Chương 18: 1.18: Lights Out
Ranko glanced up at the clock mounted to the small divider separating the employee area behind the service bar from the entertainment area of the bar, where the pool table and Pac-Man machine were. At Yui's suggestion, she'd made it a point not to sing at the same time each night, so that people had to stay - and drink - longer if they wanted to be sure to catch a show. Alright, it's almost eleven thirty. It's probably about time for another one, she thought, looking herself over in the mirrored wall behind the service bar.
She was wearing a black velvet choker, a birthday gift from Mei, and the silver dragon bracelet Yui had given her. The latter had not been removed from her wrist other than to bathe since she'd received it. She sported a just-shorter-than-knee-length denim pleated skirt, and Izumi had threaded a length of wide red ribbon through its belt loops and tied it off in a small bow on her left hip. The skirt was paired with an orange blouse with a neckline that revealed a bit more of her chest than she was used to, and Ranko found herself glad of the support her new undergarments gave her shape if it was going to be on display. As with most of her shifts since she'd started performing, the outfit was almost entirely borrowed from Izumi's closet.
"Mmm!" Izumi made an urgent noise around the straw in her mouth to get Ranko's attention, waving to her sister as she swallowed and put her glass of soda down on the wooden bar counter. "C'mere a sec, hon."
Izumi pulled the white ribbon out of her sister's disheveled ponytail, eliciting a blush from the smaller girl made all the worse by Ranko's noticing it in the mirror. "You're running around like a chicken with your head cut off in here tonight, and your hair's getting all messed up." As her right hand teased Ranko's hair loosely with her fingers, she reached into her yellow purse under the bar counter and withdrew a small plastic hairbrush. "Don't worry, little sister. I gotcha covered."
The young redhead squirmed as Izumi corralled her hair back into a tidier ponytail, gritting her teeth a bit as her sister pulled it tight on her scalp and began doubling over a hair elastic around it. Does she have to pull so hard? Owwww! Doesn't look bad though, I suppose, Ranko mused, smiling at her reflection as Izumi again tied a large bow around her hair with the length of white satin ribbon she'd removed earlier. She winced slightly at the sight of the golden heart studs decorating her still-sore earlobes. Crap. Gotta remember to clean those again when I get upstairs, she admonished herself. Man, bein' a girl is a lot of freakin' work.
Every shift since her birthday, she'd tried to perform at least two songs on stage, split apart in order to hit the early and the late crowd. She generally didn't even need to be encouraged anymore; in fact, as her confidence grew, the moments in her shifts where she traded in her order pad for a microphone were fast becoming the highlights of her evenings. Already that night, she'd performed Diamonds by Princess Princess - enduring no small amount of Mei's teasing concerning the band name - and Gloria by ZIGGY, but the song Mei had selected for her third act of the evening made her nervous. She dared not tell the bar's de facto entertainment manager why. At least it's pretty simple, she thought hopefully as she willed herself to stop marveling at her reflection. It wasn't the cute outfit or her newly-restyled hair that kept catching her eye; it was still just so foreign to look in a mirror and see a smile.
Picking up her cork board serving tray, she darted between groups of revelers and made her way to table eleven, as she'd noticed their glasses were nearly empty. "Hey, everybody! We still having fun tonight?" The redhead started collecting the depleted glassware, stacking a trio of red plastic baskets that once contained a variety of fried finger foods. "What else can I get you to drink?"
A flurry of requests rose from the six women at the round table, and Ranko jotted everything down on her notepad as quickly as she could with the disposable pen in her left hand. "Okay, I've got some fried pickles, two Dragonfires, a whiskey sour, a Manhattan, a lemon drop shot and a Tequila Sunrise. Did I miss anything?" Receiving confirmation that she had not, Ranko smiled proudly at herself. "Alright! I'll get the girls workin' on this for you right away!"
"Hey! Are you going up again soon," one of the women, a brunette in her late thirties, asked through a slightly tipsy slur.
Ranko blushed. Word of mouth had reached a stage where most of the people that regularly patronized the bar knew that the new girl with the red hair was also a fairly talented singer, so she frequently got asked at her tables when she would be performing next. "Just as soon as I drop your order off and make sure nobody else needs anything, actually!" The young server gave a soft smile and a shake of her head as the sound of the woman's excited whooping reached her over her shoulder even from halfway across the room as she delivered the drink order to Izumi.
"Hi! I'm about to hop up on stage for a few minutes," she offered in a chipper voice as she approached table seventeen. "Do any of you need anything before I go? Oh, hey!" The redhead smiled brightly at a man she recognized, a shorter gentleman in his late twenties. He wore a gray sport coat over a black tee shirt. "Good to see you, Daijo!"
