“Sneak, baby, sneak, baby, don’t get caught! We don’t want anything to know about this thing we’ve got!”
As Ranko and her backup dancers thrashed on the stage, Naoko Tsuda watched from her stool in the corner, her back against the service bar. The high schooler snapped a photo with her little Nikon camera, grumbling to herself. How dare that girl with the blue hair sit her way back here, when the VIP table was right next to the stage and would have provided a better camera angle. At least no one was sitting at it, so the fact that it was directly in her line of sight to the stage was not too terribly frustrating.
As the editor of the Yusue High Gazette, she prided herself on getting the story, no matter what. So, when Ranko Tendo, hero of the All-Tokyo Cheerleading Invitational and local pop starlet, invited her to come to the Phoenix tonight for an interview to talk about her record-setting performance that won the school its first Invitational title in 30 years, she jumped at the chance.
Of course, Naoko didn’t much care about the cheerleading thing, and she suspected that most of her readers didn’t either. Almost no juicy tidbit of gossip about the popular cliques went unnoticed and unwritten in her weekly editorial column in the Gazette. It was just now, in quiet whispers over the last few days, starting to get around that Ranko Tendo was dating wrestling captain Saburo Kimura in secret, and Naoko was going to get to the bottom of it tonight. She still hadn’t forgiven herself for missing the early warning signs of the Ranko-Eiji engagement and near-immediate breakup that had been all the school could talk about for the last few weeks.
“You don’t seem to notice how it gets to me that you won’t let them know you’re sleepin’ next to me…”
Ranko’s sultry sass dripped from the speakers as a giant of a teenager pushed through the glass front door of the Phoenix, looking around for a place to sit, but the bar was packed from one end to the other. As he craned his neck, a server with electric blue pigtails approached him at the hostess stand with a beaming smile. “Hello, sir. You’re Saburo Kimura, right?”
The tall boy smirked, tousling his black flat top and adjusting his jacket. “Yeah, I am. Ranko Tendo asked me to be here tonight.” Good to see people know me around here. I told her, everyone’s gonna know my name. The fact that it was embroidered on the left breast of his wrestling jacket did not occur to him in the slightest.
The blue-haired girl nodded. “Right on! Welcome to the Phoenix! I spoke with Ranko earlier, and she asked me to reserve the VIP table for you tonight. Right this way, I’ll take you there.”
I knew she’d come around once she saw how popular being with me would make her, Saburo thought with a sneer as he was led to the round table at front stage left. Mei removed the reserved sign from the table, pulling out a chair for him.
“Ranko said she wanted to buy you a drink. What are you having?” Mei smirked, nodding at his request for a diet soda and speeding off. Should’ve ordered something stronger, kid. You’re gonna need it.
“All I want is you beside me. All you want to do is hide me. Babe, if I’m so good for you, why do you sneak?!”
Naoko sat up on her stool, snapping photo after photo. He comes to Tendo’s shows, and she puts him in VIP? And it’s right in my sightline? Oh, bless you, freaky blue-haired waitress girl! You just made my month.
“Um, Yui?” Akane leaned over the bar, dropping off a pair of empty margarita glasses. “Isn’t that the guy me and Hana threw out for harassing Ranko a few weeks ago?”
The blonde nodded. “Mmm-hmm. And he’s been harassing Ranko ever since.” She reached over the bar, handing a flaming yellow Dragonfire to a young woman in a flight attendant uniform.
“What?! Why didn’t anybody tell me? I’ll kill him!” Akane whirled, clenching her fists. “And what the shit is Mei doing sitting him in VIP?” That’s my spot!
Yui reached over the bar, grabbing Akane by the shoulder. “Whoa, easy there, kiddo. Ranko swore us all to secrecy so you didn’t fly off the handle. And before you say anything about communication, I promise, this isn’t one of her famous ‘I didn’t tell anybody I’m gonna do the thing because I knew they would tell me how dumb it would be’ things. Mei and I have been in on it from the beginning, and we made sure of it. She’s got this under control. Let her handle it.” Trust me, girl. You haven’t been here all week for rehearsals. “Take a seat a minute.”
