“Did you ever think I’d end up back here like this,” Ranko asked, squeezing her wife’s hand as she stretched her bare legs out over the grass, which had just begun to brown with the chill of fall.
With a giggle, Akane released Ranko’s hand, placing her fingers on her lover’s cheek and pulling her into a kiss on the secluded little hilltop overlooking the park. “Not in a million years, but I’m glad. You deserve it.”
Ranko smiled brightly as she was released from the kiss, emitting a happy sigh as she looked down on the stage of the little city park amphitheater not a half-kilometer from Furinkan High School. She’d walked past it a thousand times on the way to school, but never could she have imagined she’d be holding a concert on its stage one day as an award-winning female singer and songwriter. The steel trusses supporting the platform’s lights and speakers gleamed in the orange-red blaze of the still-rising sun. “I just hope this works out for Dad the way we want it to.”
Beaming, Akane squeezed her wife’s right forearm tight with both of her arms. It meant the world to her that Ranko was able to consider Soun Tendo her father, both in heart and on paper. The girl deserved a real dad after everything Genma Saotome had put her through. Akane was still beyond overjoyed that their gambit had been successful and Ranko had been officially added to the Tendo family registry, even though every legal document recorded the pair as sisters and not spouses.
“Are you kidding? You’re gonna pack that place. You always do. And besides… who could resist coming out to meet a sexy little thing like you?” Akane ran her fingers gently down the side of Ranko’s neck, eliciting a shudder and a gasp from the redhead in the mauve sweater dress.
“Akane, I… we need to…”
“Shh.” Looking around to make sure they were truly alone in the morning still of the park, Akane laid her right index finger over Ranko’s lips. She leaned closer, using her left hand to pull the turtleneck of her wife’s cotton dress down, and gently kissed the smaller girl’s neck with open lips.
Her breath catching in her throat, Ranko lolled her head to the side to give her lover greater access to her neck, managing to restrain her audible reaction to a quiet whine.
“I love you, Ranko.”
Ranko nodded with wide eyes as she was lowered onto her back in the grass, whimpering between her words. “I… love…”
Akane smiled down at her, stroking her cheek with the backs of her fingers before reaching behind her for the blue flannel blanket they’d brought up to the hilltop. She unfurled it, throwing it over the whole of Ranko’s prone body and pulling it up over her lover’s head before joining her under it.
“Shh.”
“There you girls are. I was starting to wonder.” Soun turned to his two youngest daughters with an excited smile, having finished nailing the corrugated cardboard TENDO FOR MAYOR sign to the telephone pole in front of his home.
Ranko blushed, a glowing smile on her lips and in her eyes as she glanced to her left at Akane over their joined hands. “Sorry, Dad. We were just…”
“Taking a walk,” Akane finished, wincing with a blush of her own as she noticed a few stubborn blades of grass still stuck to the back of Ranko’s knee-length sweater dress with the last remnants of morning dew.
“Yes, well,” Soun said with a chuckle, slipping the handle of his claw hammer into the pocket of his brown gi pants. “I can imagine for Ranko in particular, being back here must be quite an experience.” He blinked in surprise at the bubbly giggle that flowed from his adopted daughter in reply. Well, she is certainly in a good mood this morning!
“Has anybody showed up yet, Dad,” Akane asked, releasing Ranko’s hand to stretch her arms upward with a little grunt.
“Yes, Toshiaki, he said his name was. He’s waiting in the dojo. He’s quite good, Akane. I was watching him practice for a bit. You’ve done well with him. I’m just so proud of you, you know. Seeing my little girl - my little girls - passing our art to a new generation of students so successfully? It’s everything I could have hoped.”
Ranko blushed deeply at her inclusion in Soun’s little girls declaration. It felt so silly, and yet, so, so sweet. She nodded, resting her head on Akane’s shoulder and looking up at her wife’s face with doe eyes. “Yeah, Akane’s just the best. All of her students know it.” And soon, Dad, we’re gonna prove it to all of Tokyo.
“Alright, you two lovebirds. You better rein that stuff in before the crowds show up, or we’re gonna have the news cameras out here for all the wrong reasons.” Nabiki rubbed her eyes, walking out into the front yard in her orange silk bathrobe with a cup of green tea in her hand. The state of her hair made it abundantly clear she’d just woken despite the fairly late hour. “We need to keep the focus on Daddy’s campaign today, remember?”
She sipped at her tea with a dangerous sneer that both of her younger sisters knew all too well. “Then again, they say there’s no such thing as bad press, so on second thought, knock yourselves out. Ranko, any chance you thought to bring any lingerie?”
