“Now, she’s living out her fantasy! Don’t know how it happened to a girl like me, but now, my happy ever after happens all the time!”

Ranko straightened her back, waving to the crowd as the music to her latest hit single faded from the speakers. “That’s our show everybody! Good night, and thanks for coming out to the Phoenix tonight! Everybody be safe getting home, and we’ll party with you again tomorrow!”

She turned her back to the crowd, taking two steps toward Crash before snapping her head back to the audience so quickly that the white ribbon in her hair was almost thrown from her high ponytail. She smiled, ending the last song of the evening with a high-pitched solo run. “Once upon a rhy-y-y-yme…”

The Phoenix’ star-in-residence bowed to the crowd, basking in their applause for a few more moments before following her bandmates down the stairs to the bar floor below. As had become something of a ritual, the front third of the standing audience formed an aisle of humanity stretching between the steps and the side door into the kitchen, and as she followed Ken down it to escape the crush of fans, she stopped to sign her name on several posters and CD covers.

“Great show, guys. I just need like a half hour to help the girls break down the place for the night, and then we can go talk.” Ranko grabbed a black vinyl apron, starting to put it on over the white button-down blouse and red skirt she wore, but Yui scoffed at her with an admonishing shake of her head.

“Hey. Superstar. You’ve got other shit to do tonight. I think we can handle loading the dishwasher.”

Ranko turned to her second-eldest sister. “You sure, Yui? I mean, at your advanced age, you must be exhausted by this time of night!” She giggled loudly, but stopped abruptly when the girls’ adoptive mother exited the walk-in cooler with a smirk of mock resentment on her lips.

“If she’s too old, what does that make me, Ranko?”

Aw, crap. “Uh, no, you’re just fine, Mom. Totally good!” Ranko giggled nervously as Hana swatted at her playfully with a bar towel.

Hana laughed brightly. “Yeah, that’s what I thought, kid. Go on. Nabiki’s waiting for you in the office.”

“Nah,” Nabiki said, emerging from the side door with an armload of papers. “Let’s go grab a table out front. There’s not enough room in there for everybody, and it looks like the crowd’s just about cleared off.”

Ken held the saloon door open as his bandmates and Nabiki all exited the back room, and Nabiki took a seat at the VIP table. It only seated six, and Hitomi, Emi, Ariel, Shinji and Ken joined her at the table. Jacob pulled over another chair from a nearby table, turning it backward and straddling it facing her. Ranko, meanwhile, retook the stage, pacing on it as Crash watched from his perch on the edge of the platform. Ranko had not been looking forward to this conversation, after all.

“Okay, gang, so here’s what we’ve got.” Nabiki spread the paperwork out on the table, and everyone seated at it began picking up sheets and poring over them as she spoke. “Three months. Best I could do.”

Ranko sighed, walking further away from the table. Her shoulders slumped sadly. “Nabiki, we talked about this. I can’t do it!”

Shinji turned in his seat, slamming the tabletop hard with his palm as he glared up at his bandmate on the stage. “Fuck, Ranko, come on! This is what we’ve been waiting for this whole time, and you’re gonna fuck around until you ruin it!”

Looking up from her task as she wiped down the polyurethane counter of the service bar, Mei glared up at her ex-boyfriend, remembering a similar argument that led to the pair splitting up in the first place.

“You guys,” Ranko said apologetically, “it’s not that I don’t want to do the tour. You know I do. It’s all I could talk about for months when they first suggested it. But… I got into college. You don’t understand how big a deal that is for me. I worked so hard to get through high school, and I still didn’t think I had a shot. If it hadn’t been for cheer, I wouldn’t have had a prayer, and now, if I don’t start in May, the scholarship offer’s no good. I asked if I could push it back, and the school said no. I know it sucks, but… I just can’t turn that down. It’s a huge deal for me!”

Shinji gestured at her, but his exasperated gaze was directed at his best friend. “Crash, would you please talk some sense into your pet drama queen over here? Fucking dumbass hasn’t figured out yet that people go to school to get ready for a career. They’re not supposed to throw away a career they’ve already got to go to school.”

The guitarist waved him off. “Oh, hell no. I’m not getting in the middle of this.”

Ranko sighed. “And you’re sure you can’t get them to do a one-month run while I’m on break, Nabiki?”

The brunette shook her head. “With the time it would take for travel and setup, that would get you maybe twelve shows, and it’s just not enough to be worth the logistics and everything for them.”

“Wait,” Ken said, picking up a page from one of the copies of the contract proposal. There was an excitement in his voice, as if he’d solved a puzzle. “Ranko, you said you could do a short tour if it happened on your break, right?”

The redhead nodded. “As long as I don’t have to miss school, yeah.”

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Ken grinned. “Okay. They want a three-month tour, and they want it done by the end of the year. Ranko says she wants a one-month tour, on one of the breaks she gets between school terms, in April, August or December.” He folded the paper into thirds as if preparing to stuff it into an envelope before using the edge of the napkin holder to tear it into three even strips of paper. “So, if we do three one month-tours, then Yokai gets their three months, Ranko gets to go to school, and it’s still done by the end of the year.”

Ranko’s eyes widened as she walked closer to the table on the stage, looking down at his trifurcated paper example. “That… could work!”

Crash swiveled, resting his right knee on the stage as he looked up at her. “It would mean you didn’t get a break of any kind for almost a year, though. I don’t think it’s a good idea. You’ll wear yourself out again.”

