"For the fifth time, yes! I told you I'd handle it, and I did! Your stupid spotlights will be on the roof. The rental company said they'll be delivered on the twenty-third, and then we'll have them for a month." Mei sighed, shaking her head. "For real, this is never gonna work if you don't learn to trust people to do shit when you delegate, Sakura!"
Nodding meekly, Sakura slumped back down into her new office chair. "You're right. I'm sorry. There's just fifty thousand things going on all at once, and I feel like I'm juggling hand grenades."
A slender brunette in a pair of form-fitting black jeans reached over the well-worn desktop, handing Sakura a cold bottle of beer. Izumi winced slightly as a few drops of ice water from the well dripped onto the crumpled invoice from the electrician that sat atop a pile of paperwork. "We get it, sis. But there's seven of us. Eight, if you count Mama. Why don't you let us disarm a few of those grenades for you, rather than, ya know, throwing them at us? I know you're Miss Business Girl and all, but nobody expects you to do this on your own." She chuckled, a smirk crossing her lips as a realization struck home. "Especially not Yui."
Mei flopped down onto the torn center cushion of the leather couch in the office that had until recently been her adoptive mother's. "She's right, ya know. We're a team. And more importantly, we're a fa-"
Her voice trailed off and she cringed, covering her ears with her hands just below her everpresent electric blue pigtails. She waited until the loud rattle had subsided before lowering her hands and continuing her sentence. "Like I was saying… we're family. Which is why I haven't killed Kaito yet, despite all the racket he's making out there."
"Mei-mei, they're using a friggin' jackhammer. They aren't exactly quiet," Izumi admonished.
Her diminutive little sister groaned. "I know, but couldn't they, like, do it through a pillow or something? Is it gonna be like this all month?!"
"At least the first two weeks," Sakura replied. "And that's with the crew doing round-the-clock shifts. It's a pain, but it's the only way to finish the renovations before Ranko gets home."
Mei leaned back on the couch, crossing her legs at the knees in her denim jumper. "Have you heard from her? I wonder how her camping trip went."
"It was great!" came a voice from the open doorway. Akane slipped into the crowded office, all smiles in a goldenrod sweater and blue jeans. "Couldn't have asked for better." Nobody got beat up too badly, Xian Pu just left presents, and most importantly, there were no unauthorized swimming excursions at Jusenkyo. And Ranko got her answers. Her cheeks flushed, but she did not mention why to her sisters.
Ayako followed her into the room, tossing her car keys on top of the battered old metal file cabinet in front of the desk. "Sorry we're late getting back. Her flight was delayed a few hours."
Akane bobbed her head, shrugging. "Some sort of mechanical issue, I guess. Broke my heart though; once they announced there was a problem with the plane, Ranko damn near tried to tie me down in the airport. She was convinced we were gonna crash."
"Speaking of which… you asked me to remind you that you promised to page her when you got here so she knew you made it safe," Aya said.
Akane nodded. "Right! Thanks, Aya. I better do that now, before I forget. It's a little crazy around here today. I barely recognize the place, and we haven't even started the big stuff yet!" She ducked under Ayako's arm, turning left toward the main bar room in search of the Phoenix's cordless telephone.
"Hey, boss lady," she said, waving to Yui behind the bar. "Sheesh! I leave you girls alone for less than a week, and you've already got the place all torn to hell! I knew I should've gotten you a babysitter!" Laughing, she reached over the acacia countertop, retrieving the cordless telephone from its cradle and beginning to dial.
Yui chuckled, pulling two more bottles of liquor down from the shelves behind the bar and packing them away for safe keeping. "We tried, but Hoshi was busy." She snickered, leaning over the counter and lowering her voice. "Someone has his first date on Friday night. And someone's mother is not handling it well."
At the chime blaring from the tiny receiver, Akane punched three buttons on the telephone before pressing the talk button to end the call. "No shit?! That's great!" She glanced over the blue slatted door to ensure Izumi was not approaching. "Boy or girl?"
"Girl," Yui replied with a grin. "Come on, now, did you really think Auntie Yui was gonna let him experience the absolute ick that is boys?!"
"Good call," Akane said, tittering loudly. "I tried that once. Zero stars. Isn't Hoshi a little young to be dating, though?"
Laughing, Yui reached out for the telephone, which Akane handed her. "Kaito's gonna take them to the movies and sit three rows behind them. I think the chances of corrupting the youth are fairly low for the time being." She waved the phone in Akane's direction before reaching down to return it to its charging cradle. "How's Tweedle-Ditz gonna know who to call back? You only put in three numbers."
