“You guys, I… wow. Thank you. This is so sweet.”
Ranko blushed, backing up a few steps until her shoulders touched the pewter-colored cinder block wall of the store behind her. So much for sunglasses making it hard to recognize me.
“Ran-KO! Ran-KO! Ran-KO! Ran-KO!”
She waved with both hands to the forty or so fans who had gathered around her. “Seriously, guys, thank you so much, but, umm, I’m supposed to meet somebody in a few minutes! Can I just, like, sign something quick for you or something? Please?”
Come on, guys. I love you too, but you’re gonna make me late.
A few of the fans dispersed at her request, but a cadre of twenty or so Firebirds remained surrounding her, whooping and shouting questions at her.
Guys, seriously, this is starting to freak me out a little bit. She tried to step back, but the crush of fans and the concrete wall behind her offered her nowhere to go. She reached into her black shoulder bag, pulling out a fine-point gold marker and waving it above her head. “Come on, who wants something signed?”
Ranko began frantically writing her name on anything that was thrust in front of her, hoping to dispel the remaining crowd. Ranko shook her head in stunned confusion, more of an edge in her voice than she intended as she looked up at the man holding out the next article awaiting an autograph. “Seriously? A freakin’ Rise poster? Do you just, like, carry this around town in case you ever ran into me?”
The tall, lanky man in the blue sport coat shrugged. “I heard you live around here, so I figured, you never know.”
Fuck, am I gonna need to hire a bodyguard or something? ‘Cause, like, I can take these clowns easy, but I don’t think the label will be too cool with me kickin’ the shit out of fans if they get a little too creepy. She blushed deeply, not sharing the invasive thought behind her sweet smile with anyone. Who am I kidding? I don’t need to hire a bodyguard for myself. I’m about to marry one.
With the last of her rabid admirers finally sated, Ranko looked up at the wrought-iron clock pole in the middle of the open-air shopping center’s central aisle. “Fuck! I’m definitely gonna be late!”
Adjusting her bag on her shoulder, she rushed toward the little cafe where she was supposed to have been twenty minutes ago. If I run, it’ll attract more attention. I’ll get stopped again. She settled for a brisk walk, keeping her hands at her side to keep the breeze from giving any passers-by a glimpse of the pastel pink panties she wore under her flowing white dress. It was her favorite, the one Akane picked out the first night she’d spent the night. The one she wore on Christmas, when Akane had proposed to her. Wearing it felt like Akane was with her, like she was wrapped in an embroidered hug and a suit of lace armor all at once.
As she approached her destination a sharp, admonishing voice came from one of the outdoor tables at the cafe.
“You’re thirty minutes late, girl.”
The redhead bit her tongue so hard it almost bled. I want her to see me as a girl, but every time she says the word, it’s like she’s stabbing me with it. Ranko turned, cringing as she bowed in apology to her biological mother. “I know. I’m so, so sorry! I got… held up.” She reached for the handle to the gate into the open-air patio, but Nodoka waved her off. “Don’t bother. I’ve already finished my coffee and paid the check. We’ll just move on.”
Damn it. And I was really looking forward to lunch, too. I’m starving. “Oh… okay.” She opened the gate anyway, holding it for Nodoka as she exited and standing awkwardly with it still in her hand as her mother… inspected her. Ranko had checked her appearance at least a dozen times in the mirror, but now, she expected she was being judged on every hair that might be slightly out of place.
“What’s with the sunglasses? It’s not bright out here.” Nodoka pursed her lips, shaking her head in disappointment. “You know it’s rude to wear those when you’re talking to people, right?”
But… if I don’t…
Ranko sighed rebelliously, rolling her eyes as she pulled her pink-framed glasses off and pushed them into her black purse. “Anything else?”
The irritated woman clicked her tongue. “No, I suppose that will do for now.” Adjusting the weight of the long bundle strapped across her back, she turned toward the long row of shops. “Come along, Ranma.”
“No.” Ranko crossed her arms defiantly across her chest. “There’s a lot of stuff I’ll bend on, but you are not going to call me by that name. We talked about this already. It’s not up for debate. If you want me to believe I have any hope of you accepting me, you’ve gotta start there.”
Nodoka turned, shaking her head. “It’s a habit. It’ll take some getting used to.”
The redhead scoffed. “Habit, my ass. You haven’t even seen me in over fifteen years! The only habit you have is forgetting I exist, and leaving Pop to ruin my whole damn life while you went and watched soap operas or some shit.”
