“If you were a woman, and I was a man, would it be so hard to understand that a heart’s a heart, and we do what we can? If you were a woman, and I was a man…”
Ranko danced with herself in the narrow space between the stovetop and the sink in the alley kitchen of her apartment. Her right hand held the right earpiece of her headphones tight against her eardrum and her left held the plastic spatula that currently was pulling double duty as a microphone as she sang along with Bonnie Tyler. Her Discman was turned to its maximum volume setting, so the little device clipped to the white ribbon securing her lace half-apron around her waist drowned out even her own voice as she sang.
She glanced up at the green digital timer above the stovetop. Thirty seconds to go. She grinned as she whirled around, letting her deep blue dress swish around her knees as she glanced at the microwave. Akane’s train should have arrived six minutes ago. And that means she should be getting home right… about…
Ranko beamed as the doorknob turned and her betrothed pushed the front door open just as the timer on the range hood beeped. Nailed it. She snatched her headphones off her head, remembering to pull them forward to avoid snagging it on the twin pigtails that protruded from her scalp above her ears. “Hey there, beautiful! How’s my favorite girl in the whole wide world?”
Akane flashed a wide grin, dropping her school backpack on the floor in the corner and kicking off her shoes as she closed and deadbolted the front door. “She’s wonderful. And how is my favorite girl in the whole wide world?” She took a step further into the room, dropping a bundle of envelopes and advertising circulars wrapped in a rubber band on the dining table.
Ranko reached out at lightning speed to minimize the time her arms spent near the heat of the gas burner on the stove, snapping the knob to the far left to cut off the gas and extinguish it. She lifted the griddle pan, on which two salmon filets sizzled skin side down, resting it on the cool burner to the left. The risk of burning dinner averted, Ranko closed the distance to the door, melting into Akane’s arms. She nuzzled her cheek softly between Akane’s breasts. She had to stoop slightly to do so, but sometimes, when she was feeling more feminine than usual, she preferred to feel a little smaller. On days like this, she loved how it felt to just disappear into Akane’s arms and be entirely engulfed in her presence.
“She is madly in love with you.”
Akane smiled, lifting Ranko’s chin with her fingers and leaning down to kiss her softly. Her lips lingered on her lover’s for the better part of thirty seconds before she finally broke contact. “I love you too, Ranko.” She breathed deeply, both of the wafting aroma of the salmon resting on the griddle, and the intoxicating scent of the woman she loved. “You’re going to make someone one hell of a wife someday, Miss Tendo.”
Ranko blushed softly, but her eyes sparkled with her joy. She traced a line gently down the front of Akane’s yellow blouse with one finger, navigating the valley between her lover’s breasts. “Well, if you’re interested in a wife, are you doing anything next Saturday? I might be able to help you out.”
Akane giggled, squeezing her betrothed again. “For you? I think I can pencil something in.”
The redhead bounced excitedly in Akane’s arms. “It’s a date!” She pulled Akane closer, resting her cheek on the front of Akane’s shoulder. “Are you sure you want to keep me forever? I’m not dreaming?” Since the day before, when she had seen herself in her wedding dress for the first time, Ranko could think about nothing but their upcoming wedding, and the teen had not stopped radiating unmitigated, unadulterated joy. She had even stopped fretting about the lost opportunity to build a relationship with her biological mother.
“You’re not dreaming, but I must be, because you are the girl of my dreams.” Akane lowered her hands from the small of her fiancee’s back to just below her butt, lifting her off the ground and holding her as she leaned in for another kiss. She hadn’t ever dreamed of any girl before that fateful December night at the Phoenix. Now, Akane almost could not fathom how she had ever had feelings for any other human being, including the arrogant boy named Ranma Saotome that she had known a lifetime ago.
Setting her lover back on her feet ever so gently, Akane flashed her a winning smile. “Well, I should go get changed before dinner. I’m all sweaty and gross. It’s hot as hell out there.”
