July 6, 1991
7:41 PM

“Yeah, no. You’re out of your damn mind. You think I’m gonna be able to dance to something like that in this? Kumi, I can’t bend over enough to see my shoes in this dress!” 

Ukyo gave a playful pout. “So, Demon in Your Radio is out, then?” 

Ranko giggled brightly. “More like Demon in a Toothpaste Tube. Izzi’s lucky this thing is so damn pretty, or lemme tell ya…” Her frustration was at least a little real; she’d needed to visit the restroom for the better part of half an hour, and hadn’t quite figured out the logistics of how she would go about doing that without asking for some help. 

As she laughed, Nanami and Mitsuru approached her, and Ranko gave them an excited wave, exaggerated mostly for Mitsuru’s benefit. “Hey, Ran-chan,” Nanami began, signing the words as she spoke them so Mitsuru could follow along in the conversation. “You seem to have misplaced something.”

“Huh?” Ranko’s eyes darted immediately to her hand. Thank the gods, my ring’s still there. She patted at several parts of her dress, trying to figure out what she could have mislaid. “Okay, I’ll bite. What did I lose?”

Mitsuru answered Nanami’s translation with a motion of her hands. While Ranko only knew the barest minimum of sign vocabulary, owing to having helped Akane practice for a test or two, that was a sign she could never forget. It was representative of her new wife’s name. 

Ranko craned her neck, looking around with a shrug. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen her in about twenty minutes. Nabiki or Kasumi either, come to think of it.” They’re probably in the bathroom helping her with the same problem I’m having. Nanami turned and gesticulated in translation for her girlfriend as Ranko continued. “I’m sure she’ll turn up. I don’t think I’ve done anything to run her off just yet. It’s only been a few hours.”

Turning as she felt a hand on her shoulder, Ranko smiled at Ken and his boyfriend Ryo. “Hey, guys! What do you think of the party? Ryo, Akane and I are so glad you came. I’ve been on Ken’s ass to bring you around more for ages.” 

Ranko’s eyes snapped to one of the booths at the front of the bar at the sound of a loud squeal. Seated at the table were Yui, Hana, Ayako and Kage. The hell?

“Yeah, well,” Ryo said. “You know how it is. I’m even shyer than he is sometimes, and…” Ranko nodded, not needing him to finish his sentence. The young men had not come out to nearly anyone in their lives outside of the band, so the need to keep their relationship behind closed doors was strong. Ranko knew better than anyone how it felt; she’d written a whole hit song about how much it hurt once. 

A tap came on Ranko’s other shoulder, and she whirled around to meet it, her skirts swishing around her legs. “Oh, hey, Kasumi. We were just lookin’ for you girls! Everything okay?”

The eldest of the Tendo sisters nodded with her trademark motherly smile. “Everything’s wonderful. Akane needs to see you upstairs, honey, if we can pull you away for a moment.”

Ranko nodded. “Sure thing! I’ll be right there!” She giggled, turning back to the boys with a laugh and a shrug as Kasumi headed behind the bar and into the kitchen. “Sorry about that, guys. Marriage, right? You know how it is. When the wife says jump…”

Both young men laughed, and Ryo answered. “And that’s how you know it’s gonna last. She’s already trained.” Ken gave the bride a little wave. “Well, don’t keep her waiting. We just wanted to say good night. I’m not feeling too great, so I think we’re gonna call it an early evening if that’s cool. Give our love to Akane, would ya?”

“Sure! Sorry you’re feeling rough, bud. Feel better! At least you can relax; you don’t have any gigs for a few days.” She blushed. “After all, your lead singer’s gonna be on her honeymoon.” Ranko still couldn’t believe the trip was happening at all; Ayako and Kage had surprised them with a two-night stay at a hotel on Miura Beach at their bridal shower. Without it, they’d have been lucky to swing a honeymoon to the grocery store, as they’d used nearly every yen they had to finish the wedding preparations. If not for the surprise of an extra few thousand on both Akane and Ranko’s most recent paychecks as a “bonus”, they’d have really been stuck. Hana was determined to help if she could, and it was the only way she could think to do so that spared their pride given that they had refused to ask.

