“Jump! Jumpjumpjump… awww!”
Ranko shook her head as Mario fell through the bottom of the screen, again. Hoshi growled, swinging the controller in the air hard enough to flop the cord off the carpet like a jump rope.
“Easy there, buddy, we’ll get it. You might just need to start running a little sooner.” She sat up from her position on the floor with her back against the couch, ruffling his black hair playfully. “I believe in you.”
“I know, I just… grrr!” Hoshi glowered at the Game Over screen.
“Shh… keep it down, dude. Your sister’s sleeping and Akane’s trying to study.” She motioned up to Izumi’s dining room table, where her fiancee sat hunched over an economics textbook in a green sweater and a pair of jeans.
Hoshi cringed, whispering. “Sorry, Auntie.”
Ranko glanced up at the clock on the wall, which read 8:00 PM. They had another few hours before Izumi and Kaito would be back from their date. “You wanna switch back to the racing game for a bit?”
“F-Zero? Okay. But I get to go first,” Hoshi said as he reached for the console.
Giggling quietly, Ranko shook her head. “Alright, alright. If you insist.”
Starting the game, Hoshi leaned his body into the first curve, then the second, willing the hover car on the screen to improve its turn radius, but it skittered off the track. “Gaah! No! Get back over there!”
Ranko winced as she heard the sound of stirring coming from the little white baby monitor that sat on the end table. “Hoshi! Shh…” But it was too late, and a quiet whimper began emanating from the tinny plastic speaker.
Akane started to slide her chair out with a sigh. “I’m coming, Mioko.”
Before she could rise from her seat, Akane felt a hand on her shoulder. “Let me, baby? You gotta focus.”
With a skeptical smirk, Akane looked up at her. “You? No offense, Ranko, but do you have any idea what to do?”
“You already changed her and fed her, so she’s probably just restless and wants attention.” Ranko shrugged as the crying from the monitor became more insistent.
“Alright. Give it a shot, I guess. Thanks.” Akane smiled, picking her highlighter back up as Ranko crept to the bedroom door and pushed it open quietly, not closing it behind her.
She approached the side of the bassinet, rocking it gently with her hand. “Hey there, kiddo. How’s my favorite niece in the whole world, huh?”
Squirming, Mioko seemed unfazed by her question.
“Hey. c’mon, now, we gotta chill out a little bit, Mioko. Akane’s trying to learn stupid math stuff right now.” She spoke in a soothing manner, gently rocking the white bassinet with her hand, but Mioko would not settle.
Akane shook her head, hearing her lover’s valiant but vain efforts over the baby monitor. I told her she couldn’t do it. Silly girl. But at least she tried for me.
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But then, the little plastic speaker began to make a different sound; a quiet melodic humming that Akane didn’t quite recognize. It was soft and gentle, but had all the texture and sweetness of her fiancee’s singing voice.
A singing voice which soon followed.
“You’re so full of promise, you’ll burst at the seams…” Ranko made a cute face, poking the baby ever so gently on her nose and giggling as Mioko took hold of her index finger with both her hands. “Girl, you’re body’s too small to contain all those dreams. The secrets to catching them cannot be found if you don’t take the leap and you stay on the ground…”
Akane turned in her chair, watching the speaker in silence, her mouth hanging open.
“I’m already so proud of how far you will go. I will always be cheering for you from below. So don’t ever settle. Always reach for more. If it’s too high to reach, girl, then take off and soar…” She made a show of flattening her palm, miming a plane taking off from the cotton blanket with a little shooof sound.
Akane crept silently to the door, leaning in the doorjamb and watching as Ranko swayed softly in front of the bassinet in her pastel yellow dress, holding the side of it so that it moved with her, and rocked in time with her quiet singing.
“Push off and go, baby, take to the air. With your feet off the ground, you can go anywhere. There’s no rivers, no mountains, no boundaries or walls. When you’re up in the clouds, there’s no limits at all. Nothing’s impossible if you just try. Close your eyes… take a breath, jump… and fly…” Though her notes were quiet, they maintained all of their power, and she ended the last word of the song she’d written for her niece with a high run.
The baby’s cries quelled, and she lay still on her back, looking up at her aunt.
“Sometimes the days are a struggle, so fight. It’s worth meeting the challenge to finally take flight. Push away all the meaningless, trivial things so there’s plenty of space for you to spread your wings. Don’t let them tell you what can not be done; you’re too strong to be limited by anyone. If you are focused, you can’t be denied. Gravity’s one more rule that’s meant to be defied…”
Ranko switched back to humming the melody of her song for a moment as she felt the infant’s grip start to loosen around her finger, continuing to rock the white bassinet gently.
Akane watched in awed silence from the doorway. I knew she was good with Hoshi, but this? Gods, she’s being so sweet. For the briefest of moments, Akane allowed herself to consider what it would be like if she and Ranko could find a way to have a child of their own, imagining them standing together looking down at their own baby as Ranko sang. Her mind’s eye then wandered to the pregnancy portion of that exercise, and could not seem to decide whether it was imagining Akane carrying the baby, or her fiancee. Blushing at the very thought of Ranko doing that, she shook it out of her head. Better to just enjoy this, for now.
“Push off and go, baby, take to the air. With your feet off the ground, you can go anywhere. There’s no rivers, no mountains, no boundaries or walls. When you’re up in the clouds, there’s no limits at all. Nothing’s impossible if you just try. Close your eyes… take a breath, jump… and fly.”
Mioko’s eyes had fallen closed, and her hand slipped from Ranko’s gently. The redhead gingerly removed her arm from the edge of the cradle where she’d been rocking it, watching for a moment to make sure the movement didn’t stir her and smiling when she was confident that her niece was asleep.
From a step away, Ranko whispered the final line of her song.
“I promise you, girl, you belong in the sky. Close your eyes, take a breath, jump… and fly.”
Ranko turned toward the open door, stopping and turning a neon shade of red at the sight of Akane in the doorway. She dared not speak, creeping to the door as Akane stepped back to allow her passage, gently pulling the door shut behind her and holding her breath as she turned the doorknob as if willing it to make no sound.
“See? Not completely helpless.” Ranko whispered, smiling through her flushed cheeks.
Akane wrapped her arms gently around the redheaded girl in the pale yellow dress. “Do you know that you have never been more beautiful than you are right now?”
“Why,” Ranko asked, stifling a giggle while still so close to the nursery door. “... because I finally got to sing to an audience that wasn’t drunk?”