“Ethmoid. Tailbone? Wait, no, that’s the coccyx. Lower spine?” 

Akane flipped the blue index card in her hand over, reading the other side and wincing. Fuck, Orbital sockets. Always miss that one! 

She tossed her homemade flashcard to the side on her little desk, letting it spin to rest atop the pile with dozens of others as she leaned back in the wooden chair with a heavy sigh and rubbed her eyes. They were watering something terrible, almost blinding her every few minutes. 

“Hiya!” 

Akane looked up just in time to see a flash of red and white zoom past her bleary eyes to her left. The weight of sixty-eight kilograms crashed down onto her lap as Ranko lifted the skirt of her school pinafore and straddled her wife, the creaking pine chair at the little study desk in the girls’ bedroom groaning quietly in protest of its burden suddenly doubling. Akane barely had time to lower her hands from her eyes before Ranko’s arms pinned her arms to the sides in a tight hug, snuggling her cheek into Akane’s shoulder.

“I love you!”

Akane laughed, rolling her eyes. It never fails. It’s like she can sense when I’m having a bad day, and she just… becomes joy. How does she do that?

“Oh, Ranko, I love you too, silly girl.” Akane pulled her head back so she could face her wife, meeting her lover’s cherry-glossed lips with her own. “I take it somebody had a good day at school?”

Ranko nodded. “Got my precalculus exam back, and I got a four! Almost managed a five, but got tripped up on a couple of the parabolum things.”

Oh, my love. You’re adorable. Akane chuckled quietly, flashing the singer in her lap a bright smile that somehow cracked through the exhaustion and anxiety that permeated the whole of her existence. “That’s amazing, babe. I’m so proud of you.”

The redhead giggled, squeezing Akane tight around the neck again. “Well, in fairness, I think Kumi deserves more of the credit than I do. She helped a lot when I was studying.”

Akane cringed with a little nod. “I know, baby. I’m sorry. I haven’t had much time to help you with your homework lately, and I promised I would.” She adjusted slightly in her chair, as Ranko’s weight pinning her umber corduroy dress to the chair was causing it to pull uncomfortably on the rock-hard muscles at the back of her neck.

“Don’t even start with that. You’ve got more than enough to do with your own school. I’ve got plenty of people to help, between Kumi and Aya. I’ll be fine. Speaking of things to do, though…” 

Ranko reached into the left pocket of her school pinafore, producing a letter. The envelope’s top edge had been torn open in a jagged pattern by an orange gel-glazed fingernail as Ranko ascended the steps - her excitement had not permitted her to wait until she reached the apartment and looked for a letter opener. She waved it in the air over her shoulder, teasing Akane with it. The cool little breeze the envelope produced as it fanned through the air tickled the black hair stuck to her face with the constant stream of thick tears welling from her overtired eyes. It felt nice.

“What’s that,” Akane asked, a curious rise in her tone as the effervescent redhead in her lap bounced with joy. 

Ranko bit her lip coyly. “Oh, nothin’ much. Just a chance to show everybody who the best sensei in Tokyo is.” 

“Wha…?” Akane reached for the envelope, but Ranko pulled it back out of her grasp before reaching into the envelope herself and producing a trifold sheet of white paper. Ranko unfurled the letter, beginning to read to her wife as she bounced happily on her lap.

“Dear Ms. Tendo. One of these days, we’re gonna get them to write Mrs.! You’re a married woman, after all!” Giggling brightly, Ranko continued. “We are pleased to invite your dojo to compete in the 1992 Honshu Mixed-Style Martial Arts Tournament, to be held at the Nippon Budokan on January 4. Enclosed, please find the registration forms for your individual students, which must be returned no later than December 10. We look forward to seeing you at the event, and good luck!”

Akane blinked incredulously, sending another stream of sticky tears running down her cheeks from her burning eyes. “But… What? How? I didn’t apply, and anything-goes martial arts isn’t even a sanctioned style in tournament competition!”

Ranko giggled, wrapping her arms around her wife. “I did, and it is now.” She leaned her head down, kissing Akane’s tear-slick cheek and whispering in her ear, a quiet purr in her voice. “We’d better start training, master.” 

“I don’t… Ranko, I don’t know what to say! How did you even… with everything else, just… how?” Akane wrapped her arms around Ranko’s back, the squirming girl snuggling even tighter into her shoulder as she did.

“Turns out, I can be pretty convincing when I want something. And I wanted the world to know how incredible you and your students are. I wanted them to recognize our art as something real. I wanted your students to know they’re part of something special.” 

Akane chuckled, squeezing her lover tight again. “You are something special, Ranko. I can’t believe you did this! I just… I don’t know what to say! You are just the most supportive, caring, wonderful wife anyone could ever imagine. Do you know that, princess? I love you so, so much.” She felt the heat from Ranko’s cheeks as she spoke, smiling brightly. Akane knew, even after all this time, that effeminate affectations like princess still never failed to make the love of her life squirm uncomfortably in the most wonderful ways, and she simply could not get enough of it. 

“Speaking of being a supportive wife…” Ranko giggled, reaching into her other pocket and producing another torn-open envelope. “December’s check from Yokai came a couple days early. And that means you need to take me shopping, girlfriend.”

