“Shit! Oww!”
“Don’t be such a baby,” Izumi mumbled without moving her lips.
“Well, quit stickin’ me, then!” Ranko jumped as another straight pin punched through the white fabric around her waist and pricked ever-so-slightly into her hypersensitive skin.
Izumi took another pin from her mouth, folding a bit of material over on itself and pinning it into place, tightening the shimmering shell of what would eventually become Ranko’s wedding dress around her sister’s ribcage. “Look, do you want it to fit right or not? We’re almost done, anyway.”
“Urk! You and I have very different definitions of fitting right, Izzi!” Ranko held her arms up to allow her sister to work around her torso.
Izumi shook her head, rolling her eyes playfully with a little tsk. “I swear, girl, every time you complain, I’m gonna take it down another centimeter.”
The redhead whined loudly. “Aww, you suck, Izzi!”
Giggling, Izumi began untying the two-centimeter-wide white ribbon that cinched the shell closed around her sister’s chest, starting to free the younger girl from her makeshift satin prison. “Love you too, little sister.”
Breathing deep as her seamstress sister pulled the white material away from her torso, Ranko reached for the yellow sheath dress that lay spread on the queen-sized bed. Izumi waved as her sister slipped the dress over her head. “I’m gonna go check on the girls while you get dressed, ‘kay?”
“Mm-hmm!” Ranko finished slipping on her dress and pulled her hair back into a loose ponytail, using the pair of yellow lacquered chopsticks she pulled from her mouth to pin it in place.
Ranko emerged from Izumi’s bedroom into a flurry of feminine chaos in the little apartment. Izumi leaned over the couch, waving with an exaggerated smile at her infant daughter, who beamed toothlessly as she was bounced in Kasumi’s arms. Mei and Ayako huddled with Akane at the kitchen counter over several small trays of h'orderves. At the dining table, Yui and Nabiki laughed together, rolling their eyes at a picture in one of Izumi’s bridal magazines.
The redhead smiled, her eyes darting from one little cluster of women to the next. This is my family. It’s crazy, it’s different, and it’s mine. Ranko walked up behind her fiancee, standing on her tiptoes to rest her chin on Akane’s shoulder as she wrapped her arms around the taller girl’s waist and snuggled into her soft pink tee shirt. “Hey, you.”
Akane purred as she was hugged, leaning her head back. “Hey yourself, beautiful. Izzi get you all set?” She picked up a small square of pink-frosted cake from one of the trays, turning in Ranko’s arms to face her and holding it up to her face. “Here, try this, babe.”
Ranko blushed as she opened her mouth to accept the sample, getting a bit of pink frosting smudged on the corner of her mouth, and nodded in response to Akane’s question.
“Whatcha think, sweetheart? You like that one, or the first one, better? Kasumi said she’d make whichever one we like most.” Akane giggled, scrunching her nose as she removed the bit of frosting from Ranko’s lip with her finger and licked it clean.
Swallowing, the redhead shrugged. “It’s really good! Not sure it’s gonna matter too much to me, though.” She winked, sticking her pink-coated tongue out playfully at her middle sister with a silly expression. “I don’t think Izzi’s leaving me enough room in that dress to expand my lungs, let alone my stomach.”
Izumi shook her head with a grin, walking through the kitchen with Mioko on her hip on the way to her bedroom. “What did I tell you about complaining? You want to be pretty for Akane, don’t you?”
Ranko blushed furiously, suddenly finding the food trays far more interesting than making eye contact with anyone. “Yeah, yeah, I guess I do.”
“Of course she does,” Kasumi said, beaming at the teen with a charmed expression, as if she were watching baby kittens play. “Ranko’s gonna be just beautiful.”
“Kasuuuumi…” Ranko flushed deeper still, trying unsuccessfully to hide in Akane’s shoulder.
Nabiki started rapping gently on her soda glass with a chopstick. Yui almost immediately followed suit with her half-empty beer bottle, filling the little apartment with a repetitive, shrill clinking.
