“Oh, I couldn’t possibly!”
Ranko scoffed, leaning on a beige pressboard partition outside the narrow dressing room stall. “What’s the problem with that one?”
A pathetic whimper escaped from the stall. “It’s far too short, and the sleeves show way too much skin.”
The redhead rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest. “Ma, come on. It’s like, knee length. That’s perfectly normal!”
“Sweetheart, not everyone can dress… the way you do on stage,” Nodoka admonished from the fitting booth, passing the green sundress back over the door to her daughter.
Ranko scoffed, letting her head fall back to the partition she leaned on with a hollow thunk. “Sheesh, Ma! You don’t gotta make me sound like a freakin’ stripper! I dress cute on stage, but I’m decent!” Most of the time, anyway. She’s gonna have a fucking stroke when she sees my Minato cheer uniform.
“I didn’t mean to imply… I’m sorry, honey. I just… the idea of wearing some of these things in public is a little too embarrassing to me. It’s just not what I’m used to.” Nodoka slipped back into her orange silk kimono, sighing with relief at the comfort of its familiarity on her skin.
The redhead outside the dressing room chuckled. “Um, Ma? You do realize who you’re talking to when you say that, right?” The irony of hearing her birth mother’s voice complaining about the nerve-wracking experience of wearing skirts and dresses in the same fitting room where Izumi had foisted a new style upon a former boy in her first days at the Phoenix was not lost on the young singer. I promise, dressing like a modern woman ain’t gonna be half as weird for you as it was for me in the beginning.
Nodoka pulled the door inward and stepped out of the fitting booth. “I’m trying, Ranko. I really am. I know I promised.”
“I’ll tell you what. Let’s try to find something that’s, like, ankle length. I think you’re probably gonna have to deal with shorter sleeves, ‘cause they’ve already gotten rid of most of their cold-weather stuff, but you can wear a jacket or something over it until you get a little more comfortable.” Ranko smirked. “Ya know, for somebody who put me through a whole gauntlet to see how brave I was, you’re bein’ kind of a wuss about this.” She giggled a bit, though it was largely faked; she still didn’t like to think about the awkward and stressful first days of her relationship with her biological mother, but she meant no offense, and she hoped her laugh would soften the perceived intent of her words and avoid the risk of an argument that could darken the mood of the mother-daughter outing.
“No, you’re right. I’m moving forward with a lot of things in my life - spending time with you, moving out of the house in Yokohama - and I need to open myself up to new experiences.” Nodoka smiled nervously. “Let’s look for something together?”
“Sure!” Ranko smiled brightly. “Any thoughts about a color?”
Her mother thought for a moment, rubbing her chin in contemplation. “Maybe something light, appropriate for spring.”
“Oh, now that is cute!” Ranko left her mother’s side, stalking over to a nearby rack facing the dressing rooms and holding up a bright yellow drop-waist dress. A flock of white doves was printed across it, starting at the left hip and flying in formation around the waist and up the chest, the line ending with a single dove holding a red rose in its beak printed on the right breast.
“Ranko, I agreed to consider short sleeves, but that one doesn’t have any at all,” Nodoka said, pursing her lips in disapproval.
Ranko blushed. “I wasn’t talking about for you.” She started flipping through the hangers on the rack with a hopeful urgency, pulling out the fourth hanger from the front. “Yes! They have it in my size!”
Nodoka smiled softly, standing back and watching her daughter with maternal pride. She’s indistinguishable from any other girl her age. It’s truly incredible, the way she’s adapted. I wonder if she ever still thinks about it, how far she’s really come. I never knew the boy Ranma was, but gods, the girl she became…
“It’s beautiful, honey.” Nodoka wasn’t sure if she was still talking about the dress. “Would you like it?”
The redhead nodded. “Oh, I’m definitely getting this one.”
“Let me,” Nodoka said with a grin. “I know you’ve got a royalty check burning a hole in your pocket, but… let’s call it your graduation gift.”
Ranko rolled her eyes. “A little early for that, isn’t it? I’ve still got another few weeks at Yusue.”