Her patron blushed deeply, looking down at his drink. "You… remember my name?!"
The redhead flushed a bit herself as she picked up an empty glass from in front of one of Daijo's companions. "I mean, how could I forget the person I signed my very first autograph for?"
"Can I get one too," one of Daijo's companions, a green-haired woman in her mid-thirties, asked hopefully.
Ranko smiled, nodding. "Sure!" She started to write on her notepad. "And while I'm writing, does anybody else want anything to drink?" The redhead tore the top sheet of her pad off, handing it to the woman.
The patron shook her head in the negative as she read what her server had jotted on the lined green order pad.
Thanks for coming to the Phoenix! I hope you enjoy the show! ~ Ranko
Having received confirmation from each of the table's three other occupants that nothing further was required, she grinned brightly over her shoulder and sped away from the table on her way to the next.
Ranko cheerily greeted each of her remaining tables in turn, finding that they too needed little other than the occasional clearing of an empty glass. Craning her neck, she confirmed that both of the brutishly large men at table six had full glasses, and she was glad of it. They had been quite rude to her since they came in, and Ranko didn't relish speaking to them again. Not to mention, kind of a dick move taking up an eight-top table for just two people on a busy night, she thought.
As Ranko piled a load of empty glasses into the dishwasher behind the main bar counter, Mei emerged from the kitchen, wiping the sweat from her brow on the sleeve of her blue peasant shirt. "Hey, sis! You about ready to do this thing?"
Ranko smiled brightly, as she seemed to whenever one of the bar's other employees referred to her as their sister. "You bet! Mind helping me get set up?"
"Let's do it," Mei said, bounding out to join her younger sister in the main bar area and heading toward the stage. As soon as Ranko took a step onto the little triangular platform in the corner by the ladies' room, the din in the bar seemed to order itself into an anticipatory murmur. That, in turn, devolved into a raucous cheer as Mei turned up the volume of the twelve speakers comprising the bar's aging sound system, and a drum beat began playing through it without any other accompaniment.
The American song had been popular a few years back, though Ranko had only recently heard it for the first time. She switched on the microphone in her hand, swaying on the little stage in a pair of white sneakers she'd picked out during her birthday shopping trip with Izumi. Stupid music video just has a dude sitting in a chair with a guitar the whole time, so not much to work with on a dance. Not that there's much room to do a lot of that up here anyway.
"I got my mind set on you," Ranko sang, smiling brightly as the crowd quieted to listen. "I got my mind set on you!" As was becoming commonplace to the young songstress, the crowd was enthusiastic to cheer and sing along, with the exception of the two sour guys in the back.
"Is it me," Hana asked, leaning on the archway dividing the back of house from the bar area in her trademark black leather jacket and smirking at Yui. "Or, does she look like she's starting to enjoy being up there?"
Yui laughed, running the soda gun over a pair of cocktails to top them off with club soda. "Who, Little Miss Timid? Perish the thought."
"But it's gonna take money! A whole lotta spendin' money! It's gonna take plenty o' money, to do it right, child," Ranko sang, shrugging as the sound escaped her lips.
I don't have the slightest idea what the hell I'm talking about up here, she thought as she danced in place for the crowd, but they're eating it up. So, there's that.
As the repetitive song neared its completion, Izumi bopped along with the beat behind the service bar as she vigorously shook a margarita over her shoulder in her cocktail tin. The energy in here is so much different since she started singing, she thought with a contented smile.
"Set on you!"
Ranko bowed as the song ended, beaming at the adulation of some two hundred and change bargoers. "Thanks everybody! Give me just a second, and I'll be around to check on your tables!" She hopped down from the stage, blushing furiously as she thrust her hand down past her waist. Shit! I gotta be careful doing that kinda shit in a skirt! Stupid, Ranko! Stupid!
Her cheeks still warm, she began darting between her tables, jotting orders for drinks down on the left notepad she withdrew from the pocket of her skirt. Giggling, she threw up two fingers, crouching between two college-aged girls as a Polaroid camera was aimed by a third.
Mei had set the music system back to random play mode, and it was currently blasting a popular new song in which some guy randomly read off a whole bunch of random names and stuff. Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team? Whatever the shit that's supposed to mean, the redhead mused as she worked.
Ranko's smile faded somewhat as she noted that the men at table six had finished their drinks. Fortunately, only one of them was currently seated, so there was only half the potential for rudeness. Gotta put on a smile, she resolved. Customer service girl, go! We can do this. It's part of the job. Approaching the table, she leaned down to shout over the nonsensical music. "Hey there! Can I get you or your friend anything else?"
