy. He made the reservations. "I'm meeting someone here. Sora Inaba? I'm not sure if he's here yet."

The aging man adjusted his thick glasses on his nose, looking down at his schedule book again. "Ah! Yes, he was seated a few minutes ago. Follow me, please, miss."

Ranko accompanied the man in the red sport coat as he led her through the glass doors and into the building. The interior was richly decorated, with dark wood paneling lining the walls. Ranko was led past a set of plush red velvet chairs with brass fittings into the main dining room, where dozens of tables covered in red linens were crowded with people. The air was filled with the smell of tomato sauce and the sound of Frank Sinatra. Every half-wall was draped with slightly dusty fake grapes, and here and there, a faux marble bust of some Roman goddess or other. Paintings of various Roman ruins and Tuscan farmhouses in gold-painted frames dotted the walls. 

Ranko was directed to a relatively secluded table at the back of the restaurant. Sora stood when he recognized her, offering her a polite bow which she returned. "Ranko! Hi. You look…"

Oh, please don't compliment me. It'll just make this whole thing that much weirder, Ranko thought as she took the seat the maitre'd pulled out for her. So weird that having my chair pulled out for me is starting to feel normal, she mused with a slightly flushed face. She removed her white wide-brimmed hat, setting it in the empty chair next to her along with her purse and her sunglasses and pulling the chair closer to her side of the table. "Hey, Sora. So, how do we wanna do this?"

The young man across from her shrugged his shoulders in his gray suit coat. He reached into his interior breast pocket, removing a small notebook and a pen. "Getting right to business, huh? Alright. I figure, I'll just ask you some questions, and you tell me whatever you want if you want to add something. Does that work for you?"

Ranko nodded, biting into a breadstick from the wicker basket on the table, lined with a white cloth napkin. "Works for me," she said, covering her mouth with her manicured fingers as she spoke while chewing.

"Well, I guess, let's start with the basics. Where were you born, stuff like that?" Sora smiled disarmingly at the nervous-looking redhead, scratching his temple with the back of his disposable ballpoint pen. 

Ranko swallowed her mouthful of bread. Not much risk in sharing that, I guess. "Yokohama. November twenty-fifth, 1971."

Sora nodded, noting her answer in his book. "Right on. And your parents?"

The redhead sighed heavily. That's the third rail right off the bat, buddy. "I… don't like to talk about them much, if that's okay. My pop… took me away from my mother when I was really little, and I didn't see her again until last year."

"Oof. That must've been rough. I saw an interview where you said you traveled a lot as a kid?" Sora listened intently, eschewing the breadsticks in order to give the songstress his undivided attention.

Ranko nodded. "Yeah. My old man took me all over when I was a kid. Damn near everywhere in Japan, India a little bit, Thailand, Korea…" She looked down, swallowing hard as a wave of nervousness crossed her face. "China…"

Sora nodded, adding little stars next to the names of the bullet points in his notebook. "It must be surreal for you, going back to some of those places now on your tour. Any favorites?"

As he finished his question, a young blonde server in a white dress shirt, black bow tie and black slacks approached the table. "Hello! Welcome to Enzo's. My name is Emilie, and I'll be taking care of you. Can I get you two something to drink while you look over the menu?" She smiled brightly at Ranko. "Oh, I love your dress!"

Ranko blinked, having not even picked the menu up yet. "Thanks. Um, just a soda for me, please." She scooped up the laminated sheet, beginning to scan over it. I don't even know what half of this stuff is; it's all in freaking Italian.

"You sure? I'm buying, you know. You don't want some wine or something?" Sora looked up to the server. "A bottle of whatever red you recommend, please, and an appetizer sampler for the table."

The redhead shook her head, bristling as her dangling silver heart earrings tickled her neck. Last thing I want is… "I'm good. Thanks, though." As the server darted off with their drink orders, Ranko turned back to her lunch companion. "Yeah, it can be weird. I'm going back to China in a few months, and… there's a few places there I'm really looking forward to seeing again." Because I still want some friggin' answers.

"Right on! Yeah, sorry for bringing that up. Before today, I went and re-watched all your interviews, and re-read all the Firebird newsletters, and I've noticed you don't talk about your childhood all that much. I just figured, I had to say I tried in case Teach asks why I didn't include it." Sora sipped at his water, watching his companion's reaction.

"Yeah…" Ranko sighed, looking down at her hands and picking idly at one of her cuticles. "There's a reason for that, okay? Got some stuff in my past that's better off left there."

Sora frowned, tapping his notebook with the back of his pen. "Sure, but… this is a biographical project. We've got to have some detail on more than just the last few years, don't we?"

The nervous songstress shrugged, a no-nonsense glare of warning in her eyes. "You knew I'm not a fan of talking about that stuff when you picked me to do your paper on. Now, drop it, or I walk. I'm not playin', Sora."

"Alright! Alright! Sheesh!" The handsome young man chuckled, putting up his hands in supplicant surrender as the server returned with his wine and Ranko's soda, as well as a basket of fried foods. "But you got out of it, at least, so that's something."

