章 366: Closing Time
Yui sighed heavily, gently depositing another bottle of vodka into the black plastic tub sitting on the bar counter she'd manned six nights a week for the last ten years with a sad little clink. She wore a gray tee shirt and a pair of cut-off jean shorts. Yui managed the smallest of smiles at the feel of Sakura's hand on her back, looking up from her work.
"Hey, beautiful. You doing okay?"
The blonde shook her head hard enough to dislodge the red headband holding her bob behind her ears, turning and hugging Sakura gently. "No."
"It's gonna be alright, Yui. We're gonna figure something out, I promise." Sakura tilted her wife's chin up with her hand, giving her a gentle kiss on the cheek. "I don't know how yet, but this family has an uncanny habit of making the impossible work."
Mei smiled wistfully, running her hand over a little chipped spot in the wooden trim on the edge of the bar counter from the customer side. "I remember the day this happened. It was pouring, and I ran in here dripping wet, and slipped on the floor bringing the sidewalk sign in. Straight up ate it, and whacked the bar with the sign."
"You were lucky you didn't whack it with your forehead," Hana said, laughing softly as she pulled a neon sign advertising a popular brand of soju down from the screws that had secured it to the wall. "But at least you learned to wear better shoes to work." She'd taken off her trademark leather jacket, working in just a white Jack Daniels tee shirt and jeans.
Mei grumbled quietly, hopping up to sit on the bar counter. "Look, in my defense, my big sister told me those heels were cute."
"And they were, but you still gotta be able to walk in 'em, blockhead." Izumi chuckled, putting her arm around her sister's back. "I swear, when you first got here, you fell down more often than Mioko." She flashed a small smile at the green playpen she'd erected near the bar's stage, in which her nearly two-year-old daughter teethed on the ear of a stuffed rabbit.
Mei smiled over at her niece, nodding a bit. "Well, I may have slipped on the floor in here, but you literally gave birth in the kitchen, so, ya know, I think I'm doing alright by comparison."
The brunette blushed a bit, nodding. "I remember when Hoshi wasn't much older than she is, when I first got here. Mama would set up the playpen in the kitchen, so I could watch him when I was cooking. I thought the poor kid was gonna roast in there, but he just sat and played with his little trucks, and let mommy work."
"Except when he didn't, and Auntie Aya had to take him for a walk out back because he was screaming his head off for sweets," Ayako said with a soft smile as she slid the highball glass in her hand into the cardboard grid nested down in the cardboard crate on the floor behind the service bar. "That was rough for a while. I am not looking forward to that age with Jun."
Yui nodded as she gently stacked another bottle of rum in the plastic tub. "And this is why Auntie Yui will never be Mommy Yui. I have my hands full enough with you girls popping out kids."
Izumi shook her head, handing another pair of glasses down to Ayako. "Well, I think I'm done. Two is enough for me. Maybe Mei'll be next."
"Mei will not, because if Mei's boyfriend does not bring rubbers, Mei's boyfriend does not get to have fun," the blue-haired girl said, hopping back down to her feet. "No, thank you."
Hana sighed, running her hand over the chipping red paint on the glass front door in the shape of a firebird enclosed in a trapezoid. "Eighteen years, this has been here. I'll never forget the day I painted it. The first day after old Ito gave me the keys to the place, back in '74."
Mei wrapped her arms around her mother's waist from behind. "I'm so sorry we couldn't find a way to save it, Mama. We've all been so focused on how hard this is for us because we grew up here, but you… I mean, not only did you grow up here too, but you raised all of us here."
Ayako nodded, beginning to tape the box she'd finished packing closed. "I'd have gone to jail if she didn't step out that door at exactly the right moment and grab me."
Yui sighed, leaning to her side in Sakura's arms. "None of us would have been the same without this place. Every centimeter of this bar is packed with memories. All of us were saved here. And they're just gonna… how can they do this to us?!"
Hana shook her head, turning from her art on the glass to face her daughters. "It doesn't matter. They can, and they did." She glanced down at her cheap Casio wrist watch. "Closing should have been done about an hour ago. It doesn't have to be fair, and we don't have to like it. But we have to accept it, and when we walk out of here, we're gonna do so with our heads held high. They can't have our pride."
