Capítulo 136: Movie Night
"Mm. This is the life, kiddo." Izumi leaned back on the sofa with a quiet purr as her husband massaged her feet from his seat on the floor. At just about eight months pregnant, they were sore all the time these days, but Kaito had been taking excellent care of her. It was such a welcome difference from her first pregnancy with Hoshi.
"I don't know. It feels kind of weird." Ranko sat in the center of Izumi's couch, sighing in exasperation. She opened her mouth to say something else, but Akane, in the far right seat, crammed a dumpling from the takeout container in her hand into it with a pair of chopsticks.
Izumi smirked. "Okay, clearly we missed an important subject in training." She would likely never know why Ranko was raised largely like a tomboy, but she well understood that most of what her youngest sister knew about behaving as a girl, she'd learned from Izumi and her sisters. "This is what we call pampering, and it's master-level girl stuff."
Shrugging, Ranko dropped her bandaged hands back into her lap, resting them atop the green denim skirt Akane had helped her dress in before they'd left the house. "Mostly, it just feels like being helpless." She could barely hear the television, but couldn't work the remote to turn up the volume. Too embarrassed to ask Akane to do it, she'd played it off by saying they should leave it quiet so as not to wake Hoshi in the next room.
Scoffing but smiling, Akane jammed another dumpling into her girlfriend's mouth. "Well, next time, let's learn from this experience and maybe take care of ourselves so we don't do a nose-dive into a pizza oven, and then you can work your own chopsticks, 'kay?"
Ranko nodded as she chewed. "Yeah, yeah. I know." She'd already contacted the homeschool agency and dropped all of her classes there as she'd promised Hana, but she was still pretty miserable about it. She felt like a failure, and on top of it, she couldn't even rebound and do something else successfully because her hands were still pretty much useless.
Kaito smirked up at Izumi, gesturing toward the center of the couch with his neck ever so slightly, an inquisitive look in his eyes. His wife smiled, giving him a little nod.
"One more day. That's it, and then I'm going back to work and school, no matter what. I'm not about to miss the party Wednesday nig… Umm, Kaito, what are you…"
Her sister's husband had scooted a half-meter to his right, and taken hold of Ranko's right ankle. There was a sudden, frigid, oily sensation on the bottom of her foot, followed by intense pressure, and…
"Ohmigods. What are you…"
Izumi grinned as her husband massaged the strawberry-scented lotion into the bottom of Ranko's right foot with his thumbs, and tittered a bit as the redhead seated to her left proceeded to melt into the couch cushion. She loved that Kaito was such a good and giving guy, and he really had built such a close bond with her sisters, too.
Akane shook her head, smiling a little deviously. She knew poor Ranko would be squirming to be sure, what with the Full-Body Cat's Tongue having to come to grips with both the chill of the lotion on her skin and the massage itself at once. Even though she knew Kaito had just created a monster and she would likely be on the hook for repeating this treatment, it did her good to see Ranko seem to be at peace for possibly the first time in months. She hated that it had taken second-degree burns and possibly getting fired by her mother to make it happen, though, and hoped Ranko would learn from this experience and take better care of herself. She picked up a piece of chicken with her chopsticks, pointing them in Ranko's direction. "You want?"
Ranko blushed furiously. It was one thing to be unable to take care of herself. It was entirely another to have a guy touching her, and in front of Akane no less. And entirely something else for it to feel fantastic. And being taken care of by both of them at the same time? She felt like one of those haughty Roman empresses with the servants with the grapes and the big fan. "No… I… I'm good…"
Not to be outdone by Ranko's people-pleaser brother-in-law, Akane deposited her chopsticks in the takeout container, setting it on the end table to her left and standing up. She walked around behind the couch, putting her hands on Ranko's shoulders under the neckline of her blue crushed velvet shirt and beginning to press against the largest of the knots in her muscles born from months of constant anxiety.
"I… um… okay." Ranko blushed furiously, letting her neck go limp in Akane's hands.
"I told you, little sister. It does not suck."
The younger girl could only make a high-pitched whine of assent in reply to Izumi's statement of fact.
Ranko lolled her head back against the couch, looking up into Akane's eyes. Silently, she mouthed I love you with a smile. She no longer cared in the slightest about the last few minutes of the movie they'd been watching. If this – and the things Akane did to her when they were alone – was what being a girl was supposed to feel like, she regretted ever fighting back against it. It was worth every second she ever spent in a makeup chair, every step in uncomfortable shoes, all the awkward interactions, of it. A new groan of appreciation rose from her as Kaito moved his attention to her other foot.
"Don't go getting any ideas down there, Kaito. This one's mine." Akane giggled, taking a break from working Ranko's shoulders to reach over her head and poke her lover gently on the nose.
As Akane withdrew her arm, Ranko nuzzled against her wrist with her cheek, unable as she was to respond physically with her hands. "Always," she mewled quietly.
Kaito nodded with a hearty laugh. "Noted. I'm pretty happy with the one I've got, anyway." He smiled up at his wife and his unborn child. "And I'm already going to have to deal with two girls soon enough as it is. I can't handle three."
Izumi laughed loudly. "You can't afford three, baby."
"With the way you like to shop?" Kaito set Ranko's left foot down gently, standing with a laugh. "I can barely afford one!"
Izumi sat up slightly with a giggle, giving Ranko a gentle nudge with her elbow as Akane continued to work her shoulders. "Hope you're taking notes over there, kid sister. That's how you know they're well-trained."
"Mm-hmm, maybe later." She was the most relaxed she'd been in probably eight months, and she wasn't moving unless the apartment caught fire. Even then, it might be negotiable. She was already burned anyway.
Akane's hands slowed to a stop as she became distracted by something she saw on the news broadcast that had begun after the movie they'd been watching ended. Ranko diverted her eyes from the ceiling in time to see a picture of Akane on the screen, in her Mystics uniform. She recognized the reporter speaking at the sports anchor desk; it was the man who had sat behind her at the one volleyball game Ranko had been able to attend while Akane was still on the team.
"As the Mystics lose their third straight, this time putting up just an anemic six points, there are more questions than answers. The biggest one: Where is Akane Tendo? The freshman standout has now been away from the team for three weeks, and Coach Anada has offered no explanation. One thing we know for certain - if the Mystics don't turn this around fast, what looked like a championship-caliber team last month may not even make the tournament."
Kaito sighed, reaching for the remote. "Sorry about that, Akane."
It took Akane a moment to answer. It was still really eating away at her to be off the team, but she was trying her hardest not to let it get to her, especially not in front of Ranko. Akane's girlfriend had been endlessly apologetic and regretful for forcing the issue, and Akane neither wanted to let her blame herself, nor let herself start to resent Ranko for it. "It's okay. Their loss."
Akane felt the scratch of gauze on the back of her hand as Ranko laid her bandaged fingers atop it. Ranko said nothing, but she didn't have to. She knew that Ranko's heart was breaking for her, too, and that try though she had to talk Akane out of it, she feared the even bigger reckoning that was coming with her family.
Mentally shelving her sadness and worry for the moment, Akane flashed a bright smile in Izumi's direction. "What do we want to watch next?"
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