Ranko nodded down to Mei from the stage with a smirk as Akane climbed onto a barstool. She smoothed the black flame-patterned dress she wore, leaning over to Hitomi and Emi and speaking quietly with them for a moment before taking off her headset and handing it to Hitomi, who put it on herself. Emi grabbed another headset from the charger behind Ken’s drum set, and Ranko picked up a handheld dynamic microphone. These are always better when it’s personal, she thought. She did not disconnect the charging cable, as it was plenty long enough to extend the full depth of the stage.
Ranko walked over to the edge of the stage, looking down to the wrestler with a huge smile, waving cutely with just her fingers. “This one’s for you, Saburo!” She hadn’t turned her microphone on yet, so only the wrestler heard her. The boy with the flat top sat up at his table, preening like a peacock as he awaited the song his soon-to-be-girlfriend had dedicated to him.
An oily, almost childish bounce sprang from Jacob and Crash’s instruments, and Hitomi and Emi, in their matching black minidresses, each placed both of their hands on Ranko’s body, with Hitomi standing on the left stroking her ribs and stomach and Emi crouched down, her hands exploring Ranko’s left leg.
“Um, Yui, what in the actual frozen fuck is happening here,” Akane asked, stiffening on her stool.
Yui clapped a double shot of tequila on the bar top next to her sister’s lover, clinking her own shot glass against it before draining the one in her hand. “Oh, would you just relax? I swear, Akane, sometimes the stick up your ass has a stick up its ass. Trust me, kiddo, you’re gonna enjoy this.”
Hitomi and Emi sang a taunting rhythm as their hands swirled around Ranko, who only looked down at the pair as if they were an annoyance. “Na, na-na, na... Na, na-naaa…”
Ranko pushed both of them aside with stiff arms and they fell to the stage on their backs in perfect synchronization. “Nuh-uh!”
The backup singers rolled onto their stomachs on the stage, kicking their feet behind themselves in time with their jeering. “Na, na-na, na... Na, na-naaa…”
Ranko snapped her head back at the VIP table where the interloper in her midst sat, her wavy unbound hair flying behind her as an audio sample of a bullwhip being cracked split through the speakers. “Not yours!”
The twin backup singers took to the two front corners of the stage, hopping on their toes and motioning to the crowd, which was already buzzing. There was only one thing it could mean when something came out of those speakers that they hadn’t heard before, and whatever new song was coming, Ranko’s backup dancers were recruiting her a chorus. The whole of the crowd – save one very confused boy at the VIP table – joined in as they repeated the taunt.
“Na, na-na, na… Na, na-naaa…”
Ranko winked, looking over her shoulder and wagging her right index finger. “Nuh-uh!”
“Na, na-na, na… Na, na-naaa…”
Ranko turned, shaking her head at the VIP table with a pitying expression, raising her pitch in an almost sing-song tone as if she were chastising a toddler that had gotten into something he shouldn’t. “Not yours!”
Akane blinked. “Oh. Oh, shit. She’s gonna…” If there was anyone in the world who knew what it felt like to be taken down from that stage, it was Akane Tendo.
Smirking, Yui clinked the shot glass that still sat on the bar in front of Akane with a second of her own. “Now you got it. Welcome to the other side of Sneak, little sister. The side you get when she doesn’t love you.”
Ranko cocked her head to the side as if considering Saburo, raising her microphone and beginning to sing. The verse rocketed from her lips at a breakneck tempo. She affected a little bit of a valley girl twinge in her voice, throwing her best exaggerated cheerleader smile.
“I guess you think that if you follow me around, then I’ll give in to you. I probably should tell you straight - I’m really not that into you. The way you chase me everywhere is gettin’ kinda scary, so I’m here to send the message to you clearly, and in stereo.”