That wasn’t necessarily the lessons I was referring to, sweetheart. “Then, a just because I want to spoil my daughter gift, then. How’s that?”
With an exaggerated sigh, Ranko extended her forearm gently. Laughing sweetly and playing along, Nodoka reached out, taking her daughter’s left wrist limply in her hand and giving it the slightest of turns.
“Ow!” Ranko emoted, blushing as she cradled her arm with a winning smile. “Well, if you’re gonna twist my arm, okay…”
Still laughing, the elder woman crossed the white linoleum walkway and turned to another set of racks in a section designated for dressier outfits, separated out by its green carpet rather than the blue in the section where Ranko had chosen her dress. “Alright, now back to the hard part: finding something to look good on me.”
Ranko crinkled her nose, still smiling brightly. Is this what it’s like with normal girls and their moms? It feels so… natural. “Oh, stop. You’re gonna look great! I know it. You’ve got good genes.”
“Oh, I do, do I? I suppose if I ever have a daughter, she’ll be very pretty,” Nodoka teased.
“You know it!” Ranko blushed, the giddy grin on her strawberry-glossed lips in no danger of receding.
“What about that one?” Nodoka weaved her way through several metal four-way racks to the back wall, looking up at a wrap dress with elbow-length sleeves. It was an off-white with huge navy blue flowers printed all over it, and looked long enough to at least reach to the middle of the taller woman’s calves.
Ranko smiled. “I think it’s fantastic, Ma.” She started to stand on her tiptoes and reach for the hanger, but a slight wince crossed her face. “Crap. I can’t do that on my leg just yet.”
The taller woman grinned. “Here, I can get it, sweetheart.” Nodoka reached over her head, beginning to flip through the hangers to search for a dress matching the size of the green one she’d tried on previously.
“Grab one in a nine, too,” Ranko encouraged.
Nodoka scoffed. “Oh, honey, I don’t think that would come anywhere close to fitting me, but I appreciate the sentiment.”
Her daughter laughed, smiling brightly. I didn’t even know it, but I waited my whole life for a day like today. Just one more thing in my life I had no business being lucky enough to have. Once upon a rhyme…
“Naah! I’m gonna get one, too. We can be twinsies!”
----------------------------------------
“Sure thing! Enjoy it, and take care!”
Ranko giggled, waving to a young woman in a denim skirtall and a green tee shirt as she darted excitedly back to her husband, the marker lines on her newly-signed copy of Wild Orchid still drying.
The young celebrity blushed a bit as she returned to her shopping companion, shrugging her shoulders. “Sorry about that. It’s always a risk when I walk past a record store.”
With a warm, matronly smile, Nodoka Shimizu waved her daughter’s apology away with the back of her left hand, their shopping bags from the dress shop in her right. “Don’t worry about it, honey. It’s part of your job, I suppose. And, I’ll admit, as a mother, it’s nice sometimes to see that everyone loves your little girl.”
The light pink of Ranko’s cheeks turned a brighter red than her foundation had any hope to hide at the thought of being Nodoka’s little girl. Just hearing those words out loud like that was like shaking up a jar full of butterflies and hornets in her belly.
“Are you still doing alright, dear? You can let me know if you need to sit down.” Nodoka gave her daughter another fawning smile. “The way you’re walking today still looks like you’re hurting.”
Ranko blushed furiously, hiding her face with her manicured left hand. She was indeed fairly sore, but her still-healing knee was not the reason why. “Nah, I’ll be okay. I’ll take some more ibuprofen when we stop for lunch, just in case. Thanks, though.” We sure have come a long way from biting my arm ‘til it bled while my girly bits got waxed because I wasn’t allowed to tell her it hurt.
“Ooh, hey, could we stop in this one for a second?” Ranko gestured to the open glass door of a small shop between a candy store and a half-depth storefront full of gacha machines.
