Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Phoenix: Reignited Edition ❯ 2.19: Present, Accounted For ( Chapter 43 )

“Try this!” Ranko slid a trapezoidal paper container across the table to her sister, jabbing her chopsticks into the box. “That's really good!”

Ayako took the chopsticks, scooping a bite of the pork lo mein out of the white takeout container and popping it into her mouth. “Mm!” “I don't know what they did to that, but wow! I knew I should’a got that.” She glanced to her left as she swallowed, grinning a bit and handing her little sister a napkin. “Here. You’ve got something right over here,” she mentioned, gesturing to the left corner of her mouth. 

Blushing, Ranko took the napkin and wiped her face. “Sorry! Hard to be clean when they’re dripping like that.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Ayako said, lowering her voice and widening her smile. “But you wanna be cute when the guys at the next table are checking you out, don’cha?”

Ranko’s eyes widened almost as much as her mouth. “They what?!” She snapped her head to the right, by which time both of the college-aged men at the next table over had averted their eyes. 

Laughing, Ayako shook her head and let her forehead fall into her palm, her elbow resting on the resin tabletop of their two-top in the mall food court. “Good gods, kiddo,” she whispered. “You have absolutely no chill for this kind of stuff, do ya? You’re not supposed to let ‘em know you caught ‘em looking!”

“Well, then they shouldn’t look!” Ranko glanced back at the table, where the two men were clearing their trash. They’re probably haulin’ ass ‘cause we noticed ‘em. She lowered her voice, leaning over the table. “Besides, I’m…” 

“Gay,” Ayako whispered just as her sister finished her sentence with “taken.” 

The redhead swallowed hard, rocking back in her chair. I never thought of it that way. It was always that I liked girls ‘cause I was a dude, but… I’m a girl now. So if I still like girls… I mean, it makes sense, I just never thought about it like that, with that actual word. It makes it so much more complicated. She sighed heavily. Akane’s never gonna be okay with that, even if she does know I used to be a dude. 

Ayako broke her companion’s melancholy with a giggle. “Well, both, I suppose.” She reached across the table, nudging the teenager in the shoulder through her mauve sweater dress. “Don’t look so embarrassed. It’s no big deal. Just ask Yui.” 

Ranko winced. You mean the girl whose girlfriend killed herself when her parents found out? And almost made Yui do the same? She’s the one who’s gonna tell me there’s nothing to worry about? She tried to distract herself with a bite of her lo mein, buying herself a moment to think.

The elder woman must have noticed the consternation in the younger’s face, because she shook her head and smiled even before Ranko could finish chewing. “Look, Ranko. Yui had a bad experience, it’s true. She had about as bad of an experience with it as you can have. But it didn’t scare her off of it. She hasn’t dated anybody since, but it’s not because it’s bad to be… what she is, and what you are. She just works all the time, and like we talked about, she doesn’t really open up to anybody. She’ll find the right girl when she’s ready. We can’t all be as lucky as you, with our soulmates delivering themselves to our doorstep with a bow on their heads.” 

Akane?! My… soulmate?! Ranko almost choked on her noodles. Her face went crimson, and not entirely from the coughing and sputtering. I mean, I can’t deny how I feel when I’m around her. At least, not anymore. 

“I wish I could have known Yui, before,” Ranko said, poking at her food with her disposable bamboo chopsticks. “Before she got so sad, and so closed-off.”

Ayako sat back in her chair, sucking thoughtfully on the plastic straw delivering cold green tea to her lips. “What do you want to know?” 

“Huh?” Ranko blinked in surprise, putting her chopsticks back down in the receptacle.

The black-haired woman grinned. “I said she didn’t talk much, not that she didn’t talk any. And I’m not sworn to secrecy. Well, not about most things, anyway.”

Ranko thought for a moment, trying to choose a question to ask. Yui was rapidly becoming her favorite sister, and also her best friend, and she knew nearly nothing about the woman beyond her age and her name. She wanted to know everything, but knew it was far too much to ask. As she thought, she glanced down at the bags in the chair tucked under the table between her and her sister, containing the Christmas gifts she’d already purchased for Mei and Izumi. “What kinds of things does she like?”