“What’s with all the banging?” Ranko winced, rubbed her eardrum with her index finger. “Do you, like, need a refill or something? You could just ask, ya know! There are, like, four waitresses and bartenders in the kitchen right now. Just sayin’.”
Nabiki scoffed, rolling her eyes with a chuckle. “Honestly, Ranko, do we need to teach you everything?”
“What?! Is it s’pos’ta mean something? I don’t get it.” Ranko looked at Yui in confusion, but her sister was far too amused with Ranko’s deer-in-headlights expression to help her.
It was Ranko’s bride who did, reaching down and resting her palm on the redhead’s cheek and turning her head gently toward herself. “It means they want me to kiss you, silly girl.”
“Oh! Really? Well, shit, in that case…” Ranko twinkled lovingly into her fiancee’s eyes as she reached behind her head, pulling the chopsticks out of her hair and shaking her head to let it fall in loose red waves around her shoulders. She reached around Akane’s back, tapping the juice glass in her fiancee’s hand with the pair of sticks.
“Come here, you.” Laughing contently, Akane stepped forward, her lips meeting her fiancee’s to the giggles and cheers of several of their combined six sisters.
Ranko purred contently as the kiss ended, craning her neck and looking around the apartment. “Hey, where’d Hoshi get to?”
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Yui finished a swallow of beer, tilting the bottle toward Ranko. “Oh, Kaito took him to the arcade. They headed for the hills the second Nabs and Kasumi showed up. Kaito said something about not wanting to drown in estrogen.”
Nabiki flashed Ranko a playfully sadistic sneer. “Fortunately, none of us girls have anything to worry about.”
Ranko hid her face in her hand. I knew I was going to regret letting Akane get them all together. Hell, I’m gonna get my ass kicked.
“Do you mind?” Mei nudged Akane gently with a smile. “As adorable as it is to watch you and my little sister necking all day, you’re blockin’ the snacks, girl!”
Ayako leaned over Nabiki’s shoulder at the dining table, picking up the catalog she’d been looking at. “You still looking for something for Akane?”
The brunette nodded. “Finding something she likes isn’t the problem, it’s finding something in the budget. We’re working on it.”
Ranko sighed quietly. She wished she could find a way to convince Izumi to craft Akane’s wedding attire rather than her own. Akane cared a lot more about it than she did, it seemed, and would likely have been far more appreciative of the effort and attention. The only problem was, the only thing Akane cared about more than looking amazing at the wedding was making sure Ranko did.
“Lemme see that a second?” Akane reached around her middle sister, taking the catalog from Ayako and flipping back a few pages to a section more focused on bridesmaid dresses. She walked back toward the hall, handing the glossy booklet to Izumi as she returned from putting Mioko down in the nursery, pointing down to one of the pictures. “We’re thinking this one.”
Izumi grinned. “It’s cute! I love it. Wait… we? Don’t tell me you actually got Ranko to give an opinion on something?”
“Actually,” Akane said, nudging the flushing redhead in the shoulder. “She picked it out.”
Ranko shook her head emphatically, smiling coyly as she waved her hands defensively in front of her face. “I deny everything. No idea what she’s talking about!”
The couple’s de facto wedding planner smirked. “Uh-huh. Likely story. I just knew there was a bride in there somewhere…” Izzi poked gently at Ranko’s forehead. “Oh, this is cool,” she said, returning her eyes to the catalog. The dress was a pastel mint green from the waist up, with a modest square neckline and sheer full sleeves running down to the wrist, cinching around the midriff with a boned corset look. Three pink flowers rested in a cluster just above the left breast. From the waist down, the green faded into an off-white organza skirt that fluffed down to about the knees. Surrounding the larger picture, several smaller ones of a similar dress were arranged. “Looks like it comes in a bunch of different colors. So we just need to pick one, decide on the final bridesmaid count, and we can work on getting them ordered, and then we just need to start talking about maids of honor and if they’re gonna be in anything different.”