Akane blushed, nodding. "She'll know. It's something Jacob does with Zoe's beeper sometimes. They put in one, four, three, because in English, the phrase I love you has one character in the first word, then four, and then three. And now she knows it was me, and doesn't have to spend the long-distance money to call me back."
"Man, I wish we had that for, like, everything you wanted to say. Like, yes, can I please have all the convenience of a phone call, without any of the… having to actually talk to people?" Yui laughed, rolling her eyes at the irony of her statement. "Guess I picked the wrong profession, huh?"
Akane shrugged. "Hey, at least the money sucks."
"Yeah, well, not everyone can go from waitress to jet-set princess in two albums flat like your lady love," Yui retorted. "When Behind Bars drops, you girls are gonna be rollin' in it. Shame she couldn't get it out in time for Christmas shopping."
Akane shrugged, raising her voice to be heard over the shrill drilling sound emanating from the back wall of the bar. "We'll see. Honestly, I don't trust Yokai any further than I can throw them these days." As she spoke, she walked toward the stage on which she had been married, half of which had already been disassembled. "Shame we couldn't leave the old stage up. Ranko was really broken up about it coming down before she left."
"I'm not surprised," Hana said, rising from her knees and dusting her hands off on her faded, threadbare blue jeans. "Lot of good memories up there for her." The matriarch of the Phoenix clan reached out, giving Akane a hug around the shoulders with one arm. "Flight back okay?"
"Once it finally got off the ground, anyway." Akane smiled, relaxing into the hug. It's good to be home. I think this is the first time my neck hasn't been tense from stress all week, she thought as she inspected the half-deconstructed platform. "Huh. It was hollow under there?!"
Yui nodded, closing the cabinet door under the bar. "Yep! We built it in a rush while Ranko was out with Mama, right before that Christmas concert you came to. We wanted to surprise her. So, we just threw it right on top of the old one."
"You mean, Ranko's first stage is still under there?" Akane bent over the wooden frame of the stage, peering into the dark recesses under it. "The little corner one?"
"Mmhmm. For now, at least." Hana picked up her yellow electric screwdriver, setting about removing the next plank of the stage floor. "That's coming out, too, once I get to it."
Akane grinned, her eyes lighting up with a glint of inspiration. "Do me a favor? Take it out in one piece, if you can." She turned to Yui, her face the picture of excitement. "I know what I'm giving Ranko for Christmas."
"Kinky," Yui said with a smirk as she set about boxing up the black Ranko and the Dapper Dragons tee shirts displayed on the glass shelves behind the service bar. "If you ask Kaito real nice, I'm sure he could get a stripper pole set up on it for ya."
Akane's face reddened and she opened her mouth to reply, but before she could make a sound, the glass front door opened. A stout man in a white tee shirt, a reflective orange vest and a yellow plastic hard hat entered the bar room, a sledgehammer slung over his shoulder.
"Mind grabbing everybody?" Kaito walked to the west wall, leaning the tool in his hands against the red brick where the booths and tables had been removed.
Yui scurried back to the office, emerging a few moments later with Mei, Sakura and Izumi in tow. "Reporting as ordered," she announced with a snicker.
"So," Kaito began, motioning to the wall. "We've just about done everything we can from that side. It's time to crack the shell on this egg." He lifted the great hammer again, offering its shaft to Yui with one hand. "You wanna do the honors, madam proprietress?"
Yui smiled, taking the hammer in hand. Her eyes widened as the weight of it transferred fully to her control, and it was all she could do to not break her own kneecap with it. "Oof! Damn, Mister Muscles! How the hell do you swing this thing?!"
"Carefully," Kaito jibed in retort.
"Well, ya know what?" Yui shouldered the dusty maul, her trademark smirk widening. "It seems only fitting that the first of us to hold the place up should be the first to try to knock it down." She walked a few steps to her right, lowering the hammer in both hands and offering it to her mother. "That is, if you think you can handle it, old lady?"
Hana reached out for the hammer, scoffing as she took its weight in her hand. "Please. This is less than half of a keg. Wimp." She grinned, stepping forward. "Anywhere on this wall?" she asked, motioning with the head of the hammer to the weathered brick of the west wall. The neon beer ads and television swivel mounts had already been taken down, and the center two of the six booths that had lined that side of the bar were removed earlier that morning.
Kaito nodded, gesturing to a blue chalk line running from the ceiling to the floor. "Yes ma'am! Everything between the blue lines is coming down."
Hana raised the hammer, but Kaito stepped in front of her, waving his hands. "Wait, I almost forgot!" he exclaimed. "Just one second!" He scurried back to the bag he had left on the floor by the front door, returning with a pair of plastic safety goggles and a disposable camera. "For safety," he said, handing the eyewear to his mother-in-law. "And, for posterity," he added, holding up the camera as he wound the film into readiness with his thumb.