The customer, a giant of a man with a stubbly chin and a flat-top haircut, glared up at the young server. He smelled of garlic and body odor, and wore a camouflage tank top despite the early December chill in the air outside. "Took you long enough."
The redhead sighed, her smile deflating. "Yeah, I'm sorry about that! Down side of me singing and waiting tables. But I'm here now, and I'll be happy to get you whatever you need."
The massive man glowered hungrily up at her from his seat. "In that case, sure! I'll take a kiss."
Ranko shook her head, a disgusted expression crossing her face. It wasn't the first time she'd heard such a suggestion from a patron, or even from random strangers on the street before discovering the Phoenix, but something about the brute's overall presence made Ranko's skin crawl all the more at the thought. Still, she tried to deflect his advance as she usually did in such circumstances, forcing herself to recover a false smile. "Um, maybe next time?"
"Woooo! Ranko! Great job tonight!"
Ranko turned her eyes from the seated man at the sound of her name, flashing a smile and a wave at the girls from table eleven as they made their way to the exit. "Have a good nurk…"
With her focus turned away from the unruly patron, she had not noticed his hand firing upward. He wrapped his meaty fingers around Ranko's choker, twisting it at the base of her throat and cutting off her airflow. "No, how about now?" As she reached for his wrist, he extended his arm to its full length, locking his elbow at its maximum extension.
She gasped, knocking her tray full of glasses from the tabletop. It fell to the hardwood floor with a loud crash that pierced the fourth chorus of We Didn't Start the Fire. Several shrieks rose from various corners of the bar as the patrons became aware of the confrontation.
Ranko flailed, striking downward at his forearm with her fists to try and disengage it from her necklace, but his muscular bicep would not yield. She swung wildly for his face, finding that her shorter arms lacked the reach required for her punch to connect.
Her assailant stood, dragging Ranko by the neck as he did. "Yeah, I heard about you and what you did to my friends the other day. Not so tough now, are you, bitch?!" He grabbed at her shirt with his left hand, tearing it partially open at the neckline. The crowd began to stampede away from the altercation for safety, a cacophony of screams rising from the panicked bargoers.
Ranko thought she heard Mei scream her name at the periphery of her consciousness, which was beginning to fade as her oxygen supply diminished. Gotta… get…
She swung desperately for her attacker's face again, but as she did, his companion crashed into her from behind. The second man restrained her left arm at her side, but his momentum knocked her forward far enough that she could reach her assailant with her right. Seizing the opportunity, she threw a punch at the thug's face with lightning speed. Her fist connected, and the ogrish patron lost his grip on her necklace, staggering back against the table.
Ranko coughed and sputtered, trying to orient herself through her dizziness as she hungrily gasped for air. C'mon, Ranko! Get back in the fight! She spun around, whipping her leg around at eye level and catching the second assailant in the chest with a crescent kick. He fell, and as he did, Ranko stumbled a bit, her equilibrium having not yet recovered from the lack of oxygen.
"Get off of her!" Izumi yelled desperately. She tried to push through the crowd, but the stampede for the exit afforded her no gap to make her way closer to the conflict. "Let her GO!"
The redhead whirled to face her first opponent, but her timing could not have been worse. By the time her eyes reoriented, his strike had almost reached its target. She tried to sidestep his swing, but as the room was still spinning, she misjudged the distance and did not move quite far enough. The back of his hand struck her square across her cheek with a loud smack.
"MOVE!" Yui screeched at a trio of women who had pressed up against the bar counter for safety. Yelping at the scream from behind them, the frightened office workers darted clear toward the front door of the building.
Ranko staggered back a step, her face exploding in pain. As she did, her back foot slipped in a puddle formed by the half-empty cocktails and mostly-melted ice that had spilled from her serving tray onto the wooden floor. Her leg skidded out from under her, and she fell backward toward the bar counter. With a loud thud, the back of her head struck the edge of the counter, less than a meter from where Yui had been blending a daiquiri not moments before. Her body continued to fall between two vacant bar stools, and there came a hollow ringing of metal that reverberated through her skull as her temple made contact with the brass foot rail at the bottom of the bar.
The young waitress looked up with bleary eyes at her attacker's face as he approached. In the space between consciousness and oblivion, her nightmares flooded into her mind accompanied by the ringing bells in her skull. It's just like Mikado, she thought, desperately grasping in her mind to reassert her grip on the present. He's gonna…
She thought she heard what sounded like television static, and caught a glimpse of white smoke, but before she could identify the source of either, the world faded to black.
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