Ranko’s laugh was infectious as she bounced on her wife’s lap. “We’ve got so much stuff we’re gonna need for the tour. I’m gonna need more cold-weather clothes, and some of those little books with the sayings in different languages and stuff. What the hell language do they even speak in Malaysia, anyway? I’m probably gonna need to top up on makeup, all that shit. You desperately need a new bathing suit before we hit Hawai’i. I’m thinking something… really skimpy.” Ranko kissed Akane’s neck, receiving almost no reaction as she did. “Plus, we gotta go get our passports, and we should really buy some decent luggage, too. Crash said they tend to tear up the cheap stuff when you put it on airplanes, and the last thing I need is to be chasing your panties all over the runway between concerts.”

Akane sighed heavily, hanging her head. I hate to do this when she’s so excited, but it’s dishonest to keep it from her any longer. She cradled Ranko tight in her arms, standing from her rickety wooden chair and carrying her lover to the bed, sitting her gently at the foot of it. She did not join her wife on the mattress, however.

“Ranko, baby, I need to talk to you about something.” Akane’s voice was hollow, and Ranko sensed it wasn’t just her exhaustion.

The redhead sat up straight on the bed, a mien of concern washing over her face. “Akane, what’s wrong?”

“I…”

Ranko reached out, squeezing Akane’s hand in her own. “Honey, please? You’re scaring me.”

“I’m… not coming with you.” Akane looked down to meet Ranko’s gaze, her heart breaking as she washed the wave of disappointment crashing over her lover’s countenance. 

“But…” Ranko stood, a frantic expression in her eyes. “You said you supported this whole tour thing! I thought you…”

Akane raised her hand to hush her wife. “I do, Ranko. I do. This is absolutely the right thing for you, even though I’m scared to death you’re gonna wear yourself out doing it. But… gods, how to say this? I’m so tied up with school, and your mom is gonna need all the help she can get at the bar with you gone and Yui maybe leaving, and it’ll cost so much extra money for me to travel with you, and… I just can’t, baby girl. I’m so sorry.”

“Akane, I…” Ranko slumped back down onto the bed, fidgeting with her custom-engraved wedding ring on her left hand. “I can’t be apart from you. I can’t survive without you again. I won’t. I’m your wife. I’m supposed to stay with you, always! If you’re not coming, then I’m not going! I’ll tell the guys tomorrow.”

“Yes, you are,” Akane said, sitting next to Ranko on the bed. She rested her left knee on the mattress, swiveling at the waist to face her wife and taking both of her slender hands in her own. “Ranko, I’m sure one day your music is going to make enough money that we don’t have to have any other work or anything, and that would be great to not have to worry about it, but… I still want to have my own things. I want to finish school, and build on the dojo and everything, and I can’t do that if I have to drop my whole life every time you do a show, because you’re gonna do a shitload of shows, baby. Everybody on the planet is gonna want to see you sing. Honestly, I think you want me to have my own things too, even if it doesn’t feel like it right this second. I mean, you getting us into this tournament is proof of that, isn’t it? Besides, you’re allowed to have experiences without me, too. You’re your own woman, Ranko. You’re not just the girl in the band, or the girl at the bar, or the girl I married. You’re you, and you don’t need anybody or anything else to define you.”

Akane reached forward, pulling Ranko into a hug and holding her tight against her chest. She could feel the poor girl shaking as she rubbed her lover’s bare forearm with her palm. “You can do this, Ranko. It’ll only be a couple weeks at a time, and we’ll talk on the phone and stuff. You’ll take lots of pictures, you’ll have fun with the band, and you’ll come home to me afterward and tell me all about it. Who knows, maybe I’ll be able to fly out and catch a show here or there if timing and money work out for it. But I will be so mad at you if you turn down this opportunity because of me, and I don’t think the boys would forgive you, either.”

Akane kissed the top of Ranko’s head through her flame-red hair, rocking her comfortingly in her arms on the bed. “You are going to go take the world by storm, Ranko Tendo. They’re going to be screaming your name all over the globe. You’re going to make me so, so proud, like you always do.” She stroked the redhead’s cheek, wiping away a tear that carried some of the cheerleader’s cheap foundation with it onto Akane’s thumb. “You are going to go out there and show thousands, and thousands, and thousands of people how lucky I am that I’m the one you’re coming home to.”

Ranko sat up, wiping her tears from her eyes with her fingertips. She looked up into her wife’s bloodshot gaze, an almost desperation in her stare. “And, like, you promise, you’re not gonna find somebody better while I’m gone?”

The elder woman laughed, pulling her lover back into a hug. “How many times do I have to tell you? There is nobody better than you, superstar. You’re mine forever. My little flower girl, always. And no matter how far you travel, how many people throw themselves at you on that stage, don’t you ever dare forget it.”

Ranko nodded, biting her lip. “We need to buy some more Tupperware, then, I guess.”

Akane chuckled, releasing her wife from her grasp and looking down into her eyes. “What the heck do you need with Tupperware on an international concert tour?”

The redhead shook her head, nuzzling into Akane’s chest and letting her lover envelop her in the strong arms that, more than any stage, were her safe place. Her home. It was a sensation she could not imagine going a day without. It terrified her.

“I don’t. But if I don’t leave you with a month’s worth of leftovers while I’m gone, you’re gonna starve.”