Ayako smiled more softly, giving her sister a gentle nod. “She doesn’t get much into television or movies, or reading either. Rarely has the time. She used to watch rugby on the TVs in the bar, but we started turning ‘em off when the karaoke got more popular. Of course, that was before you showed up, and now nobody wants to sing karaoke, either. Can’t say as I blame ‘em. Who the hell would wanna follow your act?!” The tall woman smirked, tipping her cup in her sister’s direction.

“Does she collect anything?” Ranko asked hopefully. 

“She told me one time that, before she moved out of her parents’ place, she used to have mounds of stuffed animals. They all had names, and she’d talk to them about stuff. She was an only child, before us anyway, and as you might’ve guessed, her parents weren’t exactly the open type. Must’ve been lonely for her.”

The redhead grinned broadly. Explains why she couldn’t stop looking at that giant-ass bear they left me when I got hurt in the bar. It felt good to imagine Yui getting to be so innocent, before the harsh realities of the world had hardened her heart. “I’m surprised. I went over to her place one time; her and Mei invited me over for lunch one day. I didn’t see any in her room at all, I don’t think.”

Nodding sagely, Ayako took another draught of her tea. “She had to leave ‘em all behind when she left home. I offered to get her one, when she first came to us, and nothing really came of it. She always says it’s a silly thing to spend money on. I’m a grown-up now, I’ve got bills and shit, that sorta thing.” 

“Did she, by chance, ever tell you what her favorite was?” Ranko leaned forward hopefully, the gears beginning to turn in her mind. 

With another sharp nod, and a widening smile, Ayako set her empty paper cup on the tabletop. “A dolphin, if memory serves.” 

Ranko rocketed out of her seat, snatching up her mostly-depleted takeout container and both empty drink cups. “C’mon, Aya! We’ve got a mission!” 

* * *

Hauling three large plastic bags over her shoulder, Ranko plodded after Ayako through the center of the mall. After three hours, she was beginning to get tired, but she made no show of it to her elder sister. Can’t have her thinking I don’t appreciate what she’s doing. I’m so glad to be able to do stuff for the girls for Christmas. It broke my heart not to be able to before she offered.

“Okay,” Ayako said, slowing down to let Ranko catch up. She carried a bag of her own, a pair of blue jeans she’d picked up for her husband Kage at the same store where Ranko had bought one for Izumi’s husband Kaito. “How we holding up, kiddo?”

Ranko beamed, looking down at her haul. “Well, we’ve got Yui, Izzi, Mei, Kaito, and Hoshi dealt with. I can’t shop for you while you’re here with me, obviously!” 

The taller woman crinkled her nose and gave a slight shake of her head. “You don’t have to do anything for me.” 

“Yes I do,” Ranko insisted. “I can do at least that much on my own. You’ve made it possible for me to be a part of a real Christmas with a… with our family for the first time, Aya. It’s the least I can do. I know what I’m getting you and Kage, too, I’ll just need to catch a train to a store tomorrow.” 

Shrugging, Ayako nodded. “Alright, if you’re sure. But don’t go too crazy, okay? Kage and I are still struggling to find places in the new place for all the stuff we already have.” 

“Promise!” Ranko agreed, scanning the nearby stores with her eyes as she walked. “So that just leaves Mama.”

Giggling, Ayako raised one eye skeptically down at her sister. “You sure you’re not forgetting anybody?”

Ranko’s eyes roamed over her bags again. “I don’t think so, unless you’re hiding another sister somewhere you haven’t told me about yet,” she replied with a tittering laugh.

“What about Akane?” Aya asked, a devious smirk on her lips. “Wouldn’t wanna wind up in the doghouse already, now, would you?”

The redhead swallowed hard, her cheeks warming until she could swear she felt steam escaping from her ears. “I… I didn’t think w… we were gonna….”

“Of course we are, ya blockhead!” Ayako replied with a chuckle. “If she’s important to you, I want to make sure you can get her something. And if that face is telling me anything, it’s the undeniable fact that that girl is important to you.” She flashed her younger sister a mischievous wink, motioning over her shoulder with her thumb. “There’s a lingerie store over there…”

Ranko choked on her own saliva, her eyes bulging as if all the air in her lungs was trying to escape through her eye sockets at once. “Are you out of your… what?!”