As Ken and Ryo headed for the exit, Ranko turned and made her way between the two bars. She swung open the blue saloon door, which she had been hurled through barely twelve hours prior. She felt like she’d lived a lifetime since then. Rounding the corner in the hallway to her right, Ranko ascended the stairway. She knocked twice on the door of the apartment that had once been her home, and heard her wife calling for her to enter. So, she did.

It took Ranko a moment to adjust to the scene. Admittedly, she had been kind of hoping Akane was trying to sneak her up to the little bedroom to get a head start on their honeymoon. Ranko had no idea how she’d have kept that particular activity a secret from everyone downstairs, given how… not subtle it tended to be. Instead of being alone in the little studio apartment with Akane, however, she found herself in the company of Akane’s father and all three of his daughters. Akane stood near the middle of the room, Kasumi and Nabiki were seated on the bed next to each other, and Soun was standing in the kitchenette behind the dinette table. The table had been cleared of Izumi’s mobile salon, and all that rested on the tabletop now was a closed manila file folder and a black disposable ballpoint pen.

“Um, hey, everybody.” Ranko waved nervously, both in confusion as to what was happening, and in awkward adjustment as her body came to terms with the fact that what it had been screaming for all evening was not what was happening. Not yet, anyway. “What’s going on? This is… kinda weird.”

Soun motioned her closer with a smile. “Ranko, come here, honey. We want to talk to you about something.”

Ranko shot her bride a look that clearly read am I in trouble? Her nonverbal plea for help ignored, she reached the side of the table opposite Soun. “What’s this?” She started to reach for the folder. 

“Well, you see, Ranko, it’s, uh…” 

Her curiosity not willing to wait any longer for Soun’s nervous stammering, she flipped the folder open. Inside were several pages of paper, with small print and boxes to fill things in. It looked like something halfway between the contracts she’d signed at the record company, and any number of forms she’d had to fill out at school. But her jaw dropped when her eyes finally made it to the top of the paper, and she read the bold header aloud incredulously. 

“Certificate of adoption? What the heck is this?” Ranko’s eyes looked to her wife’s for answers, clearly befuddled by the whole situation. Beyond being confused, she was starting to feel more than a little defensive. She took two quick steps back away from the table as if she expected the white photocopied form to bite her.

Soun smiled broadly, finding it easier to speak now that the subject had been broached. “Ranko, I told you some time ago that I would like it if you called me father, and that feeling is even stronger now. But, as I’ve thought about it, I realized that wasn’t enough. I want you to know that you have a place in our family right alongside your sisters and Akane.”

Ranko spun around to Akane again, almost frantically. “Did you know about this? I am so damn confused right now, Akane.”

It wasn’t Akane that answered, but Nabiki. “So, here’s the thing, Ranko. We’ve always known you and Akane couldn’t make this thing legal, what with you both being girls and all. But this, you can do. It’s actually what a lot of girls in your situation do in lieu of a marriage license. It would make you legally part of our family.”

“But… I don’t need that. I mean, I’ve got a mom and four sisters and none of them are officially related to me, either. Akane, how does this not creep you out? I mean, you’d be sleeping with your sister. Like, ew!” Ranko gesticulated wildly as she spoke, not for the life of her understanding why Soun and Akane had felt the need to surprise her with something like this, today of all days. Hadn’t she had enough upheaval for one day?

Kasumi smiled, reaching up and taking Ranko’s hand without quitting her seat on the bed. “Just like you said, Ranko. What’s on the paperwork doesn’t always match reality. Just as you can decide Yui is your sister regardless of what the government says, you can decide Akane isn’t. So, if it doesn’t impact the way you behave, there’s no reason not to do what helps you the most in other ways.”