As Hitomi and Emi made an almost church-like choral aria behind her, Ranko continued. “You must see how I look and think that I’m a perfect angel, ‘cause you didn’t seem concerned that when I’m mad, I’m fucking dangerous.” The last three words boomed from the speakers as Shinji roared them in harmony with her in the first octave, giving an almost demonic undertone to them.
“You wanna be the guy for me? Oh, man, you must be joking. If I feel your fingers on my ass again, they’ll wind up broken.”
The boy at the VIP table slid down a little bit in his chair as the crowd laughed, bouncing in place as the house lights bathed them in swirling dots of every color. At the bar, Akane exhaled heavily, resisting the urge to launch herself at the young man based on Ranko’s lyrical accusation alone.
Now, Ranko returned to more of a sing-song voice, snapping her hips left and right with each beat. “I know that you want me, boy, I un… der… stand. But I’m gonna have to ask you, boy, to watch… your… hands!”
Hitomi and Emi approached her together, and Ranko whipped her body around to face them, swinging the microphone through the air in a wide arc as the bullwhip sample cracked through the speakers again. Both of them fell flat to their backs on the stage in perfect synchronization. “You should know by now that isn’t so polite... to… do. Keep your fingers off of things that don’t belong… to… you!”
Ranko pursed her lips, shaking her head mockingly at the boy at the VIP table. “Boy, I never really liked you that much…”
Hitomi ran up behind Ranko on her left, reaching her side and thrusting her palm out in front of the redhead as if defending her from Saburo. “Not yours!”
Emi made the same motion from Ranko’s right side. “Don’t touch!”
Hitomi and Emi rushed to the corners of the stage, making huge upward waves with their arms to the crowd. “Na, na-na, na... Na, na-naaa…”
Ranko unplugged the charging cable from the microphone in her hand. “Nuh-uh!”
Her backup singers frantically motioned to the crowd, riling them into a frenzy. Ranko had been clear; she wanted the taunting sound to rain down on her tormentor from everywhere.
“Na, na-na, na... Na, na-naaa…”
Sliding the charging cable through her hands until she had about a meter and a half of slack, she threw her arm forward and flicked her wrist back, snapping the cable mere centimeters over the heads of the audience as the sound of the bullwhip crackled again from the speakers. “Not yours!”
Ranko snickered with an evil grin, dropping into her second spoken verse as she tossed the cable aside.
“It’s time to set the record straight, and maybe I’ll get through to you, ‘cause it’s painfully obvious you don’t know who you’re talking to. You think that you’ll just show up at my club, and get my kisses, but you’re just the kind of guy who tries to hit the floor… and misses.” Again, Shinji harmonized with the last two words, adding his thundering bass to her sassy alto as the crowd laughed.
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“I honestly can say I’ve never met someone more lame than you. It’s pretty sad when Super Mario has way more game than you!”
An audio sample of the boing sound made synonymous with a jump in one of Hoshi’s favorite video games bounced out of the speakers.
“I think that you should take a beat. Examine your priorities.”
Emi cupped her hands one in front of the other facing Ranko, miming the act of pointing a video camera at her.
Ranko posed for the invisible camera. “Go buy a bigger TV if you’re trying to see more of me!”
Akane stood on the footrests of her stool, screaming at the top of her lungs and throwing her fists in the air. Get him, baby!
Ranko stalked down the middle of the stage toward Jacob and Ken, wiggling with every step as Hitomi and Emi rejoined her at her sides. “I know that you want me, boy, I understand. But I’m gonna have to ask you, boy, to watch your hands!” Here, all three girls sang, snapping their heads around in unison as the sound of the whip sparked through the speakers again. Looking back over their shoulders, they all placed their right hands on their backsides, writhing sensually.
“You should know by now that isn’t so polite to do. Keep your fingers off of things that don’t belong to you!”
