Capítulo 351: On This Day
Akane sighed, dropping her backpack on the floor just inside the door to their little apartment. Fuck. It's so hot. Indeed, the first Monday of July had been a scorcher, and she'd missed her train and had to walk home from class. Stupid Professor Omago keeping us late. Asshole. She peeled off her sweat-drenched shirt, tossing it on the floor in front of the washer and dryer in their narrow bathroom. It hit the front of the dryer with a loud bang before dropping to the linoleum with a moist squelsh sound.
Ugh. So gross.
She was surprised not to find Ranko in the kitchen; normally at 4:30 on a Monday afternoon, she would be finishing up dinner in time to eat, clean up, and get to the Phoenix in time for her set to start at eight. Maybe her class ran late, too? Akane opened the refrigerator, extracting a plastic bottle containing a vibrant orange sports drink and cracking the plastic seal holding on the cap. As she drank half the bottle in one go, she remained in front of the open refrigerator for a few more seconds in just her soaked bra and shorts, reveling in the blast of cool air.
I can do this. Sure, I'm exhausted, but I just gotta survive another few weeks until the term ends and I can get a little bit of a break. She frowned as she closed the fridge, a sudden realization crossing her mind. That means I only have a few more weeks until Ranko leaves again, too. Fuck. I'm so happy she's getting to go on tour, but I can't wait until it's over.
Turning back toward her bedroom, she held the bottle of cold liquid against her forehead as she made for the bathroom. Good gods, I need a shower. I reek. And after work, I'm gonna sleep like a fucking rock. These all-weekend study jams are for the friggin' birds.
Something caught Akane's eye on the dining room table as she passed, and she stopped short. What the… She walked around the table, examining the large, flat box. It was a light teal, printed with a pattern of little white tulips. Laying atop it was a single, long-stemmed white rose with a thin white ribbon tied around its step in a large bow, and a small ivory card embossed with gold foil trim. It was covered in Ranko's handwriting in black ink.
Your ride will be here at six. Be ready. Work's been handled. I love you, beautiful.
The card was signed your orchid girl, and punctuated with a little hand-drawn heart.
Akane gasped, looking up at the calendar on the wall. Oh, fuck! It's the sixth! It's… She covered her mouth with her hands, her eyes wide in terror. How could I forget our anniversary?!
She glanced up at the clock, panic setting in. An hour and a half?! I don't even know where… what am I supposed to… It was then that her eyes fell on the box again, and she smiled softly, remembering the way she'd surprised Ranko with a new dress on the night she proposed as Aki. Did she really…
Stopping for a brief moment to smell the rose that had been laid across the box, she pulled its lid off, her jaw falling slack. Inside, wrapped in a crinkly layer of pastel pink tissue paper, was a red satin cocktail dress. With trembling fingers, Akane lifted it from the box, holding it up to herself. It came down to just above her knees, and the entire right side of it was dominated with a single embroidered black rose that bloomed just below the right breast, the thorny stem snaking down the whole length of the skirt to its hem. She checked the tag, closing her eyes and shaking her head with a self-admonishing chuckle. I'm such a dummy. Of course she knows my size. She does my freaking laundry.
She smiled down at the card, and the signature of the woman who had written it. The incredible, inestimable, impossible woman that she had married a year and two hours ago.
Ranko Tendo, I am going to love you for the rest of eternity, and then some.
Akane squealed happily, spinning in place. She held the dress away from her body to avoid it getting all sweaty. Oh my gods, I gotta get a move on! Laying the red garment gently back in its box, Akane darted toward the shower, a song in her heart.
* * *
"Ma'am, we're here."
Akane looked up as the hired black sedan pulled to a stop, peering out the window of the back seat. Huh. This is… not what I expected.
The car door to Akane's left swung open, and the driver bowed, motioning toward the entrance of the familiar building. The red carpet runner leading to the door, lined with copper poles and velvet rope lines, was entirely devoid of people, an unheard-of sight for 6:45 in the evening. Only the bouncer, standing vigil outside the copper double doors of one of the most popular night clubs in Tokyo in his jet-black suit, indicated that the business was even open.