Ranko almost fell over, her face aflame as Akane cackled sadistically. In all of Nabiki’s good-natured teasing of the young couple, when it came to the dirty stuff, she never failed to ascribe the feminine role to Ranko, and the way it made her squirm amused the hell out of the singer’s new wife.
Soun blushed as well. “Well, uh, I do, um, think we should start making preparations, do… don’t you, girls?”
Nodding, Ranko turned to her wife. “The demonstration starts at, what, eleven? So, we’ve got just over an hour. We probably should go get changed.”
“What’s this we shit, missy?” Akane grinned. “You’re not gonna be in it.”
“Why not?!” Ranko put her hands on her hips defiantly. “You said you wanted all your students there to help. I’m one of your students. I’m here.”
Akane giggled. “One, because you’re a student instructor, and more importantly, two, because you have to go get all beautiful for a concert at noon, little princess.” She leaned over, poking her wife on the nose.
Ranko gasped in mock shock and disgust, covering her cheeks with her palms. “Akane Tendo! Are you saying I’m not beautiful already?!”
“No! I wo… I wouldn’t! Of course you are! I…” Akane stammered, waving her hands defensively until Ranko’s giggle gave away her tease.
The redhead threw her arms around her lover, snuggling against her shoulder. “I love you too, babe. I suppose I can consign myself to a makeup chair while you go get all rough and tumble with the boys, but let the record show I could kick all their butts even in a dress and heels if I wanted to.”
“You can do anything you set your mind to, in anything you want, Ranko.” Akane giggled, squeezing her around the shoulders from the side. “Or, in nothing at all, if you’d rather.”
“Kasumi!” Nabiki turned back toward the house, her steaming tea still in hand. “Please tell me Tofu’s coming to the thing today! I think I’m gonna be sick…”
Akane rubbed Ranko’s back through her sweater dress, brushing away another stray blade of crisp brown grass. “Do you need help getting ready? I’m afraid I didn’t pack Izumi, but I’m sure Kasumi or somebody could give you a hand with your makeup if you want.”
Ranko blushed. “It’s okay. You did remember to bring Starlight, and she’s great at that sort of thing!” She smiled warmly. How surreal an experience it had been last night, sleeping in Akane’s old bedroom, curled up with her wife and her little stuffed unicorn on the tiny twin bed in the corner that she’d so often tried to pry P-chan out of. More often than not, she had been launched out the window for her trouble. It felt as if she had split her past open and forced it to make space for the wildly different person she was now. Indeed, nearly no trace remained of the rolling disaster that her life had been the last time she had spent a night in Soun Tendo’s home. It felt good to think about.
“I should be able to put together something good enough. I mean, it’s not like I need to worry about catching any boys, now that I’m a married woman and all.”
The black-haired woman rolled her eyes, shaking her head slowly. “I love you, silly girl. Go on, get to it.”
Soun smiled, watching as the bouncy redhead flitted toward the house where she had once lived under his roof as a miserable young man. It’s so good to see her this happy. Both of them, truly.
“Oh, Ranko, by the way! The paperwork you asked for is on the table,” he called after her.
“Kiyah!”
Juro Nakahara winced as his roundhouse kick sailed harmlessly over the head of his classmate Satoru. While it was a friendly spar intended to demonstrate the Anything-Goes Martial Arts style, Sensei Akane had promised that the winner of each sparring match would get two weeks off from conditioning drills, and Juro was not about to lose.
At least, until he did.
Satoru whirled on his backside like a breakdancer, whirling them around his body and clipping Juro’s legs out from under him, sending him sprawling to the grass. A chorus of oooohs came from the hundred or so onlookers standing in a circle around their match as Satoru struck downward with an elbow thrust into Juro’s stomach from a recumbent position alongside him in the grass to secure the victory.
“Yeah! Great job, guys! You both fought great!” Akane clapped loudly for her students, padding across the grass barefoot in her black master’s gi. “So proud of you guys!” As she turned to face the crowd, she had to raise her voice to be heard over the sound of a synthesizer being configured and tested on the amphitheater stage a few hundred meters away. “To finish our demonstration, please welcome our newest student, Shiori Nagata!”
Akane, whatever are you going to show off with a white belt, Soun thought as Akane’s only female student beyond the one she’d married approached the center of the grassy clearing. Shiori bowed to her sensei, and then to Akane’s father, before tightening the cloth belt of her white gi.
The young sensei waved to a man with a green fauxhawk on the stage, and a moment later, the massive speakers surrounding the stage blared to life with a high-energy dance remix of one of the most popular songs of the last year.
“You ignite, and you… You ignite and you… You ignite and you ri-ri-ririririRISE!”