Hitomi and Emi both bent over the edge of the stage, staring directly at Saburo and singing as one, wagging their fingers at him. “No, she really never liked you that much!”
Ranko thrust her palm out between them. “Not yours. Don’t touch!”
Akane pounded the shot and slammed the empty glass on the bar, howling in concert with Yui. “Yeaaaaaah!”
Saburo looked like he wanted to get up from his table, but at nine in the evening on a Friday, the place was too packed to move. Plus, it had become pretty clear who Ranko had written the song about, and the wall of patrons surrounding his table just to watch him squirm had become impenetrable.
Ranko, Hitomi, and Emi all waved upward to the crowd, who merrily joined in on their taunting. “Na, na-na, na... Na, na-naaa… nuh uh! Na, na-na, na... Na, na-naaa… Not yours! Na, na-na, na... Na, na-naaa… nuh uh! Na, na-na, na... Na, na-naaa… Not yours!”
Spinning her microphone in her hand, Ranko slid her hands down the front of her dress seductively, careful not to get the spikes of her new red leather bracelet caught on the fabric. “I understand your thinking, dude. You’re digging my aesthetic, but your problem is your vibe is coming off as just...”
All three girls sang together, cocking their heads dismissively at the table to stage left. “...pathetic.”
A roar came from the booth closest to the stage, as Shiori, Tamiko, Yori and Aoi stood on the benches, howling in laughter thrown in the direction of the wrestling captain.
Ranko turned, swatting her own backside as she spoke over her shoulder. “Yeah, don’t think I haven’t noticed that you’re hand’s under the table. I’m too hot for you to handle. Should’ve read the warning label.”
Ranko giggled mockingly as she spoke the next line of the verse, punctuating her words with a dismissive wave of her hand. “The fact you even think you’re in my league is just adorable. I’ve seen you at your best, and boy, your best is fucking horrible!” Shinji again punctuated the last two words for her in his booming bass.
“So, think about the way you act, and maybe re-evaluate. You can’t get with me for a second, let alone a second date!”
“Oh, shit!” Akane whooped loudly, having entirely forgotten she was an employee. At that point, she was just a fan who was there to watch the girl on stage annihilate some clown who had no idea what he’d gotten himself into. The bastard would have been better off if Akane had just punched him. That would have healed in time. This, there was no coming back from. She and Yui would have to pull up the floorboards and bury that kid where he sat.
“I know that you want me, boy, I understand! But I’m gonna have to ask you, boy, to watch… your… hands!”
Ranko stopped singing for a moment, letting Hitomi and Emi continue. “You should know by now that isn’t so polite to do! Keep your fingers off of things that don’t belong to you!”
The redhead smirked, shaking her head with her nose crinkled in disgust. “Yeah, nobody really likes you that much. Not yours! Don’t touch!”
Ranko closed her eyes, biting her lip cutely and swaying by herself at center stage as Hitomi and Emi criss-crossed in front of the stage, heel over toe with a bounce in their step, riling the crowd back up. “Na, na-na, na... Na, na-naaa… nuh uh! Na, na-na, na... Na, na-naaa… Not yours!”
The redhead grinned darkly. This was where things really got fun.
“You thought that if you spread some lies, I’d play your little scene? Well, you’re in my castle now, and on this stage…” Hitomi and Emi bowed from either side of her as Ranko mimed a regal curtsey, her palms upturned. “All hail the queen.”
The crowd went berserk.
Akane jumped so hard on her stool that she nearly fell off of it, cackling euphorically. You tell ‘em, baby!
Watching from the side kitchen door, Hana shook her head, laughing. That’s my girl.
Ranko offered a hand in Saburo’s direction in mock concern. “Hey, are you okay? You’re looking like your confidence is laggin’. Guess that’s the price you pay when losers try to dance with Dragons!” Shinji and Crash both backed her as she spat the name of her band at her tormentor.