Akane gently took the hand the driver offered her, stepping carefully out of the vehicle onto the carpet in the glittery red heels she'd borrowed from her wife's side of their shared closet. She'd had to rush her makeup, but while the job hadn't been as elaborate as she might have liked, she was happy with how it had come out. Still, she felt like a movie star as she stepped out onto the red carpet that seemed to be laid out just for her - and that was before she looked down.
Running down the middle of the red carpet, from the valet lane all the way to the doors, was a sparse trail of white rose petals.
What the… how… what…
Akane scooped up the bouquet of white roses she'd paid the driver to stop at a corner florist shop for on the way, and the driver closed the car door behind her. "Have a nice evening, miss," the driver said with a smile and a flourish as he slid back into the driver's seat of his vehicle and slowly pulled away, leaving her alone on the carpet.
She slowly strode down the carpet, her head swiveling as she took in the scene from every angle, as if she expected some sort of hidden camera to pop out from behind the light mist raining down from the sign above the door and tell her it had all been a prank. As she approached the door, she swung her thin black purse around her body to unzip it and retrieve her identification card, but the bouncer just stepped forward and pulled the door open for her.
"Welcome to Steam, Mrs. Tendo. We've been expecting you."
With wide eyes, Akane walked into the bar. Had the bouncer not said its name, Akane doubted she'd have recognized it. All the tables had been cleared from the floor, save a single one - a square four-top covered with a white linen tablecloth. It had been placed a mere two meters from the round central stage, dead center. It had but two chairs at it, one facing the stage and the other with its back to the raised platform. The table bore a vase of two dozen red roses and other things she could not see from where she stood. The trail of white rose petals continued from the doorway, creating a path extending the full length of the dance floor to the nearer of the two chairs.
The lights in the room had been dimmed to their minimum, but the bright white flower petals gave Akane an easily-visible path to follow. The stage itself was devoid of its usual band equipment. Instead, just off-center on the round stage where Ranko had debuted Turn Me Off/Turn Me On at their bachelorette party, stood a black grand piano. The entire outer edge of the stage was rimmed in tall white candles, all lazily casting thin wisps of smoke skyward. There had to have been a hundred or more. The stage floor's glossy black surface was coated in red rose petals. Covering the back wall, dangling just in front of the plush purple curtain obscuring the small backstage area, was a net of softly twinkling white lights that might have been repurposed Christmas decorations.
How did she do this?
Akane followed the trail of roses to the table she presumed was for her, and as she approached it, a server in a white sport coat and slacks emerged from behind the bar to pull her chair out for her. "Ma'am," he greeted cordially, pushing her chair back toward the table once she was seated in it. He reached into the ice bucket that had been hidden behind the floral display, uncorking the bottle of pink champagne and carefully filling the flute in front of her.
"What is all this," Akane asked, a stunned expression on her face. "Where is she?"
The handsome server bowed slightly, giving her a knowing smirk. "Enjoy the show, Mrs. Tendo."
The show? What did…
Before she could even finish her thought, the sparkly purple velour curtain at the back of the stage parted, admitting a woman wearing a black tuxedo onto the platform. The suit was tailored to her feminine body, unlike the ones Akane had worn when posing as Aki. Her short blonde hair was slicked back with gel like a man's, and she gave Akane a shallow bow before taking a seat on the piano bench.
So, she got us a private musician? That's sweet, but where the hell is…
The blonde at the piano began to play, and the sounds of unseen drums began to rain down from the powerful nightclub sound system. It was a soaring, inspirational melody, but it did not make Akane's heart speed up half as much as what happened next.
The curtain parted again, and what strode through it was a vision of perfection. Ranko wore a scintillating silver sheath dress that clung tightly to her form from her breast line to her ankles, only spared contact with the floor by her eight-centimeter silver heels. The fabric looked like it had been made by pressing a bucket of glitter into a flat sheet somehow. Every millimeter of her sparkled, down to the dangly diamond earrings, and the diamond pendant that Akane recognized as Izumi's. Akane was relatively certain Ranko had even dusted the bare skin of her arms and breasts in metallic glitter. The dress was slit almost all the way to her waistline along her left leg. It had no straps and left the redhead's shoulders bare, though her hands were covered in a pair of ivory opera gloves that came to just below her elbows. Her wavy hair bounced luxuriously on her shoulders. Every aspect of her makeup was perfect, from her bright red lipstick to her sparkly silver fingernail polish.