The harshness faded from the woman’s face, replaced with a tinge of vulnerability and hurt. “Child, I never forgot you. Not for a second. I’ve regretted letting your father take you every single day since it happened. Don’t you ever doubt that, girl.”
The teenager leaned on the window of the cafe’s dining room, giving her mother a look that was more inquisitory than accusatory. “Do… do you actually love me at all?”
Nodoka sighed, drooping her head in shame. “I love my son. As for this…” She gestured to her daughter. “... little girl? I suppose I… I’m trying.”
Ranko stepped forward, planting her feet. “Then say my fucking name.”
The brunette in the kimono sighed in defeat. “Your name is Ranko Sao…”
“Tendo!” Ranko glared, shouting over the rest of the word. “Don’t you ever call me by that poisonous name again. Besides…” She sneered darkly. “Isn’t it all proper and traditional to use a woman’s married name to refer to her?”
“It is when she’s married.” Nodoka sighed, crossing her arms gruffly. “But, very well. Ranko Tendo, then.”
A collection of gasps rose out of the previously muddled din of conversation in the alleyway. “Wait, Ranko Tendo is here?!” In seconds, another flood of humanity swept between Ranko and her mother, backing the singer up against the cafe window. Receipts, baseball caps, and even napkins from the cafe were thrust forward at her; anything that could be written on with a marker, she saw it. Ranko half-expected the young mother in the back of the throng to hand her baby up to be signed.
“Guys! Whoa, whoa!” Ranko hopped up, balancing on the wrought-iron fence surrounding the cafe’s outdoor patio and motioning downward with open palms to try and tamp down their excitement. “Look, I’m hanging out with someone right now, and I was already late ‘cause I was signing autographs, so I need you to chill, alright?”
She looked up at the clock in the alley. 1:00. Plenty of time. “Okay, look, I’ll tell you what. If you guys can give me a little space, I’ll come back here at say, 5:30, and I’ll sign whatever you want, take pictures, all that good stuff. But I need a few hours, okay? Please?”
From the far side of the alley, where she had been flushed clear by the mob, Nodoka rubbed her chin thoughtfully. Perhaps she’s more famous than I thought. And some people do seem to like her. She cracked a guilty smile. And, however much I hate to admit it, she’s kind of impressing me, too. She’s her own woman, but she’s still got that Saotome fight in her.
As the hopeful crowd began to disperse, two young men stepped forward, offering Ranko their hands to help her down from her perch on the fence. She didn’t need the assistance, but in her loose-flowing dress, she thought it might be better to accept it anyway. Besides, she didn’t want to be rude. She offered each of them one of her hands with a blush and was softly lowered until her white leather flats contacted the sidewalk.
“Thanks, guys. See you in a few hours, okay?” She looked back at the cafe, and noticed a few of the employees standing in the aisles between rows of tables watching the commotion through the window. “Oh, can somebody please go warn the staff about what's about to happen to them?”
Finally free of the second throng of admirers, Ranko plodded back to rejoin her mother. “Sorry about that. Occupational hazard.”
Nodoka nodded as she walked alongside the girl who was once her son, in no small measure of awe of her notoriety. “Does that sort of thing happen often?”
Ranko blushed deeply, fidgeting with her white-ribboned ponytail. Her celebrity status was still hard for her to come to terms with, but ever since the album release and her television appearance, it seemed to be increasing every day. She sometimes wondered if she’d ever go to the grocery store in peace again, and she dared not send Akane alone for fear she would bring home bathroom cleanser instead of table salt.
“It’s starting to, yeah. Like, I don’t even know what to do with it. I’m just a regular girl, you know? It’s still just so crazy to me that, like, people want me to sign stuff or whatever. Like, who gives a shit, you’ve got a greasy pizza receipt that I wrote my name on. But it makes ‘em happy, so I try, ya know?”
Nodoka laughed. “You, my dear, are anything but a regular girl.”
My dear? Ranko blinked. Who are you, and what have you done with psycho sword lady?
“So, um, where are we going?” Ranko looked up at her mother nervously, her head on a swivel as she walked. Nodoka hadn’t offered to let her put her sunglasses back on, though Ranko thought perhaps she might permit it now that she’d seen the consequences of her daughter being recognized.
“I hadn’t decided yet,” Nodoka said with a smirk that was somewhere between devious and judgmental. “I thought we might have something of a girls’ day.”
Ranko swallowed hard, following along. If this was Izzi or Akane saying that, it would be cool. I might almost be excited, fucked as it is to admit it. But from her? Why do I get the feeling this is another one of her stupid tests?