“Dude, I don’t know what went through your head.” Ranko shrugged, shaking her head, affecting a high-pitched, nasal tone as she inferred his words. “She’s hot, I’m gonna date her?” She allowed herself a single beat to laugh. “Boy, my RISE was meteoric.” As she sang the name of her first hit, the entire band roared it just as they did during the chorus of that song, Ranko throwing her right fist in the air. “Now, I’ll leave you in a crater.” She flared her hands out from in front of her, miming an explosion as Shinji echoed the last word a beat behind her as if it were reverberating outward from the point of impact.
Ranko rolled her eyes mockingly. “Your lines are tired and laughable. ‘I’m burning with desire?’” Ranko hopped up onto one of the box speakers on the edge of the stage, spreading her arms like wings as she looked down at her oppressor, her left arm bent at the elbow to return the microphone to a place near her mouth. ”Bitch, you’re talking to a Phoenix! I was FUCKING BORN IN FIRE!” An audio sample of a screeching bird of prey pealed through the speaker beneath her feet, screaming over the roar of the crowd.
Akane could barely hear herself scream, dancing in place on her stool. Rest in peace, Sneak. Almost two whole months as her biggest hit. It was a good run.
The wrestler had nearly entirely slid under the table by the time Ranko finished the jump back down to stage level. She snapped her head back around to her aggressor’s table as the bullwhip sample crackled overhead, wagging her finger again. “I see you tryin’ to sneak away. I see you mouthing curses. But you’re not going anywhere - we’ve still got two more verses!” She threw two fingers in the air, wiggling them and winking behind them with a goofy smile like an anime idol. The entire building was electric.
Ranko wiggled back and forth in place, whirling her arms around herself like a belly dancer, biting her lip and giggling playfully as her backup singers carried the callback for her, bringing the crowd with them. “Na, na-na, na... Na, na-naaa… nuh uh! Na, na-na, na... Na, na-naaa… Not yours! Na, na-na, na... Na, na-naaa… nuh uh! Na, na-na, na.. Na, na-naaa… Not yours!” The last two words were screamed by the four cheerleaders in the corner, loud enough to be heard distinctly over the rest of the crowd.
From her stool at the bar, Naoko snapped a few more photos between verses, rushing to try and jot down as many of the lyrics as she could. Tendo buries wrestling captain from stage for lying about relationship? This is gonna be a bigger headline than… I don’t even know! What are the odds that this happens on the night I happen to be here? Clearly, the gods favor good journalism!
The redhead smirked evilly. Unlike Sneak, which she’d spent the better part of three months agonizing about, this time, she had no doubt whatsoever about the threat she was about to issue. She issued the fifth verse of her song staring straight at Saburo’s table. She wanted to leave no doubt about whom she was speaking.
“You think that this is bad? Just wait, ‘cause here’s something for you to know: As soon as I get down from here, I’m heading to the studio. I’m gonna drop a master for this crazy bangin’ track I wrote, and tell ‘em how I came up here and crammed it down some loser’s throat!”
As Hitomi and Emi laughed and gesticulated at Saburo, Ranko continued. “And once it’s on that record, no one ever will forget it. I’d sign your copy for you, if you weren’t too broke to get it!”
“Oooooh!” came the jeers from the crowd.
“You could have just accepted no, and moved on to some other bitch, but now? Your gravestone’s gonna say, here lies that asshole Ranko ditched!”
Akane could barely contain herself. In all the times she’d seen Ranko nearly break someone in half with her martial arts skill, she’d never seen so thorough a disassembly of another human being as was being performed on the stage by the woman she loved. There was a seductive violence to her performance. It was like staring into a fire and feeling strangely compelled to see how it would feel to stick her fingers into the flame. Akane did not think she had ever been so aroused in her life.