Nodoka nodded. “I’m in no rush, dear.” She smiled, crossing her hands over the white obi of her kimono as her daughter flitted into the store. It’s not what I expected my relationship with my child to be, but… it’s so good to be getting closer to her. Gods, how close I came to losing her forever. She trailed a few steps behind her daughter, finding herself surrounded by an array of purses, suitcases, garment bags and briefcases.
It took her but a moment to find Ranko in the narrow shop, lifting a large suitcase up onto the sales counter and beginning to unzip it.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Would you mind doing that on the floor, please,” the elderly male clerk asked, pursing his lips a bit at the young girl covering his display of luxury pens in the glass case.
“Sorry! My leg’s kinda messed up, and I can’t really bend down too good.” Ranko lifted the hem of her red skirt slightly, just enough to show the bottom edge of the black-and-steel contraption that still supported the sides of her left knee. “I’ll only be a minute. Please?”
The man nodded, putting up his hand with a calming wave. “Of course. I’m sorry; I didn’t know. Take all the time you need. Do you need any help?”
The bag was bright red, dotted with large white polka dots on all sides. It reminded Ranko of the dress she saw the Minnie Mouse character wearing when she’d played Ariel at Tokyo Disneyland. So large was it that, if she’d had full flexibility in her left leg, she likely could have curled up inside it. A small leather patch embossed with the outline of the Eiffel Tower graced the front of the bag. Ranko marveled at the huge suitcase, looking at the bottom of it. “I’ve never seen a bag that has wheels on the short side like that.” She turned it so she could look quizzically at the opposite end of the bag. “I guess you bend down and drag it by this handle here?”
The mustachioed clerk reached out for the plastic handle, giving it a yank. The telescoping handle extended upward nearly half a meter on two aluminum rods that must have been concealed under the liner of the bag’s interior. “You pull it up like this, and you can just wheel it behind you through the airport. And then when you get where you’re going, just push it back in.” He slid the handle back into the bag with a little click.
“That is so cool! And they let you on the plane with these?” Ranko opened the bag again, looking over its interior compartment as if the whole thing were a spaceship.
“The smaller ones, yes. You’d have to check the big one. You can get the bags individually, or as a set. We have a small one for taking on the plane with you, and then the large one here, and one in between. There’s also a garment bag and a toiletry bag that match, if you’re interested.” The clerk motioned to each bag on the display she’d taken the large suitcase from as he named them.
“What do I have to check it for? Does it do something?” Ranko looked up at the old man, confusion painted on her face. “I’m sorry if I seem dumb. I’ve… actually never been on a plane before.”
The kindly man shook his head, smiling disarmingly. “Don’t worry about it at all. Lots of girls your age haven’t. Ol’ Jun will help you out, no problem.”
Ranko beamed. “Your name is Jun? That’s so cool! My nephew’s name is Jun! He’s two months old.”
Jun laughed heartily, his expression brightening considerably. “Then he has the makings of being a fine young man, it sounds like! So, as for your bags. The plane has a small bin above the seats where you can put a little bag, like this one.” He walked around the counter, picking up a smaller version of the vertical rolling bag. “We recommend you pack one spare outfit, as well as anything you might need during the flight, like a book or any snacks or medications, things like that, in one of these. Lots of women put their purses in them too, so it’s one less thing to keep track of. Then, your bigger bags, like these three here, go in a separate area of the plane underneath. You give your bag to them when you get to the airport, and then they bring it to you when you get back off the plane at the other end of your flight. That’s called checking your bag, because they give you a little check that they use to match up with your bag when you get where you’re going.”
Ranko nodded, following along intently. She thought she might need to take notes.
“Now, the bigger suitcases, like this one, are great for folded shirts, bulky things like jeans, shoes, undergarments, and the like. But, for the ladies, we recommend a garment bag.” He picked up a shorter, squatter bag decorated with an identical red and white dot pattern. “It has the same sort of handles-and-wheels system, but it’s designed so your longer dresses don’t get wrinkled when you travel.”