Stretching with a wince between boxes of glasses, Izumi checked her own watch. "Kaito should be here pretty soon with the truck, and we'll be able to get the first load of boxes out of here. That'll give us a little more room to move, at least."
"Speaking of getting here… where the hell are Ranko and Akane?! She was in such a hurry to get home and help us, and now that we're having to do the hard stuff, fuckin' girl's nowhere to be found." Yui rolled her eyes. "Not like her to bail on us like this."
Hana closed the distance to the bar counter, nudging Sakura to wordlessly request her to step back and grant her access to her daughter. The family matriarch wrapped her arms around Yui, hugging her tight. "She's struggling, Yui. She hasn't had a month to come to terms with this like we have. She barely got through her set last night, she was so upset. We all have memories here, and it's hard on all of us, but it's so much fresher for her. Try to show her a little grace, honey."
"Where's our grace, Ma?! Who's gonna show up and tell us we don't have to go through this? That we don't have to take our whole lives, our whole family, and shove it in a box and put it in some storage shed somewhere?" Yui buried her face in her mother's shoulder, and Hana softly rubbed her daughter's back.
Izumi sighed, joining Yui and her mother in the hug. "It's not our whole lives, Yui. It's a building. It's a business. Yeah, this sucks. It sucks so much. But it's not everything. You've still got Sakura, and all of us. It's not like the bar's gonna go away, and we're gonna stop being a family, hon."
Ayako lifted the bar mat from the service bar, chuckling in wistful remembrance. "We never did fix this." She ran her fingers over the black mark on the counter that had been hidden under the red rubber. "First time I ever tried to make a Dragonfire, and I set the whole fucking counter on fire."
"Yeah, well," Yui said, releasing her mother and sniffling a bit. "You're a total freakin' klutz. What's to be expected?"
The eldest of Hana Takahashi's daughters smirked, throwing a bar towel at her sister. "Oh? I'm a klutz? Which one of us fell down the stairs coming to work one afternoon and jacked up her knee for almost a month?"
Yui's cheeks reddened. "That doesn't count! I was drunk!"
"Yeah, well, poor Izzi had to bar back for you for three weeks because you were stuck on a stool behind the bar like a freaking cockatoo on a perch." Ayako smirked, trying to keep the mood light. "We should have made you sing."
Mei shook her head emphatically. "Oh, please don't. I have to live in the apartment where she showers, and so I'm speaking from experience here. Can we please leave the singing to Ranko?"
Yui gasped, picking up the towel Ayako had thrown and heaving it over the bar at her sister. "Why, you little shit! I'm gonna get you!"
The blue-haired girl ducked under the towel, and it sailed over her head, making it nearly to the front door just as it was pulled open. In walked Ranko, wearing a black pencil skirt, a black blazer, and a cream-colored blouse with a large satin bow dangling from its throat. She carried a green manila folder in her hand. Her hair was pulled back in a severe ponytail, and she wore a pair of short black heels. Akane trailed her, in a white lace dress, and behind the pair came Nabiki in an orange pantsuit.
"Where the heck have you been," Yui grumbled at her sister. "We're half done already, and you show up dressed like a fucking secretary. If you don't mind getting your doll clothes all dirty, grab a box and give us a fuckin' hand with this, would ya?!"
"No." Ranko shook her head with a bright smile, walking to the center of the bar room. She stood on nearly the exact spot where she'd been when Hana had told her she had a job, and changed her future forever. "I need to talk to you guys for a minute."
Izumi blinked curiously, setting down her tape gun and turning, leaning on the bar counter with her backside. Ayako clamored to her feet behind the bar.
Hana walked around the bar counter to greet her youngest daughter. "What is it, Ranko?" Hana's face took on a mystified air of confusion as, before she could offer Ranko a hug, her daughter dropped to her knees at her feet. "Baby?"
"Mom, I…" Ranko swallowed hard, seeming overcome with emotion despite the happiness evident on her face as she looked up into her mother's eyes. "I… I couldn't just… I had to do something."