"Let's go, Mama!" Ayako shouted, clapping her hands twice and punching upward. I guess cheerleading habits die hard, even if I did only do it for one term, she thought, her cheeks reddening.
Smiling at the cheers and whoops from her daughters, Hana hefted the hammer again. She swung it hard, slamming its head square between the two vertical chalk lines. A chunk of brick and mortar fell to the crinkly blue tarp covering the hardwood floor with a crash.
With an ear-to-ear grin, Hana carried the weighty tool back to Yui. "Now, let's see you do better, beanpole."
"You can do it, Yui!" cheered the barkeep's wife as Yui took possession of the safety goggles. "Show her who's boss!"
The tall blonde hefted the hammer just higher than waist level, grunting loudly as she swung it toward the wall. It connected with the bricks with a loud thunk, and a pair of the weathered red blocks tumbled to the floor.
Holding the hammer victoriously overhead in both of her hands, Yui turned to smile at her cheering sisters. "Yeah! Beat that, Mei!" She handed the sledge over to her little sister, who had already donned another pair of safety goggles.
When the weight transferred into Mei's hands, the head immediately swung to the floor. "Ohmygods!" she exclaimed, barely getting her feet out of the way before it landed on her white crosstrainers.
Hana clapped encouragingly for her daughter, despite laughing at her struggles. "C'mon, Mei! Big and fierce! You got this, baby!"
Big and fierce. Big and fierce. Big and… who the hell am I kidding? Mei shook her head, straining with all her might to raise the hammer until its long handle was parallel with the floor. Unable to swing it without bracing its weight against her body, she rushed forward, jabbing at the wall with it as if the hammer were a battering ram. The unorthodox effort was entirely unsuccessful, freeing naught but a bit of mortar dust.
"Good try, Mei!" Ayako cheered. This is gonna take all month at this rate if the boys don't come in and take over, she mused.
Raising her hand, Akane stepped forward. She reached down for the hammer, but hesitated to take it. "Mind if I give it a try next?"
With a roll of her eyes, Mei left the hammer standing upright on the floor by its head. "Be my guest. You want my goggles?"
"I'm good," Akane said with a grin.
Again, Hana clapped her hands, her voice bright and chipper. "Show it what you've got, Akane!" Although she hated to admit that she was enjoying the act of blowing a hole in the bar that had been equal parts orphanage, temple and sanctuary to four generations of her haphazard little family, she couldn't help but acknowledge that it was fun to do the activity together with her girls. She only wished the youngest of the seven was present, but instead, Ranko was a few hours away from stepping on stage in Xi'an, China.
"Woooo! Go, Akane!" yelled Ayako, bouncing on her toes and clapping again.
Alright… Akane thought, lifting the hammer. She held it with both hands tight together, bringing it up to a ready position as if it were a katana. Closing her eyes, she took a long, slow breath in. Just pretend it's that son of a bitch Kondo. Visualize the little fuckface that's hurting your girl.
"HYAAAH!" Akane swung the sledge like it was a baseball bat, and it crashed into the wall. Chunks of mortar and brick collapsed backward into the newly-constructed connector spanning the alley that once separated the Phoenix from the former discount shop next door. The sudden shift in weight sent stress fractures spidering through the gray mortar, and in a moment, most of those fell inward too. When the cloud of concrete dust had cleared, there was a hole riven through the wall large enough to step through.
"Holy hell!" Kaito blinked through his plastic goggles, surveying the damage wrought by Akane's singular blow. His eyes widened in further shock when Akane handed the hammer back to him, and he noticed the long hairline crack running down its oak handle.
Smiling triumphantly, Akane carefully stepped over the rubble and through the hole into the newly-constructed room. It had taken Nabiki two months, but she'd finally convinced the city government to merge the two properties into one on the official records, which then removed the requirement for an alleyway to pass between them and allowed the connection to be built. The room was far wider than it was long, and it opened to both the left and the right from the hole as far as the original bar did. Straight ahead, Akane could see the open entryway into the nearly-completed music venue in which she had been married - the second time. To her right, empty aluminum clothes racks filled the space, with a counter in the back corner for a checkout station. It only awaited the construction to be finished before being filled with Club Firebird and Ranko and the Dapper Dragons merchandise, the latter of which Nabiki had already staged in a nearby rental storage unit.
The left side, however, was covered entirely with heavy brown tarps that hung from the ceiling, protecting whatever was set up behind them from dust, and from view. It was smaller, only encompassing the equivalent of about a third of the depth of the Phoenix's main room. Akane did not know what lay beyond - indeed, none of her sisters did, not even the one married to the building's general contractor. All they had been told was that it was Hana's personal project, and that the space was off-limits to all but Kaito and the bar's former proprietress.
