"Just pick up the pen, and start again; this time, you write the story! You have always been your heroine; no damsel in distress…"
Akane sighed, leaning on the service bar counter with a quiet groan. Even by Saturday standards, the Phoenix was packed, and she hadn't had a break in hours. For as tired as she felt, though, she could only imagine how beat Ranko must have been, four hours into her performance after another grueling cheerleading practice. I swear, that coach of hers is out to kill her, she thought with pity in her eyes.
"You okay there, Akane?" Mei leaned over the wooden bar counter in a kelly green hoodie, resting her hand on her sister's shoulder. "Need a minute?"
Shrugging, Akane slumped over the table. "Wouldn't matter if I did; I can't afford to take one. I'm six orders deep, and there's no sign of it letting up. Only reason it's not worse is Ranko doing back-to-back sets and keeping them occupied, and she's dragging ass, too. You can tell; she's barely even dancing up there. How are you holding up in the kitchen?"
"You are a non-compliant, strong, defiant, self-rescuing princess!" came Ranko's final declaration from the stage.
Mei rolled her eyes, exhaling heavily as she looked over her stack of yellow order slips. "Not too bad, I guess. Four pizzas, a couple baskets of chicken and some popcorn shrimp. I should be able to catch up in a few minutes," she proclaimed at a shout over the crowd's raucous cheers for her sister's song.
The young server nodded in acknowledgement. "That's good. We're way behind on drinks, though. Izzi had to run home to help Kaito with Mioko, so we've just got Yui."
"Awww, no. Poor thing still sick?" Mei frowned, her shoulders drooping.
Akane nodded again. "Running almost a thirty-eight degree fever. Hopefully Izzi will be able to get her to sleep, and she said she'd come back if she could. We called Aya, but we got her machine. I think she had plans with Kage tonight. And as for Yui…" Akane glanced over at the main bar, where Yui was trying to serve drinks with one hand while holding the bar's cordless telephone to her ear with her left shoulder. "I don't know what the hell she's doing over there."
Mei shrugged. "Who knows? Boss lady's gonna do what boss lady's gonna do. We're not gonna be able to keep this pace up, though. We're definitely gonna have to hire somebody else soon."
"You bet your ass we are!" Yui whooped loudly behind the main bar, pressing the green button on the telephone receiver to end the call. She darted over to her sisters, throwing her arms around both of them in jubilation. "That was Sakura! She just got the letter - the loan went through!"
"You mean…" Akane covered her gaping mouth with her hand.
Yui grabbed a bottle of beer from the well, slamming it against the edge of the wood countertop to remove its cap and holding it up over her head. Cold water from the ice dripped down her arm, but she ignored the chill trickling its way to her elbow. "Damn straight I do! CLUB FIREBIRD IS FUCKING HAPPENING!"
Akane cheered alongside Mei, but her face took on an air of concern as Yui raised the bottle to her lips. "Hey, Yui… sis, should you be… ya know, doing that? Drinking, and all?"
The blonde bobbed her head, making a little squeak of acknowledgement around the neck of the brown glass bottle. "It's okay. Me and Sake have done a couple of trial runs at home, where she could keep an eye on me, and I've been able to limit it to just one at a time. So, as long as I'm careful, I think it'll be alright. Amazing what happens when you're not depressed as shit all the time. Thanks for looking out, Akane, really - but tonight, I don't give a shit; we're gonna celebrate!"
A masculine voice called from Akane's right, closer to the main bar. It drew the attention of all three of the sisters behind the service bar. "Hold on, now! What are we celebrating?"
Akane looked up to the newcomer, shaking her head in surprise. "Sho! Hi! I didn't expect to see you here tonight!" She tipped the soda glass Mei had just handed her in the direction of Yui. "You're looking at the proud owner of the empty building next door, and over the next few months, we're gonna build out a whole-ass nightclub over there! Can you believe it?!"
"Owners, plural," Yui insisted. "Just like the main bar, we're all doing this together." She reached out, clinking her beer bottle against Akane's soda glass.
Sho laughed, reaching out and wrapping Akane in a hug. "That's fantastic! I'm so happy for you girls! When do you start construction?"