In the corner of the room, Akane and Nabiki stood watching, holding hands. Nabiki was still quite upset with Ranko over her decision to sign away their leverage with Yokai, but she had to admit, she was happy for her youngest sister. Akane had taken the news of her wife signing the code of conduct better than Ranko expected; she was mostly upset for Ranko rather than at her. It had always been harder for her to deal with being secretive about their relationship than for Akane, and Ranko was the one who had to hide it with thousands of eyes and cameras and microphones thrust into her face every day.
The family's matriarch slipped into a wooden chair, and Ranko turned slightly on her knees to face her. "Ranko, honey, what are you doing?"
The redhead bowed her head low, reverently offering the folder up to her mother from her knees with both hands as befit an offering made to the leader of her clan. "This place, and this family, saved my life. It gave me more than I ever could have dreamed or deserved. And I just couldn't stand by and do nothing while it was taken from us."
"Baby, I don't und…" Hana's voice caught in her throat as she opened the folder and began to read the first page of the document within. An audible gasp drew the anticipatory attention of all of Hana's daughters at once.
Izumi stepped forward, watching the exchange intently. "Mama? What is it?"
Hana closed the folder, looking down at her youngest daughter. Her voice cracked slightly as she spoke. "Ranko, just… how?"
"Would somebody please tell me what's going on," Ayako said, a mixture of excitement and worry in her eyes.
Ranko smiled up at her eldest sister from her knees. "Well, the thing about a real estate closing is, that's when they sign the paperwork and make the transfer all official. Until then, it's just a handshake thing. And as luck would have it, just before Tsuchiba finalized everything, somebody showed up and made them a better offer."
"What?!" Yui perked up behind the counter. "You don't mean…"
Ranko nodded. "And because the Ishido people thought it was a formality, they didn't even send anybody who had negotiating power, so…" She grinned up at her mother. "... Tsuchiba sold it to someone else instead!"
Hana pulled the document out of the folder Ranko had handed her, holding it up for her daughters to see. "It's true. This is…" She laughed in utter disbelief. "This is the property deed!"
Yui collapsed on one of the bar stools in utter shock and disbelief. "So that means…"
The redhead beamed up at her sister. "It means, you'd better get to work unpacking all those boxes, big sister, 'cause this family's not going fucking nowhere!"
A loud cheer rose from the women surrounding the young singer, including from her wife and Nabiki, who lingered at the front by the hostess stand to give Ranko the moment with her side of their conjoined family.
"But… how?!" Izumi rushed over to Ranko, who stood to hug her.
Ranko shrugged. "Yokai owed me a bunch of money from the tour. I had no idea how much at the time, but I told them I wanted it all." And may have sold my soul in the process, she thought grimly, but decided not to bring that up to her sisters and ruin the celebration. "I guess it was enough. With a little bit left over, too."
Ayako looked at the paperwork skeptically over her mother's shoulder. "Something's not right here. They don't just give you the deed to a building. The bank holds it until the mortgage is paid off."
"They do, unless you pay the whole thing in cash up front," Nabiki said with a smirk. "We just straight-up wrote a check. You girls won't have a monthly payment on anything but the light bill now. You own the place free and clear."
Hana, meanwhile, had not spoken in several minutes, looking over the paperwork in her hand contemplatively. She closed the folder again, exhaling heavily in resolve.
"Ranko, honey, I can't accept this."
The redhead blinked, shaking her head with a little bit of a smirk of disbelief at her mother's reaction. "Mom, you have to accept it. It's a building, not a tee shirt. You can't just take it back to the store if you remembered to keep the receipt!"
Her mother stood, shaking her head resolutely. "No, Ranko. I said, I can't accept it." She walked toward the bar, smiling softly at Yui. Sakura stood behind her wife's chair, holding her hand over Yui's shoulder.
"I didn't say we can't." Hana extended her arm, offering the folder down to Yui.
"Mom, what are you…" Yui's eyes were wider than the mouths of the highball glasses her sisters had just finished packing.
Hana grinned up at Sakura. "I don't believe I ever got you girls a wedding present, did I?"
Yui blinked her tears from her eyes, covering her mouth with one trembling hand as she reached out with the other for the green folder. "Are you saying…"
"The doctor told me I should take it easy, didn't he? Well, I've been thinking about it, since all of this, and I think I've decided it's time for me to do something different for a while." She beamed softly up at the stage, where Ayako's son and Izumi's daughter played together in their shared playpen. "I think I'm gonna go be a professional grandma."