Ranko looked at the bag skeptically. “How does that work exactly?” I can barely get some of them from the dryer to the closet without Akane havin’ to iron them. It drove Ranko crazy to ask her, but as the heat from the iron could be quite uncomfortable on her Cat’s Tongue skin, her wife did it whenever she was able.
Jun reached down, undoing two plastic clips on each side of the bag, and then unfolded the whole of it until it lay flat on the floor. He unzipped all the way around the bag’s black interior, revealing a metal clip at the top of a large empty compartment. “You stick your hangers here, and then your dresses stay mostly flat. This foam bar in the middle here makes the bend where the bag itself folds a bit gentler, so you don’t get a crease through the middle of your outfits. And then, when you get to your hotel, you just…” He reached into a hidden pocket at the end of the bag where the hanger hook was, pulling out an aluminum hook on a short chain. “... hang this whole thing up in the closet, and that’s that.”
Damn. I’ve come a long way from a couple shirts jammed in a backpack. “That looks super useful! I’m gonna be traveling with a lot of dresses, I think.”
Nodoka beamed proudly. “My daughter’s a singer. She’s going on world tour starting next month. So we need to make sure she has everything she needs, and that it will be convenient for her to manage her things.”
Ranko blushed, fidgeting a little bit on her silver-sneakered feet.
“Well, then,” Jun said, zipping the garment bag back up. “I recommend getting one of the large bags, a small one for carrying on the plane, the garment bag, and the toiletry bag for makeup and such.”
Nodoka eyed the clerk skeptically. “Do you honestly think she can haul all that through the airport by herself? She’s just a little thing, after all.”
“Maaa,” Ranko said. “That’s why we’re bringing Crash. He can carry my extra stuff. You just know that dude’s gonna live out of his guitar case and a backpack for three months. If Ukyo doesn’t pack his bag for him, I’ll be shocked if he remembers to bring his underpants.”
As both women laughed, Jun demonstrated the use of a series of straps and clips dangling from the various bags to attach them all together, with the smaller bag being dragged behind the larger, and the garment bag riding on top of the larger one, strapped to the telescoping handle. “Here you go, everything’s all set, and you can move it all with one hand. Throw the toiletry bag over your shoulder, and away you go. Simple!”
Ranko smiled up at her mother. “What do you think? It’s kinda cute, and it looks really easy to work with.”
Nodoka laughed, smiling with a little shake of her head. “I’m not the one traveling, baby. If you like it, you should get it. I do agree, it’s pretty, and it’s nice that it’s not just another black or brown bag that will get mixed up with everyone else’s at the airport. It should stand out.”
The redhead nodded, taking the handle of the combined bag tower and taking it for a short test drive around the store. “I like it, I think! But, we should get the whole set, with the middle-sized bag, too.”
Her mother bit her lip a bit. “Are you sure? That seems like an awful lot to navigate at once. Will you need to bring that much? Most of your things for the show will be packed with the stage and the instruments, won’t they?”
“I think it’s good for me, but we’ll need more space for Ak…” She trailed off mid-word, her crestfallen eyes sinking to the floor. Nodoka was certain she’d just watched the light in her daughter’s soul physically plop out of them onto the store’s brown berber carpet in real time. “No, you’re right. Just these four, I guess.” She fumbled in her black cross-body purse, pulling out a wad of bills and setting them in the plastic tray on the glass counter where she’d inspected her new luggage a moment ago.
Jun strapped an orange plastic tag around the handles of each bag to indicate that they’d been paid for, and Ranko carelessly threw her change loose in her bag without bothering to count it or put it into its designated compartment. She took the handle of the Frankensteined collection of bags, dragging it into the main mall area as quickly as her still-healing leg would permit her to move.
Nodoka threw the shoulder strap of the empty toiletry bag over her shoulder, following after her daughter. “Honey, are you…”
Ranko shook her head, biting her lip. “I don’t wanna talk about it, Ma.”
The elder woman rested her hand gently on her daughter’s shoulder through her baby pink blouse. “Maybe you don’t want to, but I get the sense you might need to.”