Hana stepped through the hole after Akane, surveying the state of the place. Noticing Akane gazing curiously at the shrouded space, she smiled warmly, walking up behind her daughter and resting her hand on her back. "I suppose it's about time I can show you what's behind the curtain - but on one condition." She glanced back through the gap cleft in the wall, wagging her index finger in admonishment at her other children. "No one - and I mean no one - says a word to Ranko. I want your promise."
Once all of her children present had responded in the affirmative vocally or with a nod, Hana turned back to Akane. "Go ahead. Pull the tarp down."
Mom, what the hell did you do? And why don't you want Ranko to know? Akane stepped forward, grabbing the crinkly brown plastic and giving it a downward yank. It tore free of the staples that secured it to the wooden rafters above, and fell to the floor in a heap. Beyond, Akane found the space filled with glass display cases, some lining the outer walls, and others situated in the middle of the room such as to allow foot traffic to flow around them in all directions.
A puzzled expression in her eyes, Akane walked into the newly-exposed room, peering in the closest of the glass cabinets. She found it filled with framed photos, most of which she recognized, and many of which she was in. There was a photo of all of the girls and Hana surrounding Ranko, standing in front of the stage that had been erected in the street for the block party where Phoenix Rising was released. Another portrayed Ranko on stage in the Budokan in a scintillating silver gown. From the sliver of the video screen visible behind the stage, Akane could tell that it was taken during the performance of Self-Rescuing Princess for the kickoff of the Wildfire Tour. Another framed photo showed Ranko standing in a canoe in a white flowing dress, singing to a man in a dark cloak and half of an opera mask.
Moving deeper into the room, Akane scanned the other glass cabinets. Here, there was a tee shirt displaying the dates and cities that made up the Wildfire Tour, with a frame standing to its left containing two ticket stubs to the kickoff show at the Budokan on March 21st, 1992. There, a cassette tape, still in its shrink wrap, labeled as a limited edition preview copy of the Rise single, and next to it, a frame mounted to the back wall of the cabinet displayed a page torn from a spiral notebook in Ranko's handwriting. Though the whole thing was covered with scribbles, arrows and crossouts, the bold English word RISE at the top was clearly visible. In one large, freestanding cabinet, a mannequin wore a metallic silver minidress and matching boots - the fireproof outfit Ranko had performed Once Upon a Rhyme in on national television after burning the outer dress off of her body.
In a cabinet given pride of place in the center of the back wall, four orange plaques announced Ranko and the Dapper Dragons as winners of their respective Japan Record Awards. Other, smaller plaques and trophies commemorating such accomplishments as a week in the top spot for radio plays for Rise, or for the number of copies of Wild Orchid sold, surrounded them.
"Mom, it's…" Akane's jaw fell further slack with each new cabinet she expected. "It's incredible. How did you even get all this stuff without anybody knowing?"
Hana chuckled. "Your old mom's not without a few tricks of her own. Some of it, I managed to scrabble together from Nabiki, Natsuko, or the guys in the band. Some of it was already here, and some of it was in Izzi's apartment, to which my co-conspirator happens to have a key." She smirked, putting an appreciative arm around Kaito's back. "And, there's a few empty cabinets in the back for anything you girls have at your place and want to add. Plus, ya know, new memories to be made."
Izumi shook her head, laughing quietly to herself. "You actually… I mean, Mama, there's such a thing as pride in your girls, but… you built her an honest-to-goodness fucking shrine."
Hana beamed, putting her arm over Akane's shoulder and gazing down with her at an old Polaroid photo of Ranko's first-ever stage performance, on her eighteenth birthday. "You're damned right I'm proud of her. But not just her. I'm proud of all of you. This place is going to be incredible, and it's because of each and every one of you. Ranko's may be the headliner, but this place could never work without Mei's work organizing the music, or Yui's drinks, or Ayako's recipes, or Izzi's incredible costumes. It couldn't work without Akane putting the place on her back and running drinks, or Sakura keeping the bills paid on time, or Kaito fixing the things that break. It takes all of you."
"You forgot one of the most important things," Yui said, approaching her mother and hugging her from behind. "It couldn't have worked without your love, either. None of us would even be here without it."
"Hear, hear!" Ayako shouted, clapping loudly for her mother. In moments, her siblings all joined in,
"So…" Hana said, giving Akane a little nudge in the ribs with her elbow. "Whaddya think?"
Akane smiled down at a framed still from the Sneak music video. Ranko was wearing a pink babydoll nightie, being chased across a king-sized bed by Akane in her Aki guise. "It's beautiful, Mom. It's just beautiful."
And she's gonna absolutely hate it.