Sho and Ashi leaned against the brick wall, holding hands. The couple was on their third date, though they were out with a group of friends. Ashi had dressed up for the occasion, draped in a smoldering orange minidress and matching stilettos. Sho had not, content with a gray turtleneck and a pair of black jeans.
Behind them, the rest of their collegiate classmates tittered excitedly. Haite and Chui giggled, planning what they would sing if they got a chance to use the karaoke machine. They were dressed in matching seifuku despite the December chill, hoping to look like a popular idol group onstage. Keiichi sipped surreptitiously from the aluminum flask he'd hidden in the pocket of his khakis, not willing to wait until six o'clock for his buzz to begin.
It was certainly an unusual experience for the group to see a line some three hundred people deep in front of their usual Wednesday hangout, given that it was just a run-down dive bar in a less-than-great neighborhood by the harbor. But that night wasn't just any Wednesday night. The night before, the bar's singing sensation of a waitress had announced that the following day, she'd resume performing at full speed - just a week after some thug had beat the crap out of her in the bar and gotten himself arrested. Word had spread, and all of the regulars - and quite a few people who were not - wanted to see her back in action.
Ume groaned, tapping her foot on the pavement in boredom as she leaned on the brick wall. "You guys, do we really have to stand here and wait for this? I mean, it's karaoke. There's like forty other places around here for that, and most of 'em have private rooms."
Satoshi shook his head in frustration with his disaffected date. "That's not the point, babe. We're here to see her sing."
Ume popped her chewing gum in her mouth to punctuate her disapproval. "What's the big deal with this waitress, anyway? She can't be that great, if she's still slinging beer. Do you even know her fuckin' name?"
Satoshi scoffed, rolling his eyes with a slight shake of his head. "Of course I do! It's Ranko Tendo."
Ume gave a thoughtful "huh," rubbing her chin contemplatively. She turned to the tallish brunette in line behind her. "Tendo. Nabiki, isn't that your name?"
* * *
Ranko paced nervously. She felt like she was waiting for her opponent to show up for a big fight. Not sure I'd have dressed like this to throw down with Ryoga, though. Idiot probably wouldn't even recognize me right now in all this getup. He'd probably think I was his long-lost sister or something. Friggin' moron.
With a slam from the saloon door, Mei emerged from the back room in a knee-length denim skirt and a black sweater featuring a blocky alien from Space Invaders in white. "Holy crap, Ranko! I went out on the roof to look, and… there's gotta be four hundred people waiting out there! Maybe more!" She grinned proudly at the redhead, who still stalked back and forth across the stained hardwood floor. "We should start selling tickets!"
Ranko blushed. "We're selling twice as many drinks as we used'ta already." She wore a form-fitting mauve sweater dress with a large red heart embroidered on the front. Determined to prove to Yui that her balance was fully restored, she'd opted to brave a pair of sleek black ankle boots with six-centimeter heels. The distinctive clack they made on the floor echoed through the empty room like a ticking clock as she paced.
Izumi smiled back at her sisters from the double doors, leaning against the brass handles in an ivory long-sleeved dress with white fur lining the sleeves, neckline and knee-length hem. "Alright, girls. Is everybody ready for me to unleash the hounds?"
Ranko took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, putting on a bright stage smile. "I think so."
Yui and Mei nodded their assent, and Izumi unlocked the door and stepped out into the cold. "Hey everybody! Who's ready for a show?"
A roar erupted from the assembled revelers. "Let us in already! It's freezing out here!" one guy yelled from near the back of the line.
Izumi smiled, stepping out of the doorway and holding the door open. "Let's go, then!" The group began streaming into the establishment, and Izumi struggled to keep count with her small silver baseball pitch counter as they did.
In short order, the bar had filled to capacity, with Izumi having to turn the last fifty or so people away due to the fire marshall's maximum occupancy rules. Most opted to stay in the line until someone else left. Izumi slipped back into the building, where Mei and Hana were working to get people sorted into booths and the handful of tables near the front of the establishment that hadn't been removed for the evening to create more room for standing patrons.
The bar was lined four deep all the way around, and Yui was working frantically to fill drink orders. Knowing Mei and her mother would not be submitting orders from the tables for a few moments yet, Izumi slid behind the main bar alongside her sister and began plowing through an order for four Dragonfires to lend a hand. Somewhere at the back, beyond Izumi's sight in the sea of revelers, Ranko was also trying to direct traffic, though it was proving largely ineffective - a crowd of well-wishers tended to form around her wherever she stood. Mei saw a large group of eight college-aged patrons enter together, directing them to the largest booth in the front corner. It was furthest from the stage, but with that many people, Ranko wouldn't have time to serve them all effectively, so Izumi felt that it was best to seat them in her section.