The redhead whirled to face her mother, so quickly that Nodoka detected the hint of a wince as her daughter’s left leg twisted a bit further than it was prepared to.
“Why won’t she… I’d follow her to hell and back, Ma. Why won’t she come with me? Doesn’t she know I need her?! How could she not know? I tell her every day! I can’t do this all by myself. I’m not ready!”
Nodoka sighed softly. “She knows you need her, little orchid. She knows. But I think she might have more confidence in you than you do. I think she knows you’re strong, and brave, and capable. I think she believes in you more than you will ever realize. We all do, honey.”
Ranko shook her head forcefully enough for her white-ribboned ponytail to flop to her other shoulder, biting her lip hard. She’d gotten far more comfortable around her biological mother in the months after her wedding, but she wasn’t sure she was ready to let the woman she’d spent her whole childhood running from see her cry again if she could help it. “Then she’s stupid. She knows I’m not ready. I can’t… I know I’m not s’posed to be, but I’m afraid, Ma. I need help for everything. I barely know how to…” Ranko left her sentence unfinished, but Nodoka understood her meaning.
“Besides, I don’t want to see the world without her! She keeps telling me about how much fun I’m gonna have, all these amazing things I’m gonna see. Showin’ me travel maps and stuff, tryin’ to get me excited.” Ranko sighed, slumping over her new luggage. “How am I supposed to have fun in Bangkok when my whole heart is still in Tokyo, Ma?! How am I even supposed to breathe without her?”
Nodoka sighed slowly, nodding as she took a seat on a green wooden bench, patting the empty side of it next to her in invitation. “Ranko, baby… I want you to listen to your mother, now. If there’s anyone on this good earth who knows how hard it is to wake up every morning without the people you love most in the world close to you, it’s me. Your father ripped my whole heart out for fifteen years when he took you away from me.”
Ranko nodded, flopping heavily down on the bench next to her mother. “I guess, next to that, whining about a month at a time sounds pretty pathetic, huh?” Her voice was sullen, resigned.
“No, it doesn’t, sweetheart. It sounds perfectly normal. But…” Nodoka sighed, fighting to maintain control of her emotions. Now’s not the time to wallow in self-pity because you were without your child for so long, Nodoka. Now is the time to help her, like you always wanted to.
“I don’t know if you’re going to like hearing this, but I think Akane’s doing a smart thing. It hurts, I know. Gods, precious, I know. But, I think maybe the fact that you don’t think you can do this without her is precisely why you have to. And I think Akane knows that, even if she doesn’t necessarily realize she does.” Nodoka reached over, softly sweeping a loose strand of her daughter’s flame-red hair out of her face and tucking it behind the diamond stud earring in her left ear for her.
“You need to prove to yourself that you can manage on your own.” Nodoka lowered her voice, looking around to make sure no one was paying close enough attention to their conversation to process her words. “You’ve been leaning on Akane, and your sisters, basically since you became… who you are, and you haven’t learned how to trust yourself. You don’t think you can exist as the girl you’ve become on your own, because you’ve never had to. You’ve never tried.”
She mustered a reassuring smile, patting Ranko on the thigh comfortingly. “So, yes, while you’re apart, it’s going to hurt. Every single day. I’m not going to sit here and lie to you and tell you that it won’t. But when you come back, with your head held high - when that suitcase over there is covered with stickers from all the countries you’ve conquered with your voice, and filled up to bursting with souvenirs from every backwater gift shop you can find - you’ll know. You’ll never, ever doubt yourself like this again. You will be able to look all of those women who taught you how to live in the eyes, and watch them marvel at just how unbelievably good of a job they did.”
Nodoka lifted her hand from Ranko’s thigh, taking her right hand and giving it a firm squeeze. "Maybe when there’s no other voices in your ear but your own in the mirror, you’ll figure out how to tell yourself how formidable you are, because you never seem to believe anyone else in your life when they tell you. I hope so, Ranko.” She released Ranko’s hand, patting the back of it.
“If there’s anyone alive who deserves to walk this wide world with pride, it’s you, my daughter.”