Oh. My. Gods, Akane thought, gasping and covering her gaping mouth with her hands. She knew she should cheer, or clap, or wave, or something.
She could not. She was absolutely, positively dumbstruck.
Ranko walked to the piano, running her fingers along its lid with a sultry smile at her wife. Several white and red rose petals fell from it onto the floor as she brushed them aside, her hand continuing to drag its length until her fingers caught the handheld microphone resting on its surface. Flicking the switch on its handle with her thumb, Ranko looked down at the lone table in the empty club, an expression of pure adoration that Akane recognized well. It was almost identical to the one her bride had worn a year ago, as she promised Akane the rest of her forever.
The stage lights reflected off of her dress in pink and green, and the orange light of the candles rimming the stage refracted from her skirt as well. Ranko gave her wife the slightest wave with her gloved right hand, her left raising the microphone to her lips and beginning to sing.
"Everyone tells us that the world has a plan. That for every woman out there, somewhere, there's a man. There's a path we're meant to walk, and there's a way we're meant to go, to some end we can imagine, but can never really know."
Ranko did not dance, not that she much could in the restrictive cocktail dress, but she swayed slightly at the hips as she walked around the piano, scooping a long-stemmed white rose from the top of it. It, like the one that Akane had found on their kitchen table, bore a thin white ribbon tied in a bow around its stem. Ranko lifted the flower to her nose, closing her eyes as she smelled it. Just like the first night we made love, Akane.
"But every once in a while, there's a fork in the pass, and we stop to smell a flower we found in the grass. And then, there's another, and onward we stray, chasing beauty so long we lose sight of our way. And, before we know it, our fate is undone…"
With a flick of her wrist, Ranko launched the rose forward off the stage. It landed on the tablecloth mere centimeters from Akane's left wrist.
"... the story rewritten before it's begun."
Ranko's eyes opened wide, and she leaned back slightly, holding the rhinestone-studded microphone further from her mouth as she opened her voice from the dulcet tone of a lounge singer into a full-on belt.
"Destiny… might've had a plan for you and me, but you and I, we just had to try to stand up and say no."
The redhead's voice climbed into the next octave, cocking her head slightly and simpering at the love of her life as she told their impossible story into the sparkling head of her microphone.
"Destiny-y-y-y…. I'm going to hold her hand and declare myself free! This time, we'll make up our minds that we are going to decide where we're going to go!
She made a wide gesture in an arc like a rainbow in the air in front of her face with her right hand, her fingers extended as if she were clearing condensation from a window to see through it better.
"We're going to wipe the stars out of the sky and draw a new course - one where nothing gets between us, and I get to be yours. I'll be right where I belong when you stand next to me-e-e-e…"
The songstress gently rested her right hand over her heart. Forget the nearly-empty dance floor of the most popular gay club in Japan - in that moment, there was no other soul on Earth but Akane Tendo in the infatuated redhead's eyes.
"Defy-y-y-ying des-tiny!"
Only then did Akane finally find enough breath to clap her hands. "I love you, Ranko!" Gods, it felt good to shout that out loud in a public place, even empty though it was.
Ranko nodded, curling her left hand into a fist around her microphone. She dangled it limply in front of her, rubbing the back of her ivory glove in three small circles with her right hand.
"Everyone knew how the story was s'posed to take place, but the plot disappeared when I first saw your face. They all thought it was crazy, what we tried to do. And yeah, maybe it was, but I'm still here with you."
The starlet extended her left hand to the woman at the only table in the room, as if inviting her on stage. The stage lights refracted dazzlingly in the diamond of her custom-engraved wedding ring, which she wore outside her glove.
"Now we're making it up as we walk on along, hand in hand down the road, and girl, you're STILL my song!"
Akane wiped her eyes, sniffling a bit at the mention and remembering a morning over a year ago where a shy, nude girl curled up against her chest in their bedroom and sang that song for the first time. Then as now, she had done so for an audience of but one.