All three of the women on stage took turns walking by the front left corner of the stage, turning up their noses and shunning the lone occupant of the closest table with their hands as they sang the chorus together one last time. “I know that you want me, boy, I understand, but I’m gonna have to ask you, boy, to…”
Ranko thrust her microphone forward toward the crowd, and two hundred and thirty-two voices responded. “WATCH! YOUR! HANDS!” She gestured with an upturned palm to the crowd while shrugging at Saburo, as if to encourage him to listen to the obvious thing that everyone was telling him.
“You should know by now that isn’t so polite to do, and it’s time you realized I don’t belong to you!”
Ranko scoffed at the ever-shrinking young man. “No one’s ever gonna like you that much.”
As they did in the first chorus, Hitomi and Emi flanked the lead vocalist, shielding her with their outstretched arms. Emi cocked her head toward Ranko. “Not yours!”
Hitomi snapped her head back to Ranko from the opposite side. “Don’t touch!”
Ranko looked down at her wrist, tapping the silver bracelet on her left arm as if it were a watch. “I’ve wasted enough time on you. I’ll say this in conclusion: I think it’s probably time for you to give up this delusion. Whoever winds up next to me is gonna treat me properly. But you think just ‘cause you’re a guy, I’m gonna be your property.”
Hitomi and Emi huddled around Shinji and Crash, mocking as if they were spreading some insidious rumor in secret. Ranko gestured to her four bandmates with a grin. “I know you wanna notch your belt, and tell the boys I dated you, but didn’t think to ask me first, so I…”
Hitomi, Emi, Shinji and Crash all sang together with her. “... humiliated you.” Emi and Hitomi both mimed laughing hysterically at the boy that was the subject of the song, not that they needed to fake it much.
As they did, Ranko tossed the microphone into the air, spinning around once on her heel and catching it with her right hand. “I’m with someone who’s good for me, and treats me like an equal.” While she didn’t raise her hand, Akane noticed her fiddling with the ring on her left third finger.
Hitomi turned her back to Saburo. “She told you once.”
Emi turned as well. “So back off, boy…”
Ranko smirked. “... or I’ll go write the sequel.”
Hitomi and Emi peeled off to their sides of the stage, riling the crowd to one final jeer. “Na, na-na, na... Na, na-naaa… nuh uh! Na, na-na, na... Na, na-naaa… Not yours! Na, na-na, na... Na, na-naaa… nuh uh! Na, na-na, na... Na, na-naaa… Not yours!”
The two girls flanking Ranko snapped their heads to the left. “Dude, she’s never gonna like you that much!”
With a lusty sneer, Ranko stared through the boy in the athletic jacket as he tried to hide his face behind his soda glass, whispering sultrily into the dynamic microphone in her hand as the music behind her ended. “Not yours. Don’t touch.”
Ranko whipped her arm to the side as the bullwhip sample crackled through the speakers one last time, casting the microphone forward like a dart. It struck the shatterproof pint glass in Saburo’s hand, cracking it cleanly in half and exploding the caramel-colored beverage down the front of his shirt and onto the table. He shrieked as the ice-cold liquid made contact with his chest and dripped from the table onto the crotch of his white pants, and the still-hot microphone landed on the table in front of him with a satisfying thump that echoed through the bar before spinning slowly to a stop.
The crowd just kept chanting. “Not! Yours! Not! Yours!” Ranko did not bow, but stood at center stage, raising her arms in satisfied victory.
Mei leaned over the wrestler’s table with a huge customer service smile, making no effort to contain the spilled soda. “Can I get you anything else tonight, sugar?”
Saburo stood, his shirt and pants soaked, and the crowd parted for him as he sprinted out of the bar. As he did, the sound of Ranko’s laughter, picked up through Hitomi’s headset, bombarded him from all directions. “Saburo Kimura, everybody! Don’t forget his name!”
Between Ranko’s laughter and the vociferous jeering from the crowd, Saburo had no chance to hear the furious clicking of Naoko’s camera.