“So, like, shopping, or…?”
The woman in the kimono turned. “Oh, that wouldn’t be fair to do to you. I know you’re still trying to save money for your wedding, and all.” There was a little more sincerity in her voice, but a slight tinge of skepticism remained behind her eyes. “And, speaking of which, don’t worry about money - whatever we do today, I’ll pay for.”
Ranko nodded with a nervous smile. Well, that’s at least one less thing to worry about, but what do you have up that kimono sleeve, lady?
“In fact… since you’ve been saving for so long, it’s probably been a while since you’ve really treated yourself, yes?” Nodoka smiled, a bit more warmth in her expression.
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“Um... I guess?” Ranko’s nerves were apparent in her voice.
Nodoka gestured with her neck at an open door to her right, and Ranko immediately recognized the acrid smell of acetone. “Come on. You probably need to get most of this stuff done before the wedding, anyhow, right?”
Oh, no. Come on! Not this. Not freaking girly-girl final boss shit. Just… come on!
“Uh, sh—sure! Right!” Ranko looked around frantically, desperately hoping a mob of fans would sweep her clear out to the parking lot, but none arrived. I’ve never done this without Izumi or Akane coaching me through it. I’m so screwed.
Ranko walked with some trepidation into the little salon. It seemed to only go halfway as far back into the building as the previous shops she’d peered into, as if the back half of the shop was hidden behind the storefront she saw.
“Um, hi,” Ranko said nervously to the black-haired, middle-aged woman at the front desk. “I’m here to, like, get my nails painted?”
Nodoka waved her off, shooing her away from the reception desk. “Nonsense. Give her the whole works.”
The whole… what the hell does that even mean? “Um, yay?” Help.
The woman in the kimono shook her head. “Honestly, child. You would think you’d be used to this, with as much time as you spend on stage. You’ve probably spent more time in a makeup chair than I have, and I’m twice your age.”
Yeah, well, I guess the stylists know a lost cause when they see one, lady.
“Sure. Most’a the time it’s just my sisters doing this for me, though - I usually can’t afford professional stuff unless… work pays for it.” It felt safer than saying the record label in a room full of young women who might swarm her in the middle of their facials. “I guess, where do we start?”
The receptionist led Ranko to a black vinyl chair, motioning for her to take a seat. “We’ll start with washing your hair, and then we’ll give it a style, color, whatever you want.”
Ranko’s eyes widened in fear when she saw the steam rising from the sink next to her. “I um, uh, I don’t need it washed! I just did it this morning! Thanks, though!”
Nodoka sat in a red vinyl waiting chair across from her daughter, picking up a style book. “Do you have any thoughts on what style you’d like?”
I’d like the “let’s do literally anything else” style, please and thank you. “Not really. I… wasn’t exactly planning on doing this when I left the house. Aren’t you gonna get anything done? I thought this was a girls’ day together.”
Her mother waved her off with a quiet smile. “Oh, no, honey. Don’t be silly. I’m content to just relax and watch.”
Yeah, you just wanna watch me suffer alone. Thanks. Appreciate you there, “mom.”
Ranko slowly pulled the white ribbon and the elastic out of her hair. “I definitely want to keep it long. Izumi’s got a plan for how we’re gonna do it for the wedding, and I like being able to put it up in ponytails and pigtails and stuff.”
Nodoka scoffed. “Aren’t pigtails a little juvenile for a woman of almost twenty?”
The redhead chuckled, a bit of a salacious smirk on her lips. Yeah, well… if you felt for one second what putting it up like that makes Akane wanna do to me, you wouldn’t hesitate either. “Well, performing, ya know. You gotta have the flexibility to do all kinda stuff, depending on the look you’re going for.”
“I suppose,” Ranko’s mother said with a shrug. “I can’t begin to imagine what all it must take, handling everything required to perform on stage.”
Maybe because you rock a style that went out of fashion in the Edo period, Ranko thought with a dark smirk. Just a thought?
“It’s definitely a lot. I definitely had to learn all this stuff on hard mode, but…” Ranko smiled blissfully, despite her clear anxiety about her upcoming salon experience. “When I’m up there, and they’re chanting my name, and it feels like everybody wants me, everybody likes me, everybody’s proud of me… It’s worth all of it and more. There’s no feeling like it in the world.”
And it’s everything you never gave me.