It took nearly a half an hour to get most of the bar served and settled. No announcement was made over the bar's emcee microphone, but as soon as the house lights dropped, the crowd roared in excitement. Ranko put down her serving tray and bounded up to the stage, smiling brightly and waving to the crowd. She'd donned a pair of pink-rimmed sunglasses; they were a recent addition to her wardrobe Izumi had bought her to help during her light-sensitive performances, but she kind of liked them.
The bass brought the crowd to its feet, and she moved effortlessly across the tiny stage, mimicking the movements of Seiko Matsuda as she performed a rendition of Tenshi no Wink. She spared no effort to deliver a high-energy performance despite the song's slow beginning; after a week under wraps, she was eager to prove to the crowd - and to her coworkers - that she was back at full strength.
The whole place shook with applause when the song ended, and Ranko gave the crowd a deep bow and an excited wave before hopping down from the stage and reclaiming her serving tray from atop the karaoke station. Working the back half of the bar closest to the stage, she buzzed around to check on her tables, posing for the odd Polaroid photo as she collected a new round of orders and stacked empty glasses on her tray.
"Hey, Ranko! Will you sign something for me?" A stocky man in his early twenties in a purple tee shirt waved to her, a hopeful expression in his eyes as she returned from the bar to hand him his bloody Mary.
Ranko blushed; she wondered if it would ever feel normal to be asked such a thing, but she strongly doubted it. "Sure, whatcha got?" She reached into the pocket black nylon half-apron she wore over her sweater dress, pulling out a fine black marker.
The patron turned in his seat and leaned down toward the table. "Just, somewhere on the back of my shoulder there?"
The young singer blinked, giving her guest a skeptical look. He wants me to… write… on him? That's so fucking weird. She uncapped the marker, cautiously approaching. As she tentatively touched the marker to his back, his shirt slid under it.
"It's okay to lean on me, you know. You're pretty small; I think I can take it," the man said with a grin.
Ew. Eww eww eww, Ranko thought as she held his shirt still with the barest pinch of two fingers, crinkling her nose long enough to write the five romaji characters of her name. She really did like how her name looked that way, especially because it was more visually distinct from her old signature in kanji or hiragana when she still called herself Ranma. "There you go!"
The muscular fan beamed proudly as Ranko capped her marker. "Thanks! I'll never wash this shirt again!"
Have you ever washed it before? Ranko thought as she walked away, her customer service smile fading as soon as she was out of his view. Gods, the smell. As someone who spent most of her life as a guy, I think I've earned the right to say it: dudes are fucking gross sometimes.
As she passed the Pac-Man machine in the entertainment section of the bar, she noticed a spiral of orange peel on the floor under the pool table. She carefully balanced her tray of empty glasses on the corner of the purple-felted table, leaning down to pick up the discarded garnish, lifting her left leg gracefully for counterbalance as she dipped down.
While she was bent low enough for her ponytail to be dragging the hardwood floor, she caught motion out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head, seeing her tray and the stack of glasses it carried falling toward the floor. Reflexively, she lunged forward with the incredible speed only a master martial artist could muster, catching each glass and restoring it to the tray before it hit the ground. Whew, that was close. As she started to rise to a standing position, she heard someone clear her throat behind her and a familiar female voice spoke.
"Busted. Hello, Ranma."
Ranko froze. No. This can't be happening. Not here. Not now. She turned her head tentatively, hiding her face behind her hand. Please be wrong please be wrong please be wrong… She was not. "Uh, Hey, Nabiki. Wha... what brings you here?" She instinctively tried to cover her dress with her other hand, not that it did much good.
Nabiki scoffed in irritation, putting her hands on her hips. "I am a college freshman. I'm supposed to be hanging out in bars. But you? Where the hell have you been all these months?! We've all been worried sick about you!"
Ranko cringed, waving toward the floor with her hands. "Please, keep your voice down."
Nabiki rested her fists on the hips of her skinny jeans, a judgmental glare in her eyes. "What's the matter, Ranko? Afraid everyone will find out you've been lying to them all this time?!"
Ranko's eyes flashed with irritation. "I'm not lying!"
Nabiki nodded, pursing her lips. "So everyone here knows you're really a boy, then?"
Ranko looked down at her hands in shame. It had been days since she'd even thought about her old life. She said something, in the most timid, quiet voice imaginable, easily drowned out by the two drunken harbor workers' karaoke performance on the stage.
"What's that? I couldn't hear you!" Nabiki growled, stepping closer to her sister's erstwhile betrothed.
