Chapter 199: This Day Couldn't Get Worse
"Dude, back off!" Ranko growled at the black-haired upperclassman, pulling her school bag free of his grasp and clutching it against the red pinafore of her school uniform. "I told you, I'm not looking for a boyfriend!" She rocked backward as the sea of students changing classes buffeted her on either side as they pushed onward through the corridor. Her voice echoed in the long hallway, even over the din of hundreds of her schoolmates traversing between fourth and fifth period.
"Still too broken up over Eiji and Saburo, huh? I give it a week, tops. Girls like you don't really mind changing guys like you change your socks." The short, slightly chubby boy turned his face away, scoffing at her with a dismissive wave of his hand. He smelled slightly of body odor and processed sugar.
"If I'm so gross, how come you want me so bad, Hajime?!" The cheerleader's glare could have melted steel.
The boy looked back over his left shoulder with an expression that was somewhere between desire and pity, adjusting the weight of his yellow backpack on his right shoulder. "I said you were easy, not that you're unfuckable."
"Alright, that's it! I've had about enough of you jerks!" Ranko glowered, setting her feet as if preparing for a charge, but she felt a hand come to rest gently on her shoulder.
"Ran-chan, he's not worth it. C'mon, you're gonna be late for science. Again."
Nodding, Ranko shouldered the strap of her satchel, relaxing her stance in response to her friend's soothing voice. "You're right, Kumi. Let's go." Shaking her head, her twin pigtails bouncing on her shoulders, she turned her back on Hajime and began walking alongside her friend in the direction of Mr. Iwato's classroom.
"I just don't get it, Kumi! You'd think after word got around what I did to Saburo, they'd stop, but it's like it just keeps getting worse. Why can't I get it through their heads that I don't want to date these assholes?" From her time before the Phoenix, she knew what it felt like to feel unwanted, but being wanted in the wrong ways, by the wrong people, sometimes felt even more shameful and disgusting.
Ranko rubbed her sternum gently with her palm. She constantly had her hand there these days. To Kumiko and everyone else, it appeared as if she was dealing with a bad case of heartburn. In reality, Ranko just needed to feel the diamond of her engagement ring dig ever so slightly into her skin from the necklace where it hung between her breasts. It had become an almost autonomic response when she felt stressed or upset to look for her ring. It brought her peace, as thoughts of Akane nearly always did.
Now that she wore her promise ring on her right hand, she could do so openly and everyone at school thought it was, as she'd told them, just because she liked the ring they all thought Eiji had given her. Her diamond, however, remained concealed on the silver flower chain Akane had given her after Valentine's Day. She wasn't about to make the mistake of letting her schoolmates see an engagement ring and make assumptions again.
Ranko's friend shrugged with a smirk. "Maybe they think you're just too cute to resist?"
"That's not funny, ya know." Ranko did manage a tiny chuckle, though. "Not wrong, but not funny." I've worked my ass off to get there, and I deserve to give myself credit for it.
"Do you work tonight? If not, you wanna hang?" Kumiko popped the bubble gum in her mouth as the pair dodged a girl in a marching band uniform who was running to her next class with a hard black plastic case that had to contain a tuba strapped to her back.
Ranko sighed. "I wish I could. I'm off, but I've got so much homework and chores and shit to do. I don't know why I'm bothering to study for Okuda's test; I don't have a prayer to pass it anyway, but I guess I'm gonna try." At least Akane would be at her classes most of the night; Ranko was in a fairly foul mood and could really use a little alone time, especially since one of their favorite pastimes was off the table for the next few days due to the frustrating complications of being a girl.
As much as she loved Akane, the all-wedding, all-the-time thing was really starting to overwhelm her. She was still barely used to being a girl, and all the flowers and cakes and everything was just too much sometimes. She must have had a thousand pictures of hairstyles shoved in her face, and at least twice that many dresses, between Akane and Izumi. To make matters worse, Kasumi had come by for dinner earlier in the week, and now she was getting in on the "let's make a fairytale wedding" action, too. I might suck as a bride, but at least I impressed her with the furikake salmon I made, Ranko thought. She knew the day was coming when Kasumi and Izzi would combine forces on the wedding planning front, and she was not looking forward to it at all. Give those two an hour together, and I'll be the first girl in history to drown in taffeta.
She'd tried earlier in the morning to get a start on writing a song for the wedding as she promised, but had really struggled with it. It wasn't that she didn't have enough to say, it was that there was too much. Her head just got flooded with it, and what came out on the page was an incoherent, sappy mess. She'd thrown four or five drafts away, and felt no closer to anything usable.
Mrs. Tanaka, her English teacher, had thus far been so helpful in polishing her lyrics, though the early draft of Not Yours, Don't Touch had certainly made for an awkward conversation. She dared not even ask her to look at one of the other songs she was working on, as Ranko wasn't even entirely sure that even Akane would approve of it without blushing. I need to remember to thank her in the album notes, Ranko noted to herself. But, she hadn't been as helpful as coming up with ideas from scratch, just in finding good rhymes and helping with pronunciation, so she wasn't really in a position to help just yet. Besides, I'm still pissed at her, Ranko thought to herself. How are you gonna make us write a term paper on a famous writer in English, and say Madonna doesn't count? You don't see Hemingway selling out stadiums, do ya?
Between the wedding stress, the constant parade of jerks in the halls, the English term paper and the mediocre grade she'd received on her history term paper, it just hadn't been Ranko's day. At least she had Kumiko, though. Of all the crap she had to suffer as a result of the Eiji debacle, the months spent without her friend had been the worst of it.
"Yeah, that sucks, Ran-chan." Kumiko sighed as she spoke, pulling Ranko's focus back into the present. "And I'd invite you over to my place, but you said you're allergic to my cat."
Ranko nodded, her face flushing as the pair approached the door to Mr. Iwato's second-floor science classroom. "Yeah, me and cats… not friends. Sorry. Nothing personal."
Smiling, Kumiko squeezed her friend around her shoulders. "Just keep your chin up, okay?"
"I'll try. It's not like my day is gonna get much worse."
~~~
Ranko sighed, dropping her school bag on the floor in the corner of her dining room, kicking off her black shoes. Before she could start studying for her geometry test, she'd need to start dinner, get at least one load of laundry going, and knock out at least a couple pages of reading for her book report in Japanese class.
At least she'd have the place to herself for a few hours, as Tuesdays were Akane's late economics class and she wouldn't be home until at least seven o'clock. As much as she loved Akane, when she really needed to focus and stay motivated, she often preferred to do it alone. Spending time with the love of her life was too tempting of a procrastination method when it was readily available.
The redhead pulled the long, thin silver chain she wore around her neck from under her pinafore, unclasping it and slipping her diamond engagement ring free of it. She sighed in relief as she returned the engraved band to its rightful place on her left hand, letting it bring her the first smile she'd worn in hours. There. Now I feel whole again. She turned to head to the bedroom to change clothes, as her Yusue school uniform needed to go into the laundry as well. However, as she reached for the bedroom doorknob, it was pulled away from her as the door opened from inside.
Ranko gasped in surprise. "What the?!" She jumped back instinctively and was halfway into a defensive kempo stance when she recognized her fiancee in the doorway in a green blouse over blue jeans. "Akane, what are you doing here?! You're supposed to be in class, silly girl! Did you oversleep?"
Akane looked down sadly, shaking her head.
"Sit down, baby. We need to talk."
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