Ranko gave her a coy smicker, her eyes afire with desire. “Are you sure you don’t need any help getting out of those clothes? I don’t mind.”
Laughing, Akane shook her head. “I’m starving, and I’m not gonna let my favorite dinner get cold after you worked so hard on it.” She poked the shorter girl gently on the tip of her nose with one finger. “But I might be persuaded to let the dishes wait after, if you’re good.”
Ranko blushed, giving her the most lustily pouty expression she could manage and accompanying it with a quiet whine. Akane had been too exhausted to play the night before, and Ranko had gotten home from the dress fitting at Izumi’s apartment in quite a state. Akane’s homework load had been astronomical since the start of the new school year, possibly even worse some days than Ranko’s had been while she was homeschooling, and her unavailability last night had left Ranko daydreaming about her lover’s touch all day long. “But… what if I can’t be good? What if I can’t help but want to be bad around you?”
Akane stepped closer again, pulling her wife-to-be into another kiss. As she did, she traced the outline of Ranko’s jaw and down the side of her neck with the backs of her middle and index fingers on her right hand, carefully avoiding the headphones that still dangled like a torc over the back of her neck. She felt her entire body warm as the lead singer of the Dapper Dragons quaked in her arms at her whisper-soft touch.
“Then it’s a damn good thing you’re so good at it,” Akane whispered in her ear, letting her breath tickle the hypersensitive girl’s ear.
“Ak… ane… you have about three ssss… seconds to let me go, or I wo… be able to let you go…” Ranko’s breath quickened with every microsecond, every cell that came into contact with Akane’s skin.
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Akane stepped back, giving Ranko a sharp swat on the backside. It was playful, but Akane had also found that the sting of it, amplified by the Full-Body Cat’s Tongue as it was, often helped to snap Ranko out of the nearly catatonic state her touch could put the poor girl in. It was a risk, because it had quite the opposite effect once Ranko had reached a certain point, but the aromatic meal waiting on the stove was cooling further with every moment Ranko spent trying to regain control of her nervous system. “Go on. Go get dinner plated, and I’ll be right back.”
With a giggle, Ranko lifted the silly white lace apron Akane had bought her as a prank when they’d first moved in together ten months ago, bending ever so slightly at the knees in her blue crushed velvet dress. As Akane laughed and turned for the bedroom, Ranko returned to the kitchen and set about preparing twin place settings with grilled salmon, rice, miso, and pickled vegetables.
With dinner prepared and Akane not yet having emerged from the bedroom, Ranko pulled the rubber band off of the bundle of mail on the table, beginning to sift through it. “Oh, hey, Akane! The grocery store’s got steak on sale this week,” she called out as she set the newsprint circular aside.
“We should get some,” Akane yelled back from the bedroom as she pulled a clean shirt over her head.
Discarding a few other ads in a pile at the far corner of their little white table, Ranko was left with three letter-sized envelopes that had made up the core of the bundle.
Power bill… yep, you’re waiting until after the wedding. Water bill… yeah, you, too. Ranko tossed the unopened envelopes aside, but her eyes widened as she read the label of the final article of mail, a thick linen-finished lavender envelope addressed to her. She swallowed hard, hooking a manicured fingernail under the flap and ripping the envelope open along its top edge. Her hands shook as she extracted the single-page letter and began to read it.
“I can not wait to dig into that fish. It smells amaz… Ranko?” Akane emerged from the bedroom, and immediately sensed that the bubbly joy in her lover’s eyes had entirely vanished. “Honey, what’s the matter?”
Ranko turned her eyes away from Akane, both covering her mouth and supporting her chin with her right hand, her elbow on the table on the far side of her plate. She motioned ever-so-slightly with her neck to the unfolded letter that lay on the table between her plate and Akane’s. Akane stepped closer, putting her right hand gently on Ranko’s back and rubbing it softly between her shoulder blades as she read the letter she’d scooped up.