"Yeah. Let's just say the old man wasn't Father of the Year, and I had to split. Make my own way for a little while."

Sora nodded softly. "Yeah, I remember you talking about that on Bangers on the Beach. And that's when you met your family? Your new one, I mean, at the Phoenix?"

Ranko nodded, managing a smile. "Yeah. Went in looking for a job, and next thing I knew, they were telling me I could sleep upstairs, throwing me a birthday party… I didn't know what the heck to make of anything. I'd never really had… family to speak of, and it took the better part of a month before I even felt safe to unpack my backpack, ya know? Kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it just… never did. Next thing I know, I've got four sisters, a mom, a whole new wardrobe, a stage, a band…" 

Akane, Ranko finished silently in her mind.

Sora nodded appreciatively as the server dropped off a new basket of breadsticks and a wooden tray full of smaller dishes. "Right on. That's really amazing of them! And you said they've done this before?" He picked up an arancino, waving it in the air a bit to let it cool as he spoke. 

His lunch companion scooped up a piece of bruschetta from the tray, nodding as she popped it into her mouth. It took her a moment to finish chewing before she could answer. "Yep. All of us." Not sure I should talk about Aya's deal. "That's the thing with the Phoenix - all of us kinda got dealt shitty hands when it came to our families, and so we decided to just… make our own, one new girl at a time. And now, our family looks exactly like we want it to, and everybody can feel safe and at home there."

Except me. I still have to lie. It was the deal I made. It was the price I had to pay to save them.

"And then you met your husband, right? Aki, his name is?" Sora grinned, tipping his wine glass gently in Ranko's direction. "Not for nothing, but I gotta say, he's one lucky dude." He was surprised when his compliment was met not with a smile, but a sigh and drooped shoulders. "Hey, I'm sorry if I was out of line. It's just, ya know, with you bein' all famous and everyth…"

He was interrupted by a wave of a raised hand. "Don't worry about it, Sora. It's… not you. Aki is… yeah. He's amazing. He's… my everything. My song," she emphasized, playing with her wedding band with her thumb. 

"Yeah? How'd you two meet?" Sora took a second arancino, nudging the small white plate containing the last one closer to Ranko. 

"I…" Ranko blushed. Can't believe we never came up with an explanation for this. Shit. Umm… 

"We met at the bar. He came to see a show, and… well, it was love at first sight. And I think he might've even liked me, too." Ranko smiled, recounting the first night her wife met a girl named Ranko Tendo in the alley behind the Phoenix. "We started dating not long after that. This would've been… around Christmastime, of '89." 

Sora grinned. "Wow, you two moved fast then, if you're already married." He spoke around a mouthful of half-chewed bruschetta. 

The redhead nodded. "I guess you could say that. It was…" Think about Aki, Ranko. Not Akane. It'll help keep the story straight. She bit into the remaining arancino, using her chewing to buy herself time to formulate her story. "It was Valentine's Day, last year. And he was with me all day, 'cause he played my boyfriend in the Sneak video. And after we shot the video, he took me back to the bar, and he had this absolutely amazing dress waiting for me there. And I got all fancied up, and he took me to this really ritzy French fusion restaurant down on the water by the Rainbow Bridge."

"Oh, you mean Maison Ikkoku?" Ranko's lunch companion tipped his empty wine glass to the server, who set about refilling it for him from the bottle she'd brought to the table.

Ranko nodded with a bright smile. "That's the one! And then we went upstairs and danced - I'd never slow danced before, but he taught me. And we went outside on the balcony while the fireworks were going off, and he got down on one knee, and…" 

And 'he' made me 'his' princess. Forever, she mused. It broke her heart to have to lie about her lover's gender, but thinking about their love story never failed to bring a smile to her lips even if certain details did need to be hidden.

Sora grinned. "That's so sweet! And then you got married, I'm guessing?"

With a soft smile and a quiet sigh, Ranko bobbed her head. "In July of last year."

"I'm surprised I didn't hear about it; a celebrity wedding in the middle of our part of Tokyo?" Sora shrugged, dipping a breadstick in a small ceramic ramekin of fragrant olive oil and herbs. 

The redhead shook her head. "It wasn't super huge. Mostly just our families. I didn't want a big wedding. Hell, I would've done it in a tee shirt and a pair of sweats if Aki would've let me. I didn't care, as long as at the end of the day, I got to be Mrs. Tendo." 

Sora sipped at his refreshed wine, listening intently to his report subject's story. "Well, it must be incredible, what you two have. I think talking about him just now is the first time I've seen you smile all day."

"Ak… Aki… is my everything." Ranko sighed quietly, sipping at her soda glass. 

Her young companion smiled, waving his thanks to the waitress as she delivered their salad course. "As your classmate, your friend, and your unofficial biographer, I hope I get to meet him one day. He sounds incredible."

Ranko's smile faded, and she slumped her shoulders despondently. "Maybe one day."