She turned her eyes down to Yui. "We've known for a long time that it was going to be you that took this place over when I retired, baby. I've known all along that was why you were having so much harder of a time coming to terms with the fact that we were losing it than your sisters. The rest of you girls, you all have plans, and I want you to pursue them. I want you to do whatever makes your spirits soar, whether it's here or out in the world somewhere. But you, Yui… you and your incredible partner… this place was always earmarked to be your destiny, and your sister has secured it for you now. The Phoenix is yours."
Ranko grinned from ear to ear, looking on with pride as Yui launched herself out of her seat and wrapped her mother in the tightest of hugs.
"Thank you so much, Mama! We'll make you so proud, I promise, and you better not be scarce around here!" Yui bounced excitedly on the balls of her feet. What a difference twenty minutes had made for her demeanor.
Hana laughed. "Oh, don't worry. I'm sure you'll be mixing me drinks for a long time to come, sweetheart. I'm already proud of you. Of all of you. And I'll always be here if you need help, or advice. You're in charge now, but you're not on your own."
"And we're not going anywhere, either," Mei offered, joining in the hug. "We've got your back, boss."
Yui grinned, looking around at her sisters one by one. "And I'll be happy to add any of you to the ownership documents who want to be on them. This is a family business, after all!"
Ranko wrapped Nabiki in a tight hug of her own. "Thank you so much for your help with this, Nabiki."
The songstress' elder sister returned the hug, grumbling a bit. "Yeah, well… I'm still pissed at you, and what you did was stupid and reckless, and all of that, but… I'm glad it worked out for your family."
Akane was next to take her wife into her arms, kissing her on the lips. "I'm so proud of you, princess," she said, grinning at her lover. She released the young singer after a moment, walking over to Yui. "So, Miss Fukawa, your staff is all here. What are your instructions?"
All of the women in the bar - including Hana and Nabiki - turned to face the Phoenix' new proprietress, giving her their undivided attention. Nabiki pulled off her blazer, tossing it over the bar counter and rolling up the sleeves of her white blouse.
Yui grinned at her sisters, squeezing Sakura's fingers in her left hand. She still clutched the folder containing the property deed for the Phoenix and the land it sat on in her right.
"Ayako, Izzi, start unpacking those boxes. Mei, why don't you go and start setting the kitchen back up? Sake and I will put the bar back together. Akane, you and Nabiki can start putting the chairs back where they go."
Ranko watched, grinning, as her sisters set about their tasks. Now this feels right. This feels like home. "What about me, boss?"
Yui wrapped her youngest sister tight in her arms. "You, missy, need to get on the horn and get a hold of your band. It seems you've got a show in a few hours." She leaned down, kissing Ranko on the temple. "Thank you so much for this, Ranko. You saved us."
Still embracing her sister, Yui looked up to the leader of their haphazard little clan. "And, hey, Mama? Do me a favor?"
Hana looked up, smiling proudly at her daughters. "Yes?"
"Get that fucking closed sign out of the window of my bar."
~~ END BOOK TWELVE ~~
クリエイターの想い 
AnneOminous
AnneOminous Well, here we are, Firebirds. Another book completed, which means only one remains in Phoenix Odyssey. We won’t be done after that, of course, because there are plans underway for a fourth series after Odyssey, consisting of books XIV - XVI. I’ll be talking more about that series as we get closer to the end of book XIII.
This book was… hard for me. It’s the largest book in the series to date, just barely edging out book IX. I thought I had a huge backlog and I was safe, but a bout of severe burnout coupled with some lingering health issues broke my daily posting schedule and left me in a state of severe anxiety for pretty much the last three weeks non-stop. To mitigate this, I'm moving to Mon-Wed-Fri posting starting with Book XIII.
That said, I’m revitalized and ready to take on a series of incredibly ambitious projects for you all, my wonderful, amazing Firebirds. I’m not ready to share details on all of them yet, but there’s one in particular I think we should talk about now:
https://www.tumblr.com/anne-is-ominous/762391039178948608/announcing-phoenix-reignited-edition
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