Ranko coughed loudly, fanning the acrid mist in the air away from her face with the back of her hand. "Could'a waited until my mouth was closed, at least!"
"Maybe," Emi retorted, capping the can of hair spray in her hand with a loud pop. "But that would involve you shutting up for a minute! C'mon, already! We have to get out there." She set the can down on the stainless steel countertop of the makeshift dressing room, which usually served as a locker room for a hockey team. The venue, the Chengdu Sports Center, was not quite a year old, and it had not yet been outfitted with the types of backstage amenities the Dapper Dragons had become accustomed to after more than twenty performances on the Wildfire Tour.
Ranko scoffed, checking her reflection in the mirror. Using her splayed fingers as hair picks, she plumped the sides of her wavy locks before the hair spray had a chance to fully lock the style in place. "Well, you asked me to tell you everything. I haven't seen you in almost a week, after all!"
And I really had to stretch it, considering I had to leave out the Amazons, and the cursed springs, and all of that stuff. In a shocking development, 'Tomi and Ems were just fine hearing about me and Akane fooling around in the wilderness for the last half-hour, though, the redhead thought with a knowing smirk.
"And I'm sure we'll hear more, considering Akane isn't flying back to Tokyo until tomorrow morning," Hitomi jibed with a giggle and a very gentle elbow jab to Ranko's ribs. "I know our room is three floors below yours, but somehow, I think you're up to the challenge, girlfriend." She scrunched her nose, grinning devilishly at her friend. "Better save a little juice in those pipes out there."
Her face flashing crimson, Ranko waved the brunette off before retrieving her blood-red leather jacket from the back of the metal folding chair she'd just vacated and slinging it over her shoulders. "You're so bad! We can behave when we want to, you know!"
"That's the thing, Ran-chan. You never want to." Emi laughed, lifting the back of Ranko's jacket and clipping the battery pack for her headset to the waistband. "Who would?!"
"Look," Ranko replied sheepishly, lowering her eyes to the floor and fidgeting with her hands. "If you knew what it felt like when she… well, you'd understand."
Hitomi crashed into the pair from behind, throwing her arm around Ranko's shoulder. "We've been trying to know for months, but Little Miss Goodie-Two-Shoes over here with her whole, oh, woe is me, hot girls want me and I only wanna fool around with my wife…"
Hitomi's eyes lit up suddenly, and she grabbed Ranko by the shoulders, turning her forcefully until the pair were facing each other. "Wait a fuckingsecond! That hyperesthesia thing that you have… does that make it… better… when you…"
The redhead's face turned bright crimson, and she could only nod, but she did so emphatically.
Emi stepped closer to the pair, her eyes as wide as saucers. "Any chance it's catching?"
Not unless you piss off an old Amazon witch, Ranko thought with a smirk. I mean, they're only a couple of days' ride from here; I guess I could give you directions if you want. On second thought, sending those girls into a village full of hundreds of horned-up warrior women… shit, forget dancing. They wouldn't even walk straight until March sometime. "Sorry," she said, shrugging her shoulders to punctuate her helplessness.
"Hmrrph!" Hitomi grumbled, crossing her arms with a disgusted grimace on her face that Ranko wasn't entirely sure was disingenuous. "Some girls get all the luck!"
"Nǐ hǎo, Chéngdū! Dàjiā jīn wǎnguò dé zěnme yàng?!" Ranko waved excitedly to the crowd, her red leather jacket creaking with her every move. "My name's Ranko, and we are Ranko and the Dapper Dragons!"
The electric crowd roared its approval, despite the stadium being nearly half-empty. With a seating capacity nearing forty thousand, the venue was one of the largest Ranko and her retinue would occupy throughout the entirety of the Wildfire Tour, but Nabiki had been unable to secure anything smaller in the first week in December. Indeed, she'd had to argue with Amaya Uheyara and the Yokai representatives for nearly a month to convince them not to veto the Chengdu performance entirely. But, Nabiki had insisted, it was the one stop their star had specifically requested, and so the two women who together steered Ranko's musical career had found a solution, imperfect though it was.