Yui grinned broadly, wiping her lips on the sleeve of her yellow satin blouse. "As soon as the check clears. Maybe sooner, considering our sister's married to the general contractor and he knows we're good for it."
As she spoke, another member of the haphazard Phoenix clan approached, pushing her way slowly through the revelrous throng from the direction of the stage. Mei shuddered at the icy glare in Ranko's eyes as she watched Sho disengage from the hug with Akane. Mei declined to mention her sister's obvious displeasure, pouring a pilsner glass of soda and handing it across the bar. "Here, sis. You've gotta be parched. You've been up there for over two hours straight."
"What's going on?" Ranko's eyes darted from Akane, to Yui, to Mei, and back again as she sipped from her drink. She wore a sparkly red A-line dress and a pair of patent red heels, her hair braided in her once-signature ponytail with a white bow tied around its tip. A wide white vinyl belt circumnavigated her waist, its clasp shaped like a small bow situated just over her left hip. She did not afford Sho the respect of eye contact. The exhausted redhead leaned against the wall dividing the service bar from the back third of the room, setting her half-empty soda glass on the bar counter.
Akane walked the two steps over to her wife, pulling her into an excited hug. "Yui and Sakura's loan came through for the building! We're celebrating!"
"You sure are," Ranko said, a dark, annoyed glaze in her eyes as she peered at Sho over her lover's shoulder. "That's great, Yui. Really!"
Sho cringed a bit, rolling his eyes slightly. "I… think I'd better go." He drained the rest of his craft beer into his mouth, leaving the empty glass on the service bar counter. "Ladies."
"Wait, Sho! You just got here! You should hang out," Akane pleaded. "Stay, please? We'd love to have you!"
Oh, sure we would, Akane, Ranko thought, not taking her piercing blue eyes off the man in the form-fitting black athletic tee shirt and gray slacks. Absolutely fucking overjoyed right here, watching him hanging all over you in my fucking house.
The young man chuckled nervously, raising his open hands in an attempt to appear non-threatening. "No, I think I'm good. I just remembered, I have… some homework to do. I really am happy for you girls. Akane, I'll see you in class on Monday?"
"You bet!" Akane waved to her friend with a smile, turning back to Ranko as Sho began pushing his way toward the front door. "Well, that was weird."
Ranko shrugged nonchalantly. "His loss. Probably gonna do Demon again when we get back up there, and the place always goes nuts for that."
Akane put her hands on the hips of her tight blue jeans, an aggravated expression forming on her face. "You ran him off, didn't you?! Gods, Ranko, what is your problem with him?!"
"I didn't say nothin'," Ranko said, slumping her shoulders. "I just don't like him hanging all over you, that's all. Gives me the creeps." The redhead reached behind herself for her soda glass, eyeing it nervously just before it reached her lips. She handed it over the counter to Mei. "Hey, sis, would you mind dumping this out and pouring a new one, please?"
"...Sure?" Mei gave her sister a curious look as she rinsed out the glass, filling it with fresh ice and soda. What's that all about?
Akane growled gutturally, rolling her eyes to the ceiling in exasperation. "Honestly! When are you going to figure out that I'm not going to…" She lowered her volume, realizing at the last moment how loudly her voice was carrying. "I'm not going to fucking leave you for him."
The songstress sighed, clapping her hands to her sides. "I know that." At least, I hope I do. "You know that. The problem is, I'm not entirely sure he knows that."
"Oh, he knows. But, if it ever came to that, I'd tell him again, ya big dummy," Akane said, shaking her head. "I like girls." I'd show you again and remind you, but you won't let me touch you, the raven-haired woman fretted. And you won't even friggin' tell me why. What did I do wrong? Why are you so standoffish about everything?
Yui crossed the gap between the main and service bars, placing two Dragonfire cocktails and a pair of long-necked brown beer bottles on the counter. "Akane, here. This is table twelve." She glanced up at Ranko as she spoke.
Akane nodded, scooping the drinks up onto a cork board tray. "Thanks, Yui. They were getting kinda restless waiting on these. Be right back." She darted off in the direction of the far corner of the bar room, her yellow tunic shirt whipping around her waist like a skirt as she did. Wish I could pull off the roller skates in here like I did last Halloween last year more often. My legs are killing me, she thought as she made her way to the far six-top table.