Ranko gritted her teeth. Even though she'd accepted it nearly two weeks ago, she'd never really had to say it out loud before. "I said, I'm not a boy. Not anymore."
Mei walked toward the pair, her own serving tray in hand. "Ran-chan? Who's…"
The redhead cut her off. "Uh, yes ma'am, the bathroom is right around the corner there to your left. Thank you." Once Mei had passed on her way back toward the front of the bar, Ranko took Nabiki by the wrist. "Come on. We can't talk here."
Nabiki glowered. "Hey! Let me go!"
Ranko pulled her through the side door by the pool table into the back, dragging her through the kitchen, and pushed her toward the stairs. "Go on."
Nabiki opened the door into Ranko's bedroom. The unmade bed, with its lavender duvet cover, was half-covered with dresses, outfits Izumi had brought for Ranko to choose from that had ultimately been rejected. A laundry hamper in the corner overflowed with several more dresses, and the little dinette table off to the left was half-covered with Izumi's makeup supplies and a small pile of hair accessories.
Ranko closed the door behind herself, leaning on it as if to keep the world out for a few more minutes.
As soon as the door latched, Nabiki turned on the redhead, pointing a finger in her face. "Honestly, Ranma, where do you get off doing this?! Just walking out on us in the middle of the night like that? You could have been dead under a bridge for all we knew, and you're here, in some bar in Minato, slinging shots in a dress and high heels? What the hell are you thinking?"
"Please, Nabiki, sit down?" Ranko offered Nabiki one of the white pine dinette chairs before sitting on the side of the bed facing it, shoving a frilly orange dress out of the way. The brunette complied, after some additional coaxing.
Ranko sighed, staring down at her hands. She'd been dreading this conversation for some time, but she'd honestly hoped it would never come. "Look. I don't expect you to understand. But, look at me. This is what I am now, and it's not gonna change. I didn't ask for this, but it happened, and I had to make peace with it somehow. But I couldn't do that with everybody at your house wondering when or if some Chinese fairy dust was gonna show up and make it so I could be… what I was, and marry Akane. She deserved better than waiting for me forever, and having to explain to everybody why she was engaged to a freakin' girl. She deserved more than the parade of whacko guys and crazy girls showin' up and wreckin' your house every three days 'cause of me."
She just… deserved better than me.
"And don't you think she deserved to make that choice for herself?!" Nabiki's seething fury boiled in her eyes as she rocked in her chair, as if trying to restrain herself from launching out of it again.
Ranko nodded, a deep sorrow in her distant gaze. "You're probably right. But you know she never would've given up. Akane's too damned stubborn for that."
"So were you, once." Nabiki shook her head.
"I was a lot of things, once." Ranko sighed, curling her legs under her and hugging her knees while leaving her heeled boots dangling off the edge of the bed. "How is she?"
Nabiki groaned, rolling her eyes. "Not like you care, but she's been a freakin' mess since you left."
The younger girl nodded, hanging her head sadly. "I gave it a week after I left before Ryoga made his move."
Nabiki nodded, scoffing a bit under her breath and crossing her arms over her chest. "Oh, he did. He finally managed to find his balls and told Akane how he felt about her. He told her he'd do absolutely anything to make her happy."
Ranko laughed, but there was a bit of dark glumness in it. "Typical Hibiki, with all that blustery chivalry. So what did she ask for?"
Nabiki stood, stomping her foot on the floor as she leaned over the seated girl that had once been her sister's boyfriend. "It's not funny, Ranma! You want to know what she asked Ryoga for? Alright, I'll tell you! She asked him to find you!"
"Oh, that's not fair to him. He'll be looking for forty years just trying to find a freakin' payphone." Ranko knew her onetime frenemy would do exactly as Akane had asked, and he'd never stop looking for her. Even with all the pity she felt for him, though, she felt more worried about the day that, by some miracle, he did stumble onto her.
"Of course it's not fair! But you obviously didn't care about what was fair for anybody except yourself when you skipped town to do… whatever the hell this is. How could you do this?!" Nabiki paced around the small room, fury in her eyes. "How could you not at least send us a letter to let us know you were all right? How could you not think we'd worry about you?! Honestly, what the hell is the matter with you, Ranma?"
She was surprised to see that Ranko did not retaliate. Instead, the redhead shrank under Nabiki's tirade. Ranko squeezed her knees tighter, burying her head in them as if to hide from the sound of Nabiki's voice.
The brunette shuddered slightly, stepping closer with surprise and a little worry in her eyes. What the… this isn't right. Nabiki's voice softened, taking on a slight note of concern. "Ranma?"
A mousey voice trickled out from behind Ranko's clenched thighs. "Please don't call me that."