“Besides,” Nabiki added, cocking her head to the side confidently. “What better cover story could you have? If the wrong people start asking why you live with Akane, or why you two are hugging and holding hands in public, they’ll look pretty foolish when they go digging and the paper trail says you’re sisters. That kinda stuff is perfectly normal for sisters. Maybe take it a little easy on the tongue, but…”

Akane took Ranko’s other hand, and Ranko turned her head to face her. She needed an explanation, and fast. 

“Ranko, I don’t think you’re considering what this means beyond what’s in front of you. You’re right, we probably shouldn’t have surprised you with this, and I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure we could pull it off until just a day or two ago, and I didn’t want to get your hopes up until we were a hundred percent clear on all the rules and stuff. Nabiki’s been working overtime to put this together for us. Yes, this technically would make you one of our sisters, but more importantly than that, it would put you on the official Tendo family registry, just like Kasumi, Nabiki and me.”

Akane took her bride’s other hand, which Kasumi had released. “It would be just like you were born as Ranko Tendo. The records for adoptions are sealed, so nobody could ever tell otherwise unless you told them. You wouldn’t be a ghost anymore, Ranko. Nobody could ever, ever challenge your identity again. You could leave all that uncertainty behind you and come out of the shadows. You could get a passport. You could buy property.” She tightened her grip on Ranko’s hands hopefully. “You could go to college, baby. No more embarrassment. No more awkward questions. No more limitations.”

The room spun a little, and Ranko eyed one of the chairs at the dinette table before deciding it was too difficult to risk sitting down in her dress. She leaned on the back of it instead, looking up at Soun incredulously. “You… you would do that for me? Like, calling you Father and stuff, sure, but the official Tendo family line? That’s like hundreds of years of your history you’d be screwing with in order to lie for me. How could you possibly want to…”

“I told you, Ranko,” Soun said, putting his hand up to pause her mid-sentence. “When future generations of Tendos read about their history after I am long gone, I would have them learn that Soun Tendo was a man who was unendingly proud of all four of his daughters. That is not a lie. Omitting it from history would be, though.”

Ranko peered over at the paperwork again, her shock having subsided enough to actually process what it said. Sure enough, the second section was clearly labeled Amendment to Official Family Registry. 

“So, I just sign this, and…”

Kasumi walked up behind Ranko, leaning on her shoulder gently. “And you’re a Tendo. One of us, little sister. Forever.” She stepped back again as Ranko started to turn in place, glancing over at Nabiki. She received a grin and a slow nod in approval. 

Akane stepped closer to her wife, hugging her forearm with both of her arms. “I want us to be a family, Ranko. It’s a little bit of a strange way to get there, I know, but I don’t care about that if you don’t.”

Her left hand trembled as she reached for the ballpoint pen on the table. “And you’re all sure about this?”

“Just sign the damn thing, Ranko!” Nabiki laughed. “I’m missing valuable open bar time over here.”

Ranko looked down at the bottom line of the form. The label in the little box read Legal Adopted Name, and underneath it, the smaller instructional text said This is the adoptee’s name as it will appear on the family registry. She smiled hopefully. Can I actually…

She began to write in the box, and Akane eyed her curiously as she did. She didn’t recognize what Ranko was writing, and she certainly knew her new wife’s name. But her confusion gave way to a warm smile as she understood what Ranko had done. Instead of writing the pair of kanji for wild girl to spell out the name she had given herself, as she had long regretted doing in a panic on her first day at the Phoenix, she had written orchid girl. It could still be pronounced as Ranko, but it was a more feminine version of the name.

Ranko stepped back away from the paperwork, dropping the pen on the table as if she’d had the wind knocked out of her. In the stiff corset she was stuffed in, that would have been quite the feat. So much of her life had been upended for the better today, she had barely had time to process one monumental change before the next had come. 

That’s it. I’m… a Tendo. For real. Forever. Nobody can ever take it away from me. I’m not a lie anymore. I’m not a fake anymore. I’m not a Saotome anymore. I’m not a boy anymore. And I never will be again. My name is Ranko Tendo. I am Akane Tendo’s wife.