Immediately, Akane recognized the logo on the purple-and-blue letterhead, and before her eyes had even found the first paragraph, she knew why Ranko was so upset.
Dear Miss Tendo:
Thank you for applying to Minato University for the 1991 fall semester. We regret to inform you that we are unable to admit you at this time. While your transcripts and exam scores meet our entrance criteria, our admissions department has been unable to verify your identification information. Specifically, we have been unable to find any record of anyone named Ranko Tendo matching your birthdate on any family registry. If you feel that we have reached this decision in error, please visit our admissions department and provide official copies of your family registry.
We wish you the best in your future academic endeavors.
Akane refolded the letter, setting it gently on the table. “Ranko, I…”
“After everything, I’m still a fucking ghost.” The sullen young woman was not crying, but Akane could hear in her voice that she wasn’t far from it at all.
“Hey. Come here.” Akane leaned down, wrapping her arms tightly around Ranko’s shoulders. “We’ll figure something out, baby. We always do.”
Ranko shook her head slowly, a heartbroken finality about her. “No we won’t. I don’t belong to nobody, Akane. I never will.”
“You belong to me, Ranko. I love you, so, so much. You’re everything to me, baby. Everything.” Akane held the despondent girl tight in her arms, leaning down and resting her chin on Ranko’s shoulder.
“You should sit down and eat. Your dinner’s gonna get cold.” Ranko’s voice was devoid of all emotion, as if she had pulled the plug on her heart to prevent further damage to it.
Akane shook her head, squeezing Ranko even tighter in her powerful arms. “I don’t care about that. I’ve got you, Ranko. I’m here, sweetheart.”
Ranko shook her head, sniffling loudly in an attempt to suck some courage in from the ambient air around her. “It’s fine. I’m not even upset. I wasn’t plannin’ on goin’ to college anyway. I was bein’ silly even thinkin’ about it. Not like I’m trying to be little miss office girl or anything; I’m gonna be makin’ a living singing at the Phoenix until they bury me under it either way.”
Akane frowned, releasing Ranko’s shoulders. She took her seat, but did not reach for her chopsticks. Instead, she reached over the folded harbinger of ill tidings and took Ranko’s left hand, fiddling idly with her engagement ring with her thumb in the hopes of giving her fiancee something better to focus on. “Maybe you’re trying to lie to yourself, honey, but you can’t lie to me. I know how much you wanted it. I’m so sorry.”
“I just wanted to cheer for you. That’s all. I guess I’m just gonna have to keep doin’ it from the bleachers.” Ranko shrugged her shoulders, not taking her hand back from Akane. “That’s not so bad, right?”
“Maybe that is all it was,” Akane said with a heavy sigh, “but I doubt it. I know you had your hopes up.”
“That’s what I get for doing that,” Ranko muttered dejectedly. “I oughta know better. It’s just… it was one thing when we couldn’t afford it, and something else when I didn’t have the grades, and another thing when I didn’t want it. And then, I manage to get all of that checked off, and I get rejected anyway ‘cause I don’t fucking exist. Not ‘cause I’m too broke, or too dumb, but ‘cause I don’t even qualify as a person. Thank the gods I never told Nodoka I applied. She already don’t want me ‘cause I’m a girl, and now I’m getting held back ‘cause I can’t even prove I’m a human being.”
Akane squeezed Ranko’s hand tight. “You look at me, Ranko, and you listen to me. You are a person. You are special, and you are loved. There’s no paperwork anywhere that says Hana’s your mom, or Yui’s your sister, but they are, because love says they are. Next week, there won’t be any paperwork that says you’re my wife, but you will be, because love says you are.”
Ranko’s shoulders slumped as she slowly released all the air in her lungs through gritted teeth. “Great, now all we gotta do is convince the higher education system to accept love instead of legal documents, and we’re all set.”
She had lost all interest in dinner.