"RAN-KO! RAN-KO! RAN-KO!" the crowd chanted, still reveling in the aftermath of the leadoff track - the extended Hellfire Cut of Demon in Your Radio.
The redhead closed her eyes, bowing her head. She willed herself to tune out twenty-two thousand, six hundred and ninety-three voices, instead straining to make out just one: that of the black-haired woman in the shiny silver dress that sat just to the left of center in the first row.
That's right, Firebirds, Ranko thought, taking a moment to revel in the sound. Like it or not, that's my wife calling my name from the front row. Where she will always be. Her name is Akane, and she is my everything. Fucking deal with it.
Rubbing the back of her left fist thrice with her right hand, Ranko lifted her chin and opened her eyes, a bright smile on her lips as she nodded in the direction of the Japanese woman in the front row. "Whaddya think, Chengdu? You wanna hear a brand new song?!"
As Shinji's bass guitar and Jacob's Yamaha synthesizer interrupted their raucous cheer of assent and kicked off the second song of seventeen on the set list, Akane's eyes darted to the trusswork above the stage. What?! I could have sworn I saw…
"I'm just a regular girl! No need to follow me home, just 'cause I pay my light bill with a microphone!"
Hitomi and Emi emerged from backstage in fresh costumes - white tanktops and ripped, faded denim blue jeans - to rejoin the lead singer. Both women executed a series of three handsprings from the back of the stage to reach Ranko at its front edge.
Man, princess, all that cheerleading training you gave them is really paying off, Akane thought with a smirk. That's better than some of my advanced students can do.
"I'm not Janet Jackson! I'm not Paula Abdul! Somebody like me's never gonna be that cool!"
Wouldn't be so sure, babygirl, Akane mused, smirking as she turned in her seat to gaze over the crowd. They seem to like you just fine way out here in the middle of nowhere, after all.
On the projection screen behind the performers - notably excluding Sanyo and Utaru, the two male dancers hired by Yokai Records specifically for the tour - a video clip began to play. It featured Ranko, her hair clipped back in a messy bun with a banana clip, wearing an oversized gray hoodie and a pair of sweat pants. She was walking down a small side street in the Minato district, rolling her eyes as onlookers pointed and stared.
Oh, shit, Akane thought, covering her mouth with her hand and giggling to herself as a flash of electric blue appeared in the lower right-hand corner of the frame for just a split second. I didn't realize I caught Mei in the shot! Whoops!
"So, don't get upset, but I can't help but laugh whenever someone asks me for an autograph!"
The video board showed Ranko backing up against a weathered red brick wall as a swarm of fans approached her, holding out photos, CDs and notebooks in the hopes of receiving a signature. Little did the onlookers watching in western China know, that wall was the western boundary of Ranko Tendo's personal fortress; her very own sake-drenched sanctuary in the heart of the Minato harbor district.
The redhead on the stage, meanwhile, shrugged her shoulders, letting them fall to her hips in resigned exasperation. "I just don't know how to act like a celebrity!"
Akane grinned, watching the video board and swaying in her seat. You're figuring it out, one show at a time, she thought. And I'm so fucking proud of…
Her eyes shot skyward with a gasp. Movement in the rafters. I'm fucking sure I saw it this time!
"It's just way too crazy for a regular girl like me!"
Akane slipped out of her seat, ducking her head to avoid obscuring the view of those seated behind her. She scurried to the metal barricade surrounding the stage, waving her arm overhead. "LANCE!"
It took her nearly half of the lengthy song to get the American's attention in the dark over the Dapper Dragons' voices and instruments, but when she finally did, he approached quickly. He leaned over the railing, reaching for her neck and gently pulling her head closer so he could yell over the speakers and have any prayer to be heard. "What is it, Miss Akane?"
"There's something… I don't know what, but… something's moving up there!" Akane pointed up to the ceiling, squinting into the glare of several orange canister lights.
"I'm just a regular girl, just like I was before," Ranko sang in the song's repetitive cadence as her video doppelgänger pushed a small trolley through the neighborhood market where her sisters frequently stopped for cocktail supplies if their usual deliveries fell short. "But, now they snap my picture at the grocery store!"