I was reborn today. 

Soun took a step around the table. “How do you feel?”

Ranko took two slow, tentative steps toward him, but took the last two at almost a run, crashing into him hard enough to knock him back against the kitchenette counter as she hugged him around the ribs. “Thank you… Dad. I love you.”

“You are most welcome, Ranko Tendo. I love you, too.” Soun squeezed her back around the shoulders, and Ranko held him there for nearly thirty full seconds before finally letting him go. 

Soun turned back to the countertop, retrieving two boxes from it. One of them was a long wooden case, almost half a meter across, and the other was a brown plastic container with a clasp on one side of the hinged lid. “Ranko, dear, there’s one thing I’d like you to do for me.”

“Yes?” If Soun had asked her to run face-first through a brick wall, she’d have done it in that moment or died trying.

Soun opened the hinged lid of the long wooden case facing himself, removing two long poles connected by paper that had turned a tea-colored brown with age. The scroll had to be four or five hundred years old at least, Ranko thought. She had never seen the artifact before, but there was only one thing it could be.

Soun pulled the two poles apart, exposing a small part of the length of the massive ancestral scroll between them. The bottom pole still had almost a meter of blank paper wrapped around it, space for future generations to come after. The first row of the scroll staring up at Ranko listed Akane’s grandparents alongside Soun’s two aunts, the year each were born, the year they married, and the year each of them died. 

The next row was far more familiar to Ranko. Under the names of Akane’s grandparents, it read Soun, born 1938, and there was a horizontal line a few centimeters to the right where it met another name on the same line: Rumiko, born 1941, died 1976. Centered over the line connecting their names, the word married was written, along with a date of 1966. 

The last row of the scroll, Ranko knew by heart without seeing it: Kasumi, born 1968. Nabiki, born 1970. Akane, born 1971.

Soun popped open the brown plastic box, revealing a small vial of blank ink and a calligraphy brush. He unscrewed the cap from the ink bottle, offering the brush to Ranko. “Would you mind?”

Ranko waved her hands in front of herself. “Oh, gods, no! That’s like, ancient. I can’t write on that thing! What if I mess it up?”

Soun smiled. “The only value of records, however old they may be, is to preserve the truth. Which means this old scroll is worthless. It seems to be missing one of my daughters.” He extended the little bamboo brush to her again, and she took it, looking at it with a reverence like she’d just drawn King Arthur’s sword from the stone.

Akane rested her hand supportively on her wife’s shoulder as she dipped the brush into the ink with a trembling left hand. In the very best calligraphy she could manage, she slowly and carefully wrote just to the right of Akane’s name: Ranko, born 1971. She used the new kanji she’d chosen, just as she had on the adoption form. She desperately wished she could draw that married line between her name and Akane’s, but she’d left enough blank space for one. Maybe one day, we can add it, Ranko hoped. 

Ranko put the brush down on the damp little sponge in the calligraphy kit, turning to Akane and exhaling heavily. “Holy shit, that just happened.”

Akane giggled, curling her finger in Ranko’s direction. “Get over here and kiss me, little sister.” 

Sticking out her tongue and crinkling her face, Ranko shook her head. “Okay, don’t ever say that again. That’s just… eugh.” She made a show of shuddering her entire upper body in exaggerated disgust. She did grant the kiss, however, and when it ended, Ranko motioned to the scroll with her neck. “With both of us born in the same year, future generations are gonna think we were twins.”

Akane plucked at the fabric of Ranko’s wedding dress with her fingers. “Well, we do kind of dress alike!” She reached in to hug Ranko, and Nabiki and Kasumi stood from the bed and joined. For the first time, all four of Soun Tendo’s daughters embraced as one. 

“Well,” Soun said, leaving their family scroll open on the table to allow the ink to dry. “We should probably head back downstairs. You have guests waiting. And besides…” He grinned proudly at Ranko and Akane, who were holding hands looking up at him.

“It’s tradition that a bride shares a dance with her father on her wedding day, and it would seem that I’m owed two.”