Ranko hugged Akane gently, resting her head gently on her future wife’s collarbone. “You wanna just tell them now?”
Akane turned her head, kissing Ranko on the forehead. “If you do, princess. Go ahead.”
“If it helps, I’m happy to step out,” Nabiki declared. “Frilly dresses, not really my thing.”
Ranko smirked at Akane’s sister. “Oh, not a chance, Nabiki. If I don’t get out of it, neither do you.”
The brunette scoffed, but her eyes betrayed a warmth that her scowl failed to fully hide. “I’m not sure that’s fair, little sister. After all, I’m not the idiot who decided to get married.”
Akane giggled, poking Ranko’s nose again. “Twice.”
Mei bounced on her heels with a little squeak, scrunching her arms up against her chest with her hands balled into fists. “Well, whatever you’re gonna tell us, tell us, already! No holdin’ out on us, either!”
“Well,” Ranko began, smiling around the room at all of the women. “Me an’ Akane have been talking, and there’s a lot that goes into this. Like, what does a maid of honor do when there’s two of ‘em? Also, it’s not really fair, since I’ve got four sisters and she only has two. I wasn’t about to try to pick my two favorites, and she didn’t really want to add two more girls just to say the sides were balanced.” Much though Hitomi and Emi would have loved it if she had. “Tradition’s got us pretty screwed there. But then, we figured, nothin’ else about this thing is traditional, so why did this have to be?”
“I don’t follow, Ranko,” Kasumi said, leaning gently on the frame of the archway between the nursery and the kitchen. “Are you saying you don’t intend to have bridesmaids at all?”
Akane turned to her sister, shaking her head with a loving smile. “No, Kasumi. We’re saying we want all of you to stand with us, as equals. No maids of honor, and no sides. We’re all gonna be one family, so there’s no reason to split things up between Ranko’s sisters and mine. You’re all special to both of us, and we couldn’t dream of getting married without all of the women who helped make us who we are.”
Izumi stepped between the brides, putting one of her arms around each of them. “I friggin’ love it, girls. Brilliant. Now, we just gotta pick a color, figure out everybody’s sizes, and we can get these dresses ordered.”
“I don’t know,” Ranko said. “What if we didn’t pick a color, either?”
“Um, Ranko, honey,” Izumi said, grinning and patting her sister on the top of the head in mock condescension. “If there wasn’t a color, they’d just be, like, invisible. You get how that doesn’t really work for clothes, right?”
Ranko lowered her face into her palm. “I mean, no shit, Izzi. I mean, what if we didn’t pick one color? It comes in six colors, right? There’s six of you girls. What if we just did the whole rainbow?”
Izumi’s eyes sparkled, and she ruffled her sister’s wavy hair with her hand. “That’s fantastic! Ranko, you are a friggin’ genius!”
Mei tittered and popped up her hand. “Dibs on blue!”
Kasumi stood on her tiptoes, peering over Izumi’s shoulder at the catalog, still holding Mioko against her hip. “Oh, that light purple one is so pretty…”
Ayako swallowed a bite of cake, almost choking on it to get her words out before all the desirable choices were gone. “Red, all the way!”
Izumi had said nothing, but she’d already written her name on the catalog next to the picture of the green dress.
Yui smirked at Nabiki. “Guess that leaves us, kiddo.”
“As the blonde, I’d think yellow would be the natural choice for you,” Nabiki said, sipping at her soda nonchalantly.
The tall blonde nodded. “That works for me. So, yellow for me, orange for you?”
Nabiki nodded, her brown bob tickling her shoulders that were left bare by her orange halter top. “Guess so, sure.”
Ranko blinked as Izumi finished jotting down the girls’ choices. “That seemed… surprisingly easy. I feel like there’s another shoe about to drop. What am I missing?” Izumi turned to her sister with a wide, toothy grin. “We still gotta talk about what to do with mama.”