Ayako cackled at her sister’s reaction. “I mean, if you don’t know her size, you at least know yours, right? Maybe we should just focus on wrapping her present.”

“Ayako Jirito!” Ranko’s face could have boiled water - not that she wanted anything to do with boiling water in her current form. “Are you fucking crazy?!” 

“Oh, honey,” Akayo said between mirthful belly laughs. “The look on your face, girl! Seriously, though, if that’s what you wanna do…”

Ranko shook her head vigorously, her eyes still wide. “No way! We aren’t… doing that. I’m not sure if we’re even gonna do that!” I’m not even sure how we would do that! 

“Alright, alright!” Ayako tittered brightly, throwing her arm over the shorter girl’s shoulders and pinning her ponytail to her back with it. “Deep breath, kiddo. I didn’t mean to fluster you. Well, okay, I did, but not, like, in a bad way. We can do something else for her.”

Yeah, but what? Ranko walked a few steps to the center of the aisle between the shops, batting the fluffy ball of her green Santa hat out of her eyes as she read over the backlit directory of stores. It can’t be anything too mushy and scare her off. It can’t be anything too personal, that her dad or Kasumi would figure out about m… us. Nothing too athletic or sporty; don’t want her to think I’m doing the whole ‘uncute tomboy’ thing again. Shit, this is harder than I thought. 

As she pondered the directory of some two hundred businesses, the last few notes of Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree faded from the air, pumped through the vast array of recess-mount speakers dotting the ceiling of the huge enclosed space. Man, they’re really hammering the Christmas stuff in here. I guess it makes people buy more shit. A new song began, the lyrics preceding the first note of instrumentation. 

“I really can’t stay…” 

The redhead grinned, swaying a bit with the music. Less than two days ago, she and Akane had sung the song together in front of a full house at the Phoenix. Ranko had spared her the embarrassment in the second performance, instead replacing Baby, It’s Cold Outside with I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus in the set list. Still, Ranko couldn’t help but replay the few minutes she’d shared with Akane on her stage - the center of her universe - in her mind. She seemed to have so much fun with me… and it made her wanna ki… 

She hid her face in her hands, feeling the warmth of her cheeks in her palms. The butterflies doing loop-the-loops through the nest of lo mein in her stomach showed no signs of stopping. When she looked up from her fingers, though, the spark of an idea lit her ice-blue eyes, and she began looking over the directory with a new intent. There’s gotta be a music store in here somewhere. That’d be something that would tell her exactly how special that night was to me - and nobody would ever guess what it meant or who it was from unless they were in the bar that night. 

* * *

Ranko walked out of the record store, a small pink bag containing a pair of cassettes dangling from her wrist and a smile on her lips. “Alright! Just one to go!” She turned her head to the left, grinning toward Ayako. “What in the actual hell do we do for Mama? I mean, the woman doesn’t even fuckin’ wear clothes. It’s just her jacket, the same two pairs of black jeans and whatever free tee shirts the booze vendors drop off for her.”

Ayako shrugged her shoulders, the remainder of Ranko’s purchases slapping against her hips through her long coat. “I normally get her gift certificates, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the old bat spends ‘em on freakin’ groceries. She’s the no-frills queen of the world, I gotta tell ya. Izzi definitely didn’t get her fabulous streak from her, that’s for sure!”

The redhead nodded furtively. “And I have no idea what she’d need at her place; I’ve never even been there. Can you think of anything?” 

Stopping to pile the several bulky bags she carried on a nearby bench at the center of the main concourse, Ayako shrugged again. “You’ll see it on Christmas; we always do presents at her place on Christmas and then dinner after. But that’s too late. I can’t really think of much, honestly. It’s pretty sparse there too; I mean, she’s hardly ever there except to sleep. Woman practically lives at the bar.” She winced a bit as she took in her sister’s expression. “I didn’t mean anything by…”

“I know,” Ranko said, dismissing Ayako’s concern with a wave of her hand. “I get it. I mean, even her office is so… depressing. It’s a shame. She’s such an amazing person, and she spends all her time in that cave surrounded by old bills and dead plants. She deserves better.” 