"We're carving our path through the brambles and weeds. Though it's not what fate wanted, it's all that I need!"
Ranko extended her arm, panning it across her field of vision to indicate the mostly-empty room.
"In the middle of nowhere, where no one can see…"
She pinched her skirt with her right hand, lifting it slightly out of the way of her feet and swaying at the hips playfully. Her smile could have outshone the sun.
"I'm dancing in moonlight 'cause you're here with me! Destiny… might've had a plan for you and me, but you and I, we just had to try to stand up and say, no!"
Ranko reached her hand out to her wife again. Though they were two meters too far apart to touch, Akane felt her presence anyway.
"Destiny-y-y-y, I'm going to hold her hand and declare myself free! This time, we'll make up our minds that we are going to decide where we're going to go!"
Again, the songstress waved her hand in front of her eyes, waggling her satin-gloved fingers in Akane's direction as they passed her cheeks as if she were casting a spell. As she did, some of the strands of twinkling pinpoints of starlight draped over the back curtain were raised, others lowered, and some pulled further toward the outer edges of the stage.
"We're going to wipe the stars out of the sky and draw a new course, one where nothing comes between us, and I get to be yours! I'll be right where I belong when you stand next to me…"
Ranko backed up to the piano, her voice cracking the sixth octave into her raised microphone as she leaned back into the prolonged belt. She opened her mouth as wide as she could, just like Ms. Zaito had taught her.
"Defy-y-y-ying des-tin-y-y-y-y!"
Akane rocked back in her chair. She longed for the overwhelming emotions to give her just one moment's respite so she could scream her wife's name. But as she watched the vision she had married stalk the stage and profess her love simultaneously to but one single person, and to the sum total of Ranko Tendo's universe, she could find no words.
Ranko hopped up carefully, resting her backside on the piano and sitting on it. She crossed her ankles demurely, resting her fingers gently between her breasts again.
"Sometimes, I lay awake at night and wonder what our story said, before we tore it up and chose to draft our own, instead. We're off the map of fate now, and the course we chart is ours. Between us, there's just enough magic for us to rewrite the stars!"
The beat of the unseen drums intensified, and a sense of urgency seemed to build in the music behind Ranko's lyrics. Akane felt it in her voice, too, as it took on more of a determination layered atop the softness that had been there since the song had begun.
"And sure, here may be dragons, but I walk on unafraid, empowered by the miracle of everything we've made. For everybody else, the story ends, the curtain falls, but they're going to sing forever of the legend that we've scrawled. When fantasy's facade falls down, our fairy tale still stands, because we held the pen together in our trembling, coupled hands!"
Ranko hopped down carefully from her perch on the piano, stepping closer to Akane at the center of the stage. She bent down at the knees, raising her hands at her sides as if summoning some hidden power behind her. As her hips swayed gently and her arms whipped around her body, a pair of quiet fans activated on either side of the stage, creating a whirlwind that raised the thousands of rose petals covering the stage floor into the air. They formed a gentle floral tornado around the lovestruck redhead as she stepped forward, caring not in the least about the silky red petals catching on her dress and in her hair.
"DESTINY… might have had a plan for you and me, but you and I, we just had to try to stand up and say NO!"
Ranko reached out with her gloved left hand, pointing dead at her wife as if claiming her in the eyes of the gods themselves. "DESTINY! I'm going to hold her hand for a-all eternity! This time we'll make up our minds that we are going to decide where we're going to go!"
The young woman at the only table in the bar that night was bawling, but she blinked her tears from her bleary eyes to watch the woman she loved as best she could.
"We're going to wipe the stars out of the sky and draw a new course, one where nothing gets between us, and I get to be yours! I'll be right where I belong when you stand next to me, defying destiny-y-y-y!"
Ranko smiled brightly down at the love of her life. We did it, Akane. They tried to tell us we couldn't. They tried to tell us it would never work. And a year ago today, we told them all to go pound sand, and now, look at us. We're magic, you and me. Impossible, unbelievable, and yet the most real thing I've ever felt in my life.