Spying a wave from Crash on the stage, Ranko downed half of her soda in one long draught. "Duty calls, I guess," she said with a groan.
"'Ey, Ranko? C'mere a sec," Yui said, motioning her youngest sister closer from behind the bar.
"I gotta get back up there, Yui," Ranko replied, finishing her soda and leaving the glass on the service bar. "They're waiting for me."
Yui shook her head, the tips of her blonde bob tickling her shoulders through the open neckline of her tan satin blouse. "They can wait a minute. C'mon, kiddo." She reached behind her, holding the slatted blue saloon door leading into the back rooms open for her sister.
The redhead followed her into the narrow hallway, her heels echoing with ominously loud clacks on the white linoleum floor as Yui led her into the office that now bore her wife's name on the door. The room was much cleaner and more organized since Sakura had taken it over, and every corner was bursting with live potted plants. The red and orange phoenix painting Ranko had bought her mother peered down at her watchfully from behind the desk as she entered the room, taking a seat on the tattered leather couch. As much as the room had been chaos before, Ranko missed it. It was Mom's way. Everything was a disaster, but she knew just how to navigate it. That's just who she is.
"What's going on, Yui?" she asked with no small measure of nervousness in her voice.
"Alright," the bar's new proprietress began, sitting on the corner of Sakura's desk. "I've had about enough of this. I wanna know what's going on in that head of yours, and I wanna know now."
Ranko swallowed hard, seeming to shrink in stature on the couch under her much taller sister's gaze. "I've just… got a lotta shit going on, okay? It's nothing I wanna talk about. Not yet, anyway. I'm just trying to figure some stuff out."
The blonde sighed, crossing her arms over her ample chest. "I get that, but you do know you've got a whole lot of people around here who could help you figure it out, if you'd let us in, right? We always go round and round on this crap with you. You keep your mouth shut until the shit hits the fan, and then everything blows over once you actually open up. We're worried about you. All of us, especially Akane. So how about we skip the drama and go right to the part where you start talking, just this once?"
"You wouldn't understand, Yui," Ranko replied, her eyes falling to her folded hands in her lap. You've all been girls your whole life. And unless you've been holding out on your own stories, the closest any of you ever came to what happened to me was with Mei, and I beat the son of a bitch half to death in the alley, she recalled darkly. She visibly shuddered at the memory. Get out of my head, Mikado. That's the last fucking thing I need right now.
"I just don't like that guy, that's all. He's too handsy, and too close with Akane." Let's focus on that, Ranko thought, and not the other thing.
Yui groaned, rolling her eyes. "First of all, Sho's a decent dude. He didn't try anything either time you were gone for weeks at a time, and if he had, Akane would have wiped the floor with him. That girl's a Rankosexual. She only has eyes for you. I would hope you know that by now." She slid her backside carefully off of the desk in her black pencil skirt, walking around Ranko's legs and sitting on the couch next to her sister. "But," she said as she draped her arm over the redhead's shoulders, "you and I both know that's not the only thing bothering you, so stop deflecting and talk to me."
Ranko sighed, leaning to her left and resting her head on Yui's chest as her sister held her. "It's not that I don't want to talk about it, Yui. I'm just… not ready. I don't know what I feel. I'm just… I'm kind of a mess right now, and I need a little more time to make sense of everything. That's all. I'm gonna be okay. I just don't know when."
The blonde nodded, lowering her head and kissing her little sister through her hairspray-coated coif. "Fair enough, but if this crap continues too much longer, with you being all mopey and distant and grumpy and shit, I'm going to break out the nuclear option. You need to talk to somebody, kiddo. One of us, your therapist guy, Akane, or somebody."
"Please don't," Ranko pleaded, sitting up to look earnestly at her sister. "That's not fair."
Yui shrugged. "Ask me if I care." She reached out, poking her sister gently on the nose with her index finger. "So, it's your choice. You can figure this out, or you can let us in so we can help you." The bartender stood from the couch, turning on her heel to face her youngest sister.
"But if you don't get out of this funk, and soon, I'm calling Mama."