Ayako smirked. “Do I detect the hint of an idea forming in that brain of yours?”

Ranko blushed. “Why, is there smoke comin’ outta my ears?” Snickering, she slowly swiveled in place on her feet, looking over the surrounding storefronts. There’s gotta be something…  “Hey,” she called to Ayako just as the elder woman’s backside had made contact with the wooden bench next to Ranko’s bags. “You think there’s room on the wall behind her desk for a picture?” She gestured across the mall’s central thoroughfare to a small shop jammed full of canvas pictures, some framed, some not. “Just something to… I dunno, give it some life in there?”

“Behind her desk, no,” Ayako thought, closing her eyes and picturing the space in her mind. “But behind the couch, maybe, if it wasn’t too huge.”

Nodding, Ranko reached for her bags. “I’m gonna go check out that art store over there. Maybe I can find something. You wanna come, or do you need to chill a minute?”

Ayako sighed, looking down at her heavy, faux fur-lined suede boots. “Yeah, gimme a sec, and I’ll be right behind you. You can leave the bags with me; there’s not a lot of room in there.” 

“Thanks!” Ranko stuffed the bag with Akane’s gifts down into the larger bag containing Mei’s, flitting off in the direction of the shop. She was glad for the form-fitting sweater dress she wore; the aisles were so narrow that she was certain a more loose-fitting skirt would have knocked pictures off of their precarious perches on the racks. On the floor, other canvases stood six and seven deep leaned against the slatted wall, and several other shoppers were slowly flipping through one stack after another to try to browse all of the available options.

What the heck would I even get her a picture of? I mean, all the woman likes is beer. Ranko exhaled heavily, beginning to flip through the first stack. It contained mostly prints of impressionist paintings; reproductions of van Goghs, Monets, and works from other European artists the teenager hadn’t heard of, either. Sheesh. It’s a bar, not a museum. Boooo-ring. 

Letting the wooden frames fall back against the wall with a loud series of clacks, she began thumbing through the second column of placards. This one featured still-lifes of various plants; a bowl of fruit here, a vase of roses there. Ranko thought of the picture above her bed, a purple vase full of vibrant lavender orchids, and it made her smile. But what kinds of plants does Mama like? She has pots for plants in her office, but they’re all crispier than the potato skins we serve. I think there’s cactuses in the Sahara that have gotten water more recently. Resolving herself to keep up on caring for the family matriarch’s plants as long as she lived above the bar, provided Hana ever got any more, Ranko’s search continued. 

The third column of pictures were all photographs printed at poster size and framed under glass. There were two featuring sports cars, one depicting a well-tanned blonde in a skin-tight red swimsuit with an orange bodyboard under her arm, and an aerial photograph of a packed soccer stadium. Well, I found the designated boy section, Ranko thought with a smirk as she flipped past a poster of a dark-skinned boxer standing over a fallen opponent. 

As the frames rattled back against the wall, a brief flash of red and orange caught the corner of her eye as the young couple to her left rifled through the selections. Wait… was that what I thought it was? Ranko waited to delve into the fourth array of canvases, waiting until the pair ahead of her chose a reproduced painting of a cherry blossom tree and made their way toward the register. She skipped over several rows of pictures to reach the one the couple had vacated, ignoring the rolling French countryside in a white frame and the blue frame containing a scene from a rustic Italian kitchen.

Yes. Oh, fuck, yes.

She pulled out a jet-black frame, nearly a meter tall and half that across. It had no glass covering the canvas within. The portrait’s background was a deep red, save for an orangish yellow oval at the center that looked like the sun - or perhaps just a ball of fire. Silhouetted against it was a majestic red phoenix, its wings and beak pointed skyward as it prepared to take off from some perch obscured by its deep red plumage of flame. The firebird looked positively regal, as if it were the most beautiful creature ever to grace the earth, and it knew it. 

Ranko swallowed hard as her eyes rose to the upper right corner of the frame, but before she could read the yellow price sticker she found there, a hand reached out from behind her and covered it with long, feminine fingers. 

“Don’t even worry about it,” Ayako said as Ranko turned to look up at her sister. “It’s perfect.”