Shioiri stepped forward into the beginnings of a fast-paced kata, whirling her arms around her body in a flurry of punches blended with blocks against phantom blows and more elegant motions more akin to dance than martial arts. Her smile was infectious. I’m really doing it. This is awesome!
She launched herself into a chain of three back handsprings, and as she was upside-down in the air for her second, the rumble of the crowd grew louder. By the time she re-stabilized on her feet, she realized why. She was no longer commanding the little patch of well-manicured grass alone. Across the clearing, about fifty meters from her, stood a red-haired girl in twin pigtails adorned with glittery red ribbons, in a navy blue pleated skirt and a white tee shirt emblazoned with TENDO FOR MAYOR in blue ink atop the outline of the Tendo dojo building. The shirt was cut for a boy, and the excess material around the belly was tied in a knot on her right hip exposing just the slightest sliver of her midriff.
Shiori whipped into a roundhouse kick and Ranko mirrored it identically, spinning into a low sweep in perfect synchronization with her former and future cheerleading squadmate.
With a grunt of exertion, Ranko threw herself into a double somersault, landing less than two meters from the end of her friend’s opposite maneuver.
“RAN-KO! RAN-KO!” came the familiar chant from the crowd, and Ranko frowned at the sound of it. No, guys. This is about the school, not me. She sighed in quiet understanding. This is why Akane didn’t want me to be a part of the demo, I guess. I just wanted people to know I’m still a martial artist. I’m not just the Barbie doll on the stage. With a resigned wave, she jogged wordlessly from the clearing, leaving Shiori to finish her routine alone as she continued her trek to the amphitheater where her band awaited her.
A few moments later, Akane led the crowd in clapping for her newest apprentice as she bowed to the group. “Great job, Shiori! Isn’t she amazing, guys?! Would you believe she’s only been part of our dojo for two months?! Remember, my father Soun Tendo, when he isn’t running to be your next mayor, offers classes right here in town! There’s signup forms on the table over there if anyone’s interested! In the meantime, if you turn your attention to the main stage for our spec…”
“WHAT’S UP, NERIMA?! Damn, it’s good to be home!” Ranko waved to the crowd as onlookers from the various activities filtered their way to the open grassy standing area in front of the amphitheater stage. Out of earshot as she was, the young singer was unaware she’d interrupted her wife.
“Thanks so much for coming out to support my dad, Soun Tendo! You guys are all gonna be super awesome and vote for him next week, right?” She smiled brightly in response to the audience’s loud response of approval.
“That’s great! You really, should, honestly.” She turned to the side of the stage, where Soun sat in a white plastic folding chair waiting to speak after her performance. “He’s strong, kind, and fair. A girl couldn’t ask for a better father, and Nerima couldn’t ask for a better leader. Believe me, I know.” She covered her heart with her hand, bowing slightly with a smile. “I love you, Dad, and I’m so, so grateful I get to be your daughter.”
From her place at the base of the stage, Akane wiped her eyes as a chorus of awwwws rained down around her. She, more than maybe anyone, understood just how deeply the sentiments of gratitude and love ran in Soun Tendo’s adopted child, and how traumatizing her life with her biological father had been in stark contrast.
“Of course, everybody,” Ranko said, turning her attention back to the crowd at large. “If you want to help this amazing man become your mayor, there’s a lot more you can do than just vote. We’re looking for as many volunteers as we can get to knock on doors this week and make sure everybody knows when and how to vote! There’s donation buckets for the campaign fund set up over there at the tables, where my sisters are. And, after the show, anybody making a donation of at least three thousand yen is welcome to come up after the show for a picture and an autograph!” She wiggled three fingers in the air as she spoke to punctuate the number.
Not waiting for the crowd’s cheering to die down, she turned back to Soun. “Hope you’re up for lots of smiling and writing, Dad!” Soun turned to the crowd, mugging a winning grin as he mimed writing with an invisible pen from his seat. Ranko rolled her eyes playfully and shook her head with a beaming grin of her own. “Oh, okay, I suppose I could be in the pictures too, if you really want.” She giggled a bit, adjusting the headset microphone on her head behind her pigtails as it picked up Crash laughing behind her.
“Honestly, it’s still weird to me, people wantin’ my picture and stuff. I was… kind of a private kid growing up, and the thought that people are so interested in me still kinda blows my mind, ya know? Like, I’m just a regular girl!”
You are anything but, Mrs. Tendo, Akane thought with a blush and a smile as Crash’s guitar began to crack through the crowd’s laughter and murmurs.
“I’m just a regular… a simple, regular… a normal, regular gi-i-i-irl…” Emi sung sweetly into her headset, waving to the crowd at stage left.