"The power of what we've done's blinding and awesome, but that's what happens when you do what should not be possible! Destiny-y-y-y… might have had a plan for you and me, but you and I, we just had to try to stand up and say no-o-o-o-o!"
The redhead swung her arm through the air across her chest, as if casting away some shadow from her eyes.
"Let kismet and karma and fortune be damned! I don't need them at all when you're holding my hand! Destiny, I'm going to hold her hand and set us both free! This time we'll make up our minds that we are going to decide where we're going to go!"
The blonde at the piano leaned forward into the keys, using her weight to strike them with greater force and coax a fuller sound from her instrument as the pre-recorded sound of the drums reached a crescendo of thunder.
"Our future's unwritten. Our path is our own. We're hurtling fearlessly through the unkno-o-o-ooooown…"
The stage lights came up brighter, a bright pink that sparkled from every individual sequin of the exquisite singer's formal gown. She made a fist with her right hand, holding it just in front of her breasts in a show of conviction.
"DESTINY! Don't you think you're going to challenge ME! Because, I've spent so long dreaming, and finally made up my mind! Destiny, at last I've figured out what I'm supposed to be!"
She pointed down at Akane again, her eyes staring into the empty void at the back of the bar as if the weavers of fate themselves were standing there to hear her cast her lyrical gauntlet at their feet.
"I don't care what else happens, as long as I'm hers, and she's mine!"
Ranko waved her hand across her eye line again, and the twinkling lights draped over the back curtain of the stage all blinked out at once.
"I'm going to wipe the stars out of the sky and draw a new course, one where nothing gets between us, and I get to be yours! I'll be right where I belong when you stand next to me… DEFY-Y-YING DES-TIN-Y-Y-Y-Y!"
Her soaring belt of the final two words lasted a full three seconds, and when it ended, so too did the recorded drumbeat and the play of the pianist that shared the stage with her. The young keyboardist had given an admirable performance, but she had been all but invisible in Akane's eyes.
"So here we are, just you and me-e-e-eeeee…" Ranko sang softly, without musical accompaniment, reaching an open hand out to her wife again.
"... defying destiny."
Akane rocketed from her chair in her new red dress, clapping her hands as hard as she could - if Ranko would eschew performing for hundreds to sing for just her, then damn it, she would applaud as if she were thousands. Her soulmate deserved no less.
Ranko strode to the edge of the stage, smiling down at Akane. "Happy anniversary, Akane. I love you so, so, so much."
"I love you too, Ranko. Forever." Akane motioned to the empty room. "How the hell did you do all this?"
The redhead giggled, still speaking into her microphone on force of habit even though the conversation did not require it. "Well, I might owe Steam a world premier show of Defying Destiny next Tuesday. Seemed like a fair trade to me."
"Is that a good idea? Given, everything?" Akane frowned a bit; she knew full well that Ranko had all but declared war on her record label, but an explicitly same-sex love song premiere at a gay bar was still a pretty big red flag to wave.
Ranko smirked. "Not in the slightest. Now, ask me if I care."
Akane blushed, but nodded. "Fair enough. What about everything else? The dresses, and all of this couldn't have been cheap."
Ranko bit her lip. "I had a little money squirreled away. Been saving up for this for a little while. Don't worry about it." Somehow, it didn't seem like the right time to bring up the fact that Yokai had been giving her a daily stipend for food and incidentals while she'd been traveling for the first leg of the tour, and she'd barely eaten for the last two weeks of it because she had been so upset that she and Akane weren't on speaking terms.
Akane's face softened, taking in the scintillating vision that gazed down at her from the stage. "Gods, Ranko, you are so beautiful. You just don't even know, princess."
It was the redhead's turn to blush.
"So… what now? Are you gonna come down and eat, or… what's the plan? This is your surprise, after all." Akane beamed, motioning to the chair across from her at the little square table.
Ranko blushed. "Oh, baby… we're just getting started." She didn't just mean the private concert, either.
The piano again was tickled to life, and Ranko raised the sparkling microphone to her cherry-red lips again.
"Did you know the way time stops when our eyes meet? The way that everything else fades out of my mind?"
Status de energia semanal
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