As she spoke, a young technician approached her chair, pushing a wheeled tray with a small basket mounted underneath. “Hey there miss! Suki’s still wrapping up with another client, so I figured we’d get started on other stuff first.” She slid the tray to Ranko’s left side, picking up her left hand and placing it on the tray. “Oh, honey, your ring is so adorable!”
Ranko beamed with a deep blush. “Thank you so much.”
The tech pulled out a bottle of nail polish remover, applying some of the acrid liquid to a cotton ball. “You just relax. We’re gonna make your nails all pretty!”
Nodding with a tentative smile, Ranko relaxed her hand. I’ve had this done before, a couple of times. This isn’t so bad.
“So, you’re getting married? When’s the big day?” The excitable technician giggled as she ran over Ranko’s fingers with an emery board.
“July sixth. It’s so close! Omigods, I’m so nervous.” Ranko’s face was afire. It always was when she thought about the idea of being a bride. Being a wife, she was confident she could handle, but the act of getting there still terrified her. She tried to focus on the hyperactive butterflies in her stomach, and not the constant watchful eye of Nodoka Saotome evaluating her every breath.
The tech gave her a dismissive wave with a grin. “Oh, you’ll do fine. I mean, they’re only gonna ask you one question, and I’m pretty sure you already know the answer, right?”
Unable to stifle her giggle, Ranko nodded. “Yeah, I’ve been studying for that test for a while now.”
----------------------------------------
Ranko relaxed back into the chair, exhausted from all of the poking and prodding. Her hands and feet had been massaged with a lotion that smelled strongly of lavender, and all twenty of her digits sparkled with a glittery hot pink polish. While the hairstylist had advised her that any complex style she did now would be lost by the wedding anyway, she’d done a quick trim to shape some of the wilder bits of flaming-red hair. She was grateful for how talkative the technicians working on her had been; it had left nearly no room for conversation with Nodoka, who still sat in her chair thumbing idly through a magazine.
“Okay! Well, that was great! Are we ready to go?” Ranko started to pop up from the chair, but the matronly woman who seemed to run the place shook her head. “Oh, not yet, honey. We’ve got one more thing to do.”
“Huh? But you did the hair, and you did the nails, and that’s the thing, right?” She looked up, confusion and a little worry in her eyes.
The salon owner motioned for her to rise, gesturing her toward a white slatted wood door leading to the back half of the facility. “Sure, but we’ve still got the wax to do.”
“The… excuse me? What’s that?” Ranko sat up nervously.
A quiet tsk came from behind the magazine in front of her mother’s face.
“Oh, sweetheart, it’s super easy. It gets rid of all the hairs on your legs, under your arms, stuff like that. It’s so much easier than shaving.” The woman smiled disarmingly under her salt-and-pepper cowl of permed hair.
Man, not having to shave would be great. I’ve only done it a few times, but Akane’s had to hold me down and mix lidocaine from the pet store into the shaving cream every time. If there’s an easier way…
“Yeah, that sounds awesome! Let’s go!” With a wide grin, Ranko hopped down from her chair. “Back in a bit,” she emoted to her mother as she passed.
She followed the woman’s lead down a narrow hallway plastered with posters for various beauty products interspersed with notes to the employees about various procedures. Ranko followed her gesture into the second open door on her right, where a beige vinyl-covered table not unlike the one in Dr. Tofu’s office dominated the small room. A small cart of fluffy white towels and a device that looked not unlike a slow cooker stood to the right, and behind it, a lithe woman with comely European features and shoulder-length hair so blonde it was almost white waited.
As the door shut behind her, Ranko stepped cautiously to the table and hopped up onto it. “Hey. My name’s Ranko. I understand you’re gonna do… something?”
The young technician waved sheepishly, answering in broken Japanese. “Hi. I Janet. I do wax now please?”
Ranko smiled happily. How much different she felt now than when those three American jerks first wandered into the Phoenix and made her feel stupid for getting their orders wrong. With bright eyes, she answered confidently. “Is English easier for you?”
Blushing, the blonde replied in English. “Oh, very much so. Thank you. If you’re sure you don’t mind.” She opened the lid of the slow cooker thing, and Ranko began to feel a bit of radiant heat from it which she watched out of the corner of her eye with no small measure of concern.
The redhead shook her head, her own cheeks flushing slightly. “Nah, it’s cool. I… write a lot in English. I actually do a lot of… wait, whatareyoudo...”