“I’m just a regular… a simple, regular… a normal, regular girl,” Hitomi repeated as she stalked to the right side of the stage from behind Ranko as Ken’s drums thundered the arrival of the voice the crowd had come to hear.
“I’m just a regular girl! No need to follow me home, just ‘cause I pay my light bill with a microphone! I’m not Janet Jackson! I’m not Paula Abdul! Somebody like me’s never gonna be that cool! So, don’t get upset, but I can’t help but laugh whenever someone asks me for an autograph. I just don’t know how to act like a celebrity; it’s just way too crazy for a regular girl like me!”
As she sang, Ranko punctuated the notes with giggles and shrugs, waving to more than a few people she knew in the crowd, even though most of them didn’t know her back. Most of them had never known a girl named Ranko Tendo grew up in their little city, and found themselves wondering how they’d never noticed someone like her, and why they only seemed to remember Councilman Tendo having three daughters.
“I’m just a regular girl, just like I was before, but now they snap my picture at the grocery store! I’m not Cyndi Lauper, and I’m not Joan Jett. I’m nowhere near that famous! Well, at least, not yet! So, I can’t help but blush and crinkle up my nose when people rush up to me and ask me to pose. They say they can’t believe we’re doing this, and I agree! It’s just way too crazy for a regular girl like me!”
As she sang, Ranko walked the edge of the little stage, reaching down to the crowd and interacting with people wherever she could. She was there to be accessible in order to promote her father’s campaign, after all, and the performance was as much about pressing flesh as it was the music itself – especially since the album the song was a part of wouldn’t even officially release for another few days. She had a few copies of the CD in her purse backstage, reserved in case she ran into someone she knew or the campaign received a truly exceptional donation.
“I’m just a regular… a simple, regular… a normal, regular gi-i-i-irl,” she sang with Emi and Hitomi, shimmying her shoulders with each little note in the run of her syncopated chorus, bouncing around the stage with excitement as she did. She stretched out her tee shirt, still tied in a knot on her right hip to make it fit her form better, to smooth any wrinkles and make sure its message was clearly visible as she pointed to the words for emphasis while staring down the barrel of a middle-aged woman’s Nikon camera.
“I’m just a regular girl. Why are they so impressed? They write whole articles about the way I’m dressed! I’m not Bonnie Tyler. I’m not Chaka Khan. So, why do people care about what I have on? This dress was clean this morning. It’s a pretty blue. They asked me who designed it, and I have no clue!”
She giggled, pointing with her thumb over her shoulder at one of the folding tables to the left side of the stage, where the designer of her shirt was currently accepting donations for their father’s campaign. Of course they put Nabiki in charge of the money, Ranko thought with a grin. Akane for the martial arts demo and me for music, and Kasumi’s in charge of hospitality.
Ranko grinned at her adoptive father. All four of your girls are here for you, Dad. Just like it should be.
“Maybe I’m a little underdressed for VIP? It’s just way too crazy for a regular girl like me!”
She flitted over to the edge of the stage, leaning down and blowing a kiss into the lens of a television camera that was recording her performance for a snippet on the evening news. She waved with a bright grin, making sure the campaign message on her tee shirt was still prominently visible as she did.
“I’m just a regular girl, and I don’t get why they would care at all about the things I have to say. I’m not Stevie Nicks, Gloria Estefan… why would they talk to me when they could have them on? Every single time that I get interviewed, I only answer their questions so I don’t seem rude. Don’t know why you’d wanna hear my whole biography; it’s just way too crazy for a regular girl like me!”
As Hitomi and Emi crisscrossed on stage, repeating the one-line chorus, Ranko ran to the middle of the stage, leaning down and snatching a Polaroid camera from a standing fan in the front row. She turned, sitting cross-legged on the concrete stage with her back to the crowd, giving a wink and a smile and throwing up two fingers in the typical why, yes, I am an idol gesture. She held the camera high above her, pointing it at herself at an angle that would capture the majority of the crowd behind her, and pressed the green button atop the little black device to snap a picture. With another wink and a wave, she handed the camera back to the young man who had been holding it, keeping the film square that had been ejected from it in her hand and waving it in the air to accelerate its development as she bounced back to her feet and continued to sing.
“I’m just a regular girl, and I am still surprised by how much better I look in random strangers’ eyes. I’m not Tina Turner. I’m not Taylor Dayne. When people treat me like it, it still feels insane! People I’ve been friends with for my whole life long aren’t as impressed as folks get when they hear my songs. Sometimes I wish that I could be the girl they think they see, but it’s just way too crazy for a regular girl like me!”