Lance scanned the catwalks with his eyes, shielding them from the stage lighting with his hand. "Okay. I'll handle it. You go enjoy the show, now, ya hear?" He gave her a gentle nudge back toward her seat, rushing to a spot just beneath the largest bank of speakers on the right side of the stage.
Ducking under the loudest area of directional sound, he tapped his radio twice to activate it and alert the listeners to pay attention. "Security team, this is Riker. I want everybody sweeping their areas every ten minutes, and sound-offs when you're done with 'em. I don't get a report from somebody, I am gonna personally mop the floor with your ass. Is that understood?!"
"Now, she's livin' out her FANTASY!" Ranko sang, holding the last high note as long as she could.
Once upon a rhyme, not so far away… she thought, imagining another verse in her most decorated hit, describing yet another milestone moment in the impossible story that had brought her to that moment. One she could never sing about in public, ever so grateful though she was for the very first catalyst that had led to her singing for twenty-some-thousand people in a white and blue seifuku that night in early December.
… A boy fell in a magic curs'ed spring one day…
"Don't know how it happened to a girl like me!" she added in her full chest voice. At least now, I kind of do, she mused, recalling her conversation with the guidesman of Jusenkyo. She looked down at a seat just to the left of center in the front row - the one she'd struggled to take her eyes off of all evening. Holding her left fist over the front of her skirt, she rubbed the back of it thrice in a circular motion with her right hand. "But now, my happy ever after happens who-oh-all the ti-i-i-ime…"
Akane smiled and stood from her seat, hurrying to the aluminum barricade that had been erected around the stage and waving to the band's head of security to get his attention again.
Ranko waved excitedly to the crowd, her arms over her head. "That's our show, everybody! We are Ranko and the Dapper Dragons! Wǎn'on, Chéngdū! Wǒmen ài nǐmen!"
The stage lights faded to black as Lance moved the barricade aside for Ranko's singer, the bright tinkling sound of Ranko's signature being formed across the video screen behind the stage playing overhead. Lance ushered her around the right side of the stage, parting a heavy black drape for her to pass.
"Once upon a rhyme," Ranko sang quietly in the darkness.
"Did you see anything else?" Akane shouted. Despite being mere centimeters from the mammoth man, she was barely audible over the appreciative roar of the crowd behind her.
Lance shook his head sternly as the pair strode down a long concrete hallway that curved around to the backstage area. "No, ma'am, Miss Akane. I've been checking in with the crew every ten minutes, and no one's reported anything out of the ordinary. Looks like a false alarm."
Akane nodded. "Okay. Thanks for watching ou- oof!" She giggled brightly, stumbling back a bit as she was nearly tackled in a hug. "Well, hello there!"
"Hi!" Ranko squeezed her partner tight around the waist, almost burrowing under her arm. "I did what you said! I closed my eyes and listened just for you."
The raven-haired woman hugged Ranko tight. She leaned down, resting her head on her beloved's shoulder, and whispered in her ear along with the repetitive, thundering sound that echoed down the corridor after them. "Ran-ko. Ran-ko. Ran-ko."
The songstress purred quietly, her cheeks warming. Whether it was due to Akane's words, her touch, or the feel of her breath on Ranko's hypersensitive skin, she could not be sure. Perhaps a combination of the three. "Didja enjoy the show?"
"Are you kidding?!" Akane laughed, squeezing her lover back as the pair turned to walk down the hallway. "Even better than Hawai'i! I really liked the way you did Just This Once. You were right; it's way better than having You Don't Know Me in that slot, I think. What was that dance?! It looked like something out of the old movies Kasumi likes."
The redhead giggled. "It's called the jitterbug. Something I learned in Miss Kangawa's class. But I blended it with…"
"Capoeira," Akane said with a chuckle. "That, I recognize when I see it, silly girl."
Ranko grinned, turning to look up - way up - at her everpresent protector. "How'd I do up there, Teach?"
Lance shrugged with a deep, rumbling laugh. "Not too bad. Messed up the pronunciation a little bit at the end, but I'm sure they still understood ya."