The songstress shook her head. “No… I think I can do this. Sure, it’ll be a long slog, but I’ll be okay. I mean, I’d be performing here during my break anyway. It’s just the travel part that’s new, and I mean, who could ask for a better vacation than touring southeast Asia with her wife and her best friends? And besides, it’s not like we’re bringing a pizza oven…”

Crash chuckled. “Okay, let’s assume for the moment that this plan gets by the boss. What would happen next?”

“Wait. The boss? If I’m in, and you guys are all in… who are you talking about, Crash?” Ranko sat next to him on the edge of the stage, dangling her feet off of it and kicking them in the air.

The guitarist laughed, putting his arm around his friend’s back. “Akane. I don’t think she’s gonna take too kindly to this idea.”

Smirking, Ranko rolled her eyes. “Let me deal with her. I’ll just let her know that this is what we’ve decided, and that’s just the way it’s gonna have to be.” Her eyes widened as Crash, Shinji, Ken and Hitomi all cackled at once.

“What?!”

Ken smirked, flicking the cap from his beer bottle up at the singer, who ducked under it. “You’re adorable, Ranko, acting like we don’t know who wears the pants in your family.”

If you only knew, Ken, Ranko thought with such a thorough blush that Crash felt the radiant warmth from her face just sitting next to her.

“Ooo-kay,” Nabiki said, blushing a bit herself. “Leaving that alone for the moment, we’d need to get Yokai to agree to the split. The hardest part is going to be dealing with the equipment and stuff for that long, but if we’re willing to help cover the cost of storing it somewhere between the legs of the tour, I bet we can get them to bend on that.” She took one of the strips of paper Ken had torn up, ripping it into eight smaller pieces. “Jake, wanna grab us some pens from the bar?”

The green-fauxhawked keyboardist hopped up, returning in a moment with a handful of cheap black disposable pens from the cup by the credit card swipe, and Nabiki handed everyone at the table a slip of paper and a pen. Jacob kept two extra pens and slips of paper, passing them back to Crash and Ranko on the stage.

“Okay,” Nabiki continued. “The logistics of this is gonna be complicated. Well, it would be anyway, with booking venues, travel, all that kind of stuff. So, we won’t necessarily have full control over the stops on the tour; we’ll have to kind of go where we can make it work. But let’s have everybody nominate a city they’d like to play, and we’ll make a wish list to present to them.”

“Hell yes,” Shinji said, enthusiastically hunching over his little strip of paper. In a few moments, the red plastic basket that had once held Jacob’s fried cheese sticks was filled with eight folded strips of paper.

Nabiki stirred the basket with her fingers, flipping over another of the sheets of paper from the proposal she’d printed and picking up a pen to record the responses. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

She opened the first folded paper. “Singapore.”

“Nice! Strong.” Shinji nodded with a grin as Nabiki wrote the name of the city on the blank strip of paper.

Nabiki unfolded the second strip, shaking her head. “Sorry, but they wanted to keep this a regional tour. We’re probably gonna have to save London for the next one.”

“Dammit,” Emi exclaimed with a groan.

A third strip was tossed to the table. “Brisbane, Australia. Hello, Jacob.” Nabiki giggled, adding it to the list.

“What?! Who doesn’t wanna play for their home crowd?” Jacob blushed, leaning back in his chair.

Ranko giggled, leaning forward and nudging her keyboardist with her foot. “Just admit you want the label to pay for you to make an intercontinental booty call, man.”

“Oh, please, Ranko. You barely survive if you have to wait for Akane to get home from school. I haven’t seen Zoe for months.” Jacob scoffed up at her, sipping at his beer.

Ken shook his head at Jacob with an awed sigh. “I don’t know how you do it, man.”

Shinji laughed at the diminutive drummer, picking up a chicken wing and gesturing grotesquely at Ken with it. “Vaseline, mostly.”

“Ew!” Ranko contorted her face, sticking her tongue out. “I swear. Fucking boys.”

Nabiki couldn’t stifle her laugh at the idea of Ranko, of all people, being disgusted by typical male behavior. “Moving on.” She pulled another slip of paper from the basket. “Bangkok, Thailand. Could be fun. I hear they’ve got some great nightlife there.” She added it to her list, fishing a fifth vote from the little plastic basket. “Ooh, this one could be interesting. Not sure we can pull it off, but we can try.”

She started to write, and Ariel craned his neck to read it. “Honolulu? I thought we weren’t doing the United States?”

Nabiki nodded. “No chance on the mainland, but Hawai’i isn’t that far from some of the other spots they suggested. We can ask, anyway. Worst they can say is no.”

“Hear that, Ranko? Better pack your bathing suit, girlfriend!” Hitomi giggled. “Beach party time!”

“Shanghai.” Nabiki grinned, adding the next name to the list as Crash whooped. “Might need to do two shows there, actually, with that many people. I suspect that’ll happen for a few of the bigger ones, come to think of it. Maybe even three, for the very biggest cities.” Nabiki opened the second-to-last strip. “Speaking of which. Hong Kong.”

Emi squealed, leaning over and hugging her roommate excitedly. “Oh, girl, the shopping… We’re gonna have to ship our clothes home; they won’t all fit in the plane!”

Nabiki smirked as she read the last strip of paper in its carefully-practiced feminine handwriting. She could think of only one reason why someone would pick that city, out in the middle of nowhere as it was, and she knew exactly who had selected it.

With a knowing grin up at her youngest sister, Nabiki wrote the final name without reading it aloud.