Ranko held up the photograph she’d taken to her face, planting a quick kiss on the white margin under the film frame and leaving an imprint of her hot pink lipstick. She walked over to the edge of the stage again, handing it down to the young blond man in the blue-and-white Furinkan High athletics jacket that she’d taken the camera from. She couldn’t help but giggle as his friends supported the limp fan from behind as he started to fall backward. Look at you, Ranko. Two years removed from being a boy, and the thought of your kisses is making the boys faint.
“I’m just a regular girl, and not in all my plans could I have ever imagined I’d have all these fans!” She pointed with both hands out to the crowd, sweeping her hands across the stage at breast level to indicate the breadth of the gathered revelry while its constituents whooped in self-congratulation.
“I’m not Annie Lennox. I’m not Bonnie Raitt. Have a hard time believing that I’m all that great. Sure, I always hoped, one day, I’d be a star, but it still feels so weird when suddenly, you are! They say that I’ll be almost used to it by album three; right now, it’s way too crazy for a regular girl like me!”
Ranko flitted to the back center of the stage, squeezing Emi’s hand as the pair joined in song. “I’m just a regular… a simple, regular… a normal, regular gi-i-i-irl!” Like Ranko, both backup dancers wore short pleated skirts and Tendo for Mayor tee shirts, though Hitomi and Emi had opted for simple high ponytails for the event, each held in place with sparkly blue ribbons.
Slapping Hitomi’s hand in a high-five as she crossed her on stage, Ranko and her brunette backup singer repeated the single line of the chorus. “I’m just a regular… a simple, regular… a normal, regular girl!”
Ranko flitted over to the edge of the stage, offering Soun her hand and pulling him to his feet. She motioned to him with a smile as the crowd cheered for their preferred candidate, and Ranko leaned into him for a hug as she sang.
“I’m just a regular girl, and I don’t understand why people think I’m special ‘cause I’m in a band! I’m not Whitney Houston or Pat Benetar. I’m not sure how my voice has carried me this far. So, if I seem dazed with people I’ve just met, it’s ‘cause my life’s a dream; don’t wanna wake up yet! I still can’t believe my name is up on that marquee! It’s just way too crazy for a regular girl like me!”
Soun waved to the cheering audience, returning to his seat as Ranko whipped her head over her shoulder to face the audience one last time, the key of the song dropping by a third-octave for the final half-verse.
“I’m just a regular girl, but I have real big dreams, and every day, some more are coming true, it seems! I mean, I’m not Madonna, and I’m sure not Cher…”
She turned to the right, flashing the brightest smile she could possibly exude down at the young woman in the black gi watching from the edge of the stage. She pointed down to the twin kanji screen-printed in blue across her chest, indicating the family name she’d taken as her own. That she’d bled and begged for.
“BUT I AM RANKO TENDO, and I’M GETTING THERE!”
She blushed at the crowd’s roar of approval, singing over the din to complete her last verse.
“Even if I’m flustered, it means everything that you take time to listen when you hear me sing. I just can’t express how grateful I am that you’d be so incredibly supportive of a regular girl like me!”
“RAN-KO! RAN-KO! RAN-KO!” called the ebullient crowd as the four instruments positioned behind Ranko on the little concrete stage of the amphitheater finished their work, leaving her to sing the last line unaccompanied.
“Making music with my friends for you is honestly the greatest thing that’s ever happened to a regular girl like me…”
Ranko waved to the crowd with a bow, waiting for the cheering to die down before speaking. “Thanks, you guys! Man, it means so much to be able to come back here and sing for you, and see everybody I know and so many of you that love and support my dad. I hope everybody’s having a good time today! Don’t forget, if you’re hungry, the Uk-chan’s cart is set up right back there by the pavilion, and ten percent of your purchase today goes to the Tendo for Mayor campaign fund! It’s the best-tasting campaign donation you’ll make all day! Thanks, Ukyo! We love ya!”
A loud whoop of appreciation rose from the crowd for the proprietor of the city’s favorite okonomiyaki cafe.
“You guys know Soun Tendo, and all he’s done for this community. He’s been a part of the city council for years, and he’s been the organizer of the city watch, too. He’s kept you safe from prowlers, wild pandas, all kinds of weird stuff!” Other than the occasional panty raid, of course.
“But, Daddy, I really can’t help but wonder…” Ranko spun quickly to face her adoptive father with a hopeful smile, her twin pigtails and skirt swishing in a pair of parallel arcs behind her. “Do you really think you have what it takes to protect the good people of Nerima from… a demon?”
The crowd erupted as Shinji’s evil cackle rained down on them from the massive speakers overhead.
“Whoa-oh-oh, uh-oh! Look out, look out!”