Nabiki rolled her eyes toward the ceiling, shaking her head in irritation. "Why the heck wouldn't I? Whatever game you're playing here, that's your name."
Ranko unburied her head from her knees, a soft but steady stream of tears running down her cheeks. "Not anymore, Nabiki. Don't you get it? Ranma Saotome is dead. He's dead! That Amazon witch killed him. I'm all that's left. And you and Akane and Pop and everybody kept standing around waiting for me to shrug everything off and step back into a life that wasn't mine anymore, and I just couldn't do it. I'm sorry I did what I did, okay?! I am. It was selfish and stupid, I know, and believe me, I've paid for it. I don't expect you to understand."
Wait, is she… crying? Ranma would never have let me, or anyone, see him cry. He's way too macho for that. What the hell is even happening right now? Nabiki covered her gaping mouth with her hand, listening to the young woman's declaration.
"But I'm not sorry for where I ended up," Ranko continued, a measure of confidence returning to her voice. "These people treat me with love and respect. They don't know anything about Jusenkyo or nothin', and so, in their eyes, I can be a girl - be a woman - and not be seen as something less than I used to be. Like there's something wrong with me, and everybody's gotta walk around feeling sorry for me and looking at me like I got four heads.
"Is that what I would have asked for? Of course not. But it's the best I'm going to get, and for the first time in my life, I'm trying to make the best of it for me - not what Pop and your dad and every girl in Nerima has all planned out for me, but what I want for myself. If I couldn't have my old life anymore, I had to decide that I deserved a chance to try to make a new one that I could actually live with and not be ashamed of all the time. And you know what? I'm doing so much better than that. I can't believe it, I swear. I thought I'd be miserable every second of my existence if I had to live this way, but I had no choice but to give myself a chance. And, I did, and… here I sit, in a dress and heels, wearing makeup, and somehow, I'm actually happy, for the first time I can remember."
She looked up, making eye contact with the brown-haired specter of the past she'd almost managed to bury. "You have the power to go downstairs right now, say just a couple of words to the girls behind the bar, and destroy all of that for me. I'm begging you not to. Please, Nabiki."
Ranko flinched as a loud knock came at the door, followed by a voice. "Oi, Ranko! You okay, little sister? Mei's got your next song queued up whenever you're ready."
Nabiki blinked, looking at the door with a skeptical air about her. Sister?! What the hell kind of bar is this?!
Ranko sniffled her nose and wiped her puffy eyes. "I'm okay, Yui. I'll be right down." She looked up at Nabiki, and all she could add was another desperate, nearly-silent "please?"
Nabiki wanted to be furious with Ranma. She wanted to beat his head in with a frying pan for what he had done to her sister. For the months of worry. For all the nights she and Kasumi had spent holding Akane while she cried. Ranma Saotome absolutely, positively deserved to be clobbered into next week. But this… girl? Nabiki didn't know who the person crying on the edge of that mattress full of dresses was, but she was not recognizable as Ranma in any discernible way beyond physical appearance. The brash, egotistical, uncaring jerk she'd come up that narrow flight of stairs intending to berate was nowhere to be found, and in his place was a fragile, terrified, remorseful, and beautiful young woman.
Nabiki sighed with exasperation and defeat, slumping her shoulders and throwing her hands up. "Come here." She walked to the dinette table, scooping up her small black purse.
"Why?! What are you going to do?" Ranko looked up at her, fear in her eyes.
I can't fucking believe I'm going along with this. Nabiki sighed heavily again as she popped open the little clasp on her purse. "With all this crying, you went and fucked up your makeup. You can't go out there looking like that."
Ranko blushed, trying again to dry her eyes. "Really?! T… thanks, Nabiki."
Nabiki began dabbing a soft pad on the smaller girl's cheeks, grumbling as the redhead wiggled under her touch. "Hold still, you! Sheesh, you're worse than Akane!" She chuckled quietly under her breath. "So, what exactly am I supposed to tell her when I get home?"
Ranko pulled back from the cotton makeup pad, looking up at Nabiki with a sincere expression and no small amount of fear in her eyes. "You can't tell her anything. She can't find out where I am. Nobody can. Please, Nabiki."
"Come on, Ranm…" Nabiki shook her head. I guess for the moment, I can play along, until I understand more about what the heck's happening here. "Sorry. But, Ranko, you know I can't keep this from her. Even I'm not that good of a liar. So give me something I can say."
Ranko sighed, hanging her head until Nabiki tilted her chin back up with her finger to resume working on her cosmetics. "Tell her I'm okay and I'm in a good place. Tell her I have people who care about me. And, Nabiki? Tell her I'm so sorry."