“Uh, Yuji? Can I talk to you? In private? Like… right now?” The man in the mirrored sunglasses hadn’t recognized her yet, but she wasn’t quite ready to interact with Takao Tashima again just now. Or, ever.
Yuji put his arm around Ranko’s back, leading her toward the catering table. The bespectacled guardian of the donuts eyed the singer with a suspicion Ranko couldn’t quite understand the reason for. “Sure, Ranko. Shoot. What’s up?”
“I…” She looked nervously over his shoulder at the door, where Takao stood flanked by two girls in matching black minidresses. “I can’t work with him, Yuji. Tashima. I just can’t. I… I won’t.” Her teeth were gritted behind her maroon lipstick. She knew what was coming next. This was the part where she’d be told to suck it up, deal with it, because that’s the industry. It always happened this way, whenever she’d tried to step foot outside the Phoenix with her music career.
“Why not?” Yuji didn’t seem especially fazed by her statement. “He screw up a shoot on you before?”
Ranko gulped. You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you? In front of all these people?
“I… I used to work for his agency.”
Yuji nodded. “Lots of the girls we work with on our shoots have. It’s not a conflict or anything, don’t worry about it.”
She shook her head. “No. I can’t. Yuji, he hit me. Please don’t ask me to work with him again. Please.”
Yuji scoffed. “Why would he hit you? That doesn’t sound like him at all.”
“Because most girls give him what he wants, and I wouldn’t. He tried to…” Ranko looked down at her hands shamefully. At least the fire wasn’t the scariest thing in the building anymore.
Yuji’s eyes widened with surprise, and he lowered his voice. “You aren’t saying he…”
Ranko could only nod sadly. “Crash saw the whole thing. Laid the bastard out, too, and Tashima fired us both on the spot.”
“Shit.” The director looked at his watch, exhaling heavily. “Alright, we’re going to have to reschedule the shoot.”
Ranko looked up at him. “What?!”
Yuji smiled comfortingly. “If our star says he doesn’t work on the project, he doesn’t work on the project.” He frowned. “And I’m going to have to call the label, and let them know we shouldn’t work with him anymore at all.”
Ranko blinked, her eyes almost the size of the donuts being distributed on the table behind her. “You… you mean it? You’re not gonna make me do it?”
The stubby little man in the pink shirt smiled reassuringly. “Not a chance. There’s way too much of that shit in this business, and I won’t stand for it on my set. Not with my girls. I’m gonna go fire his ass right now. And we’ll need to find another agency to get us some dancers.”
Ranko straightened her back. She felt a confidence rising in her again that mere moments ago had been utterly shattered. She’d been able to stand her ground, and win, because she was a star. And she was finally working with people who respected her. She stole a glance over at the object of her vengeance and the two women accompanying him. I’m not the only one who deserves respect, Takao.
With a sinister grin, she looked up at the director. “Actually, Yuji, about that…”
A few moments later, the two girls standing alongside Takao Tashima squealed as a fierce-looking woman with flame-red hair cascading down her shoulders, dressed for battle from the battered leather jacket and the steel spikes on her black platform heels to the metal studs and buckles down the sides of her skirt and the dirt smeared across her face, approached.
“Omigods! Ranko!” Hitomi rushed forward, wrapping her arms around Ranko’s neck. “You look amazing!”
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The starlet was almost tackled from the other side. “They didn’t tell us you were in this video too! Are you with a new agency?”
Ranko smirked almost condescendingly, answering the girl while looking at the man who had yet to turn to face her. “Actually, Emi… it’s my song. I wrote it. With Crash and the guys.”
Only now did the smug mogul turn, and Ranko saw her reflection in his glasses, flanked by her two former coworkers. “Oh. It’s you.”
Ranko nodded emphatically with a satisfied grin and an affectedly vapid giggle. “Yep! Looks like I figured out the whole singing thing all by myself! Didn’t even need any special lessons.”
“Is that so?” Takao gave a dismissive chuckle. “Well, we’ll see how you handle the big leagues, I suppose. When I let the folks at Yokai know how hard you were to work with, girl, you’ll never see another video except on television. You should have taken my offer when you had the chance.”
“Actually, funny story.” Ranko picked up a small handout from a nearby table. About the size of a postcard, one side had a smaller version of the poster photo for the Rise single in black-and-white, and the other listed some details for the shooting schedule.
“Yuji Oe and I were just talking, and well, it seems you don’t have what it takes to make it around here. Or, really, in this industry at all.”
“Excuse me? You still have no idea who you’re talking to, do you?!” Takao shook his head in disbelief.
Ranko looked down at the handout, picking up a red marker from the table and beginning to write on it, as if disinterested with him. “Of course I do. I’m talking to a creepy piece of shit who just got his ass fired by a cheerleader.” As she spoke, some thirty meters behind her, twin columns of flame blasted upward from the soundstage.
“You… you can’t do this! You’re just a kid! You don’t have any pull here!” Takao’s face was turning redder by the second in his fury.
“Hey, Miss Tendo, we’re just about ready to shoot, whenever you’re ready,” came a shout from a twenty-something intern in a gray houndstooth skirt and matching blazer.
“Yeah, Sachiko, tell the guys to take a fifteen-minute break,” Ranko called in response, waving over her shoulder without turning her back on Takao. She smirked victoriously, glad that Takao got to witness her command bringing seventy professionals to a halt. Well, sixty-nine. There was no chance the enormous German woman lording over the donut table was stopping for anybody. That woman was scary.
The intern rushed back to the cluster of gathered production staff awkwardly on heels that were not remotely suitable for moving at speed. “You heard the boss! Smoke if ya got ‘em!”
Ranko finished writing on the little handout, looking up and taking a step forward to close the gap between them.
“You know, Takao…” She snapped her right arm forward toward his face at lightning speed, and he flinched, expecting to be punched again. Instead, Ranko snatched his mirrored sunglasses off of his face. “It’s been great catching up, but I’m afraid I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.” She put the sunglasses on her own face, clicking her tongue, shaking her head and affecting a wince with mock regret. “This area’s reserved for stars. You understand, right? Don’t worry though, my buddy Bruce over there will be happy to help you find your car. Security?”
A mountain of an American in a black T-shirt and dark sunglasses took a step forward, towering over Takao. “Sir?”
Takao shook in anger, growling loudly. “You haven’t heard the last of this! Hikari, Ami, come on, girls. We’re leaving!”
“Oh, no no no, Takao.” Ranko beamed victoriously. “You go. They stay. They work for me now.” As she spoke and the stunned girls flanking her squealed in excitement, she folded the paper she’d been writing on in half.
Ranko smirked, tipping the stolen sunglasses down on her nose so she could look over the rims of them at him. She wanted him to have to look her in the eyes for once. “But, if you ever think you’re ready to try getting into the music business for real, here’s some private advice from someone who made it on her own.” She tucked her thumb between her index and middle fingers on her left hand, using it to slide the glasses back up her nose.
She slipped the folded paper into the breast pocket of his sport coat, patting his jacket pocket hard enough to sting, and nodding to Bruce. The enormous man in the black shirt took Takao by the arm and led him out through the door as the two newest members of the Dapper Dragons shrieked and hugged Ranko around the neck again.
As he walked to his car, cursing under his breath, Takao pulled the paper out of his pocket and unfolded it. Over her image, looking indomitable and ready for war in the shadow of the Phoenix surrounded by her friends, Ranko had written only six English words, the red marker leaping off the page in contrast with the black-and-white photo. She’d signed it in exactly the same style as her name splashed in pink across the front of Ken’s new bass drum.
Takao: Die in a fire, fucker! ~ Ranko ♥️