Before the question could be finished, the technician applied a wooden paddle of molten pink goo to Ranko’s left forearm. It smelled like strawberries. Ranko could not fathom how it did not smell like burned flesh. Her eyes rocketed to the ceiling with a loud yelp.
“GetitoffgetitoffgetitOFF!” Ranko wailed in Japanese, forgetting she’d committed to speak English for the benefit of her torturer.
“I will, one more second,” came a reply in English as a strip of paper was applied to the puddle of hellfire pooling on Ranko’s arm.
And then, she pulled the paper back. Ranko tried to pull her arm back from the searing, slicing, ripping agony as she felt each individual follicle of hair explode its contents, yielding to the hardening lava that had been spread across her skin.
“What the FUCK?!” Ranko cradled her scalded arm, looking at the woman as if she was preparing to fight her.
“See? It’s quick, and it’s all done.” The woman in the pink scrubs smiled proudly through her English reply.
Easy for you to say! I’ll be feeling that all day! Her eyes aflame, Ranko’s body quaked as her Cat’s Tongue nerves tried in vain to make some sense of the cacophony of torturous signals they were processing.
“Okay, let’s get the other side of your arm?” Janet reached for the paddle again, and Ranko’s eyes snapped to it as if it were the sickle of the grim reaper himself.
“Do you need me to stop,” the svelte American asked with some measure of concern.
Gods, yes. Nodoka had to know this would be hard for me. She just had to understand. That fucking… ugh! She did this just to make me suffer. It’s a test. There’s no other explanation.
She looked up at the dread paddle again, nodding resolutely. You’re not gonna beat me today, bitch. No matter how much it hurts.
“Do what you have to do.”
Shuddering and trying her best to stifle her cries through eleven more strips of wax, Ranko found herself fairly incapable of conversation. Her flesh was almost the color of her hair, and she felt as if she were being boiled alive and skinned alive at the same time. She looked up wearily at Janet with eyes like a beaten mule’s, starting to swing her shaking legs cautiously off the table. “Thank the gods that’s over,” she mumbled.
“Almost,” the technician said in English with a soft smile. “You’re doing great.”
“Almost?! You’ve done every centimeter of my arms and legs! There’s nothing left,” Ranko pleaded desperately.
Janet motioned her back to the table. “Would you mind lifting your dress for a minute?”
“Why would I…”
Where else is there even hair to… oh. Oh, fuck. Her eyes nearly bugged out of her skull. She’s gonna… down there? Ranko swallowed hard.
“Come on, honey, you want to be all cute for your wedding night, don’t you?”
----------------------------------------
Fifteen minutes later, Ranko trudged defeatedly through the narrow hallway and back into the salon proper, where Nodoka looked up, beaming proudly. “All done, dear?”
I am going to kill you, Ranko spat at her mother in her mind. I am going to physically rip your soul out through your eye sockets. Slowly. With chopsticks.
“I think so,” Ranko said, managing a weak facade of a smile behind her roiling fury. As she walked, she adjusted the silver bracelet adorning her left wrist, but try though she might, she could not get it to cover both the angry scar left on her skin from the Phoenix Pill incident and the angry red bite marks on the underside of her arm.
At least I didn’t give her the satisfaction of hearing me scream.
“What would you like to do next,” Nodoka asked with a bright, chipper voice, having already paid for Ranko’s abuse at the hands of the collection of buzzing technicians.
Watch the light fade from your eyes, Ranko thought with a venomous glare. “I think I should call it a night. I promised those people I’d go back to the cafe and sign autographs soon. But I think, if we do something again, it’s my turn to pick.”
The Saotome matriarch nodded. “That seems fair. Any idea what you might like?”
Ranko grinned. She knew there was one thing she could do where Nodoka would feel almost as uncomfortable as Ranko had just been. “I’d love it if you’d come see me sing.”
The middle-aged brunette to Ranko’s right nodded. “I sort of figured that was what you’d say, but, a deal’s a deal.”
“Next Friday, then. I go on at 7:30. I’ll have Akane save you a spot up front.” Ranko sneered. And she’s gonna sit with you the whole time, to make sure you behave.
“Very well, Ranko. I shall be there, though I don’t know that I’ll be in my element very much.” Nodoka adjusted the weight of the cylindrical blue cloth-wrapped burden slung over her right arm.
Ranko smirked victoriously. One more thing, lady. You’re gonna be in my castle now, and I’m not playing by your rules anymore.
She motioned to the elder woman’s shoulder. “And the Phoenix has a strict no weapons policy, so if you wanna see the show, leave the damn sword at home.”