"To think," Ranko said, turning to Akane while gesturing over her shoulder at Lance with her thumb. "When I met this big lunk, he barely spoke Japanese. And listen to him now! How many languages do you know, anyway?!" She lost sight of Crash and Zoe, who had just turned the corner in the labyrinthine corridor a few dozen meters ahead of her.
Probably better not to talk about that, the American veteran decided. "Oh, a few," he said, laughing in the way he always did when Ranko asked about certain details of his past. "And yeah, I'm a quick study when it comes to languages and stuff. My mama didn't raise no dummy."
"Handsome, strong, sweet, and smart!" Ranko said, releasing Akane long enough to hug the gentle giant's forearm with both of her arms. "You're gonna make some girl really happy one day, ya know. You got the total package."
It was hard to tell on his dark skin, but Ranko could have sworn she saw him blush.
"Maybe when we get home," Lance said, waving her off with his free arm. "'Til then, the only girl whose ass I'm watchin' is you."
Akane laughed, turning the corner alongside her wife. "You're lucky you're you, Mister Riker. If literally anybody else said that about her in front of me, I'd break their jaw."
"Not unless you packed a ladder," Ranko said, giggling. "Did you talk to Nabiki?"
"Mm-hmm!" Akane smiled, slowing her walk a bit to put a few steps' distance between the couple and Lance. "It's all set. You'll have a private fifteen minutes with the Guide and his daughter before the regular meet-and-greet. "
Grinning, the vocalist gave a nod of acknowledgement. "Wow, Nabiki really gave 'em the deluxe treatment! Good! I'm glad."
"It wasn't for them," Akane said, lowering her voice to nearly a whisper. "It was for you. We figured it was better not to have fifty people in the room, in case, ya know… somebody says something they shouldn't. Remember, baby, her name is Plum."
Ranko blinked, crinkling her nose a bit and recoiling from the sound. "Plum?! What, was Durian taken?!"
Lance turned another corner, waving to two men in yellow plastic vests that flanked a yellow-painted door. "Hey, guys. Anything to report?"
The security day laborers straightened their posture, almost standing at attention as the trio approached. "No, sir! Nobody's been in or out! About the most action we saw was a stray cat a few minutes ago. It happens; these big arenas, lots of open doors, all kinds of critters wander in."
"A cat?!" Lance growled under his breath. "You ran it off, right?! Miss Tendo is severely aller…"
His voice trailed off as Akane gripped his arm. The intense concern in her eyes took him aback. "Lance…" Akane said, glancing nervously back at Ranko. "Come in with us, please?"
Please be wrong, Akane thought as Lance reached for the doorknob. Both she, and the girl clinging to her arm, tensed their muscles, preparing to spring into action at a moment's notice. Not here. Not now.
The door swung open, and Lance stepped in, blocking its frame with his body. He scanned the room carefully for several long seconds from the doorway, only stepping in once he was confident there were no threats he could see from his vantage point. He stalked around the room with the agility of a man half his size, quickly checking every wardrobe, nook and cranny big enough to conceal a cat, let alone a person. "Everything looks okay, girls," he said, motioning them into the room behind him.
"Thanks, Lance," Ranko said, patting him on the arm as she made for the wheeled office chair pushed up against the haphazard attempt at a vanity.
When she pulled it back to sit in it, she found it occupied. A small straw doll rested in the seat, dressed in a bluish-green qipao. Around its neck was a red ribbon, from which dangled a tiny silver medallion embossed with a pair of crossed chui and a preening Himalayan cat between their handles. A folded piece of ivory stationery accompanied it, as did a single lavender orchid.
"We did have a visitor," Ranko said, handing the crude figurine to her wife and tapping its necklace to draw her attention to it. "And she left a note."
"What's it say?" Akane asked, stepping closer. There was concern, mixed with a hopeful curiosity, in her voice.
The redhead smiled wistfully, handing the card over to her beloved. It was meticulously hand-painted with three Chinese characters: 我 爱 你. While Ranko knew very little Chinese - even less in its written form - she had seen that particular phrase enough times over her long history with one young Amazon in particular to recognize it instantly.
"Wǒ ài nǐ."