"I figure we'll hit the city by noon or so," Akane said, scooping her mint green motorcycle helmet up from the rock on which it rested. "And not a moment too soon. Gods, do I need a shower."
Ranko nodded, but she said nothing. Rather, she busied herself with rolling up the sleeping bag the couple had shared.
Akane whined loudly, stretching her arms skyward. The rocky ground and days of hard riding on a rented dirt bike with worn-out shocks had done her back no favors. "Talk about a changeup, huh? You woke up out here in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere with probably not another soul but me for fifty kilometers in any direction… and in about ten hours, you're gonna sing in a stadium with some twenty thousand people packed in it. Crazy, huh?"
"Yeah," Ranko said quietly as she strapped the rolled sleeping bag to the wire rack mounted over the rear tire of her dusty dirt bike.
Akane frowned, hanging her helmet on the handlebar of her bike. Shielding her eyes from the rising sun with her hand, she approached her wife. She laid a gentle hand on her lover's back, stroking it supportively through Ranko's cotton tee shirt. "Hey. What's wrong, princess? You've barely said five words all morning."
"I'm okay," Ranko insisted, turning to face her partner. "Just… didn't sleep too good. Not used to sleeping on the ground and park benches and stuff anymore, I guess. You and Mama must've spoiled me."
Akane grinned, reaching out and wiping a smudge of dirt from Ranko's cheek. "Yeah, well, you deserve it and more, superstar. I still feel bad you didn't get to use your share of the tour money to live the high life like the rest of the band did - and I promise, I'm not just saying that because I live with you and I'd benefit, too. Just… you put more hard work into this whole thing than any of them, and you started with the least, to boot. So, it's kinda shitty that you didn't get a chance to enjoy the rewards."
Ranko shrugged her shoulders. "I made the choice to save the Phoenix. I don't regret it." Just the price I had to pay to get it, she added in her mind. "I'll get my share next time, when Behind Bars drops. Besides…" Ranko blushed deep crimson, brushing her wildly unkempt red hair from her eyes. "I had just enough cash left over to marry the man of my dreams."
"And it's a good thing, too," Akane said, a chuckle behind her words. "After all, he's just crazy in love with you. He tells me all the time. Won't shut up about it, in fact."
Ranko nodded, an unbidden sigh escaping her lips. She seemed to shrink a bit from Akane's words, romantic though they were. "I hope so. I need him. Now more than ever."
With a quiet grunt, Akane plopped her backside down on a large boulder near the twin motorbikes. She waited patiently for Ranko to make her way to the dying embers of their campfire to retrieve their lone skillet.
Ranko rinsed the pan with the last splash from a plastic water bottle, shaking it out over the ground to remove as much liquid as possible. She approached the bikes to pack it with the rest of their camp supplies, but stopped in her tracks as she felt a hard tug on the back of her jeans. She fell backward, where Akane's waiting arms cradled her and held her tight.
"I see we're back to having to do this again," Akane said, locking her arms around the redhead's slender waist. "You know the drill. You're not moving until you tell me what's on your mind, girl."
"I said it's nothin'!" Ranko dropped the skillet and squirmed in her wife's lap, but she could not free herself. Akane's grip was far too strong. "Lemme go, Akane! We gotta finish packing and get going!"
Akane shrugged her shoulders, not relaxing her grip for a moment to give Ranko an opportunity to attempt an escape. "Eh. We'll leave as soon as you're done telling me whatever is knocking around in that gorgeous head of yours."
"We don't have time for this! Akane, c'mon! The show starts in like, ten hours!" Ranko writhed in Akane's lap, to no avail.
Again, Akane shrugged dismissively. "I have a fair suspicion they won't start the show without you. Worst case scenario, you start a few minutes late, and you have to tell twenty thousand Firebirds you were running behind because you were a bad girl who tried to keep secrets from your wife. I don't know about you, but I can live with that."
"That's the problem, okay?!" Ranko swiveled on her backside to face Akane, a distraught expression painted across her face. "I can't do that. Out here, sure. There's nobody around. But that also means, for a few days, I didn't have to bite my tongue whenever I wanted to say I love you. I didn't have to rehearse twenty reasons I might be blushing that aren't because Akane caught the corner of my eye and it got me thinking about what we did last night again."
Ranko sighed, bowing her head until her forehead rested on her partner's shoulder. Her voice lowered to barely a quavering whisper. "I haven't had a bath in almost a week, I don't have a drop of makeup on, and I don't remember the last time I felt this pretty, because I don't have to look over my shoulder every five minutes to check if anybody saw you smiling at me."
"And as soon as the skyline of Chengdu shows up on the horizon…" Ranko motioned with her hand in a vaguely southeasterly direction. "... that all ends. With the first autograph I sign, the first note I sing… I'm back to being your dirty little secret again."
Akane sighed heavily. She relaxed her iron grip on Ranko's waist, instead wrapping her arms more tenderly around her shoulders. "Oh, baby. I know. Fuck, I know. It's hard for me, but I can't imagine how much harder it is for you. I can at least keep a low profile. Unless I'm on the volleyball court, where nobody is talking to me anyway, the most anybody ever perceives me is when I'm fetching their Dragonfires. Nobody ever asks me my life story. Nobody expects me to sing about every little thing I feel. But you? It's a lot harder to keep a secret when you're constantly getting asked about it."
Akane lowered her head, letting it rest on the top of Ranko's. She breathed deep, both to fuel a sigh, and to bask in the scent of her lover's hair, sweat- and dust-caked though it was. "I would give anything to fix it for you, flower girl. Anything at all. But you should know… even though I have to protect you, and keep my mouth shut, you are not my dirty little secret, whatever that catty bitch that wrote Sneak thinks."
She managed the faintest hint of a smile at her own joke, but her expression quickly turned serious again. "That would mean I am ashamed of you, and I am absolutely, positively not. I am so, so proud to be your wife, and that wouldn't change an iota even if you had never sung a note in your whole life. I need you to know that. I can't live in a world where you don't. If I have left any room to doubt that in your mind, then I am not working hard enough to show you how much I love you and appreciate you, and I'm sorry."
Ranko lifted her head, shaking it emphatically. "It's not that, Akane. You're great. You've always been great, even when I use'ta say you weren't. It's just…" She sighed heavily. "I miss my family, my friends, the stage… but I've caught myself, once or twice on this trip, wishing we didn't have to go home. Wishing I could just stay out here where nobody knows my name and the only thing in the world I have to do is love you. The only thing in the world I have to be is yours. And, more importantly, where nobody has a problem with that."
With a slight nod, Akane stroked her partner's cheek, whisking a dusty tear from her skin with a whisper-soft touch. "I can understand that. But you can't hide out here forever. You're too great. Loved by too many people. The world needs Ranko Tendo."
"Then I wish like hell it could accept Ranko Tendo," the trembling girl in Akane's lap muttered.
"So do I, princess. So do I." Akane bit her lip hard, willing herself to show her dejected lover a strong face. "But you know what you're gonna do?"
Akane lifted the slender redhead from her lap, depositing her gently on her feet. "We are gonna get on those bikes and ride back into the city. You're going to get great big hugs from Crash and the band. You're going to get cleaned up. You're going to put on your makeup and your cute outfits, and your prettiest smile, and you're going to go out on stage tonight. You're going to sing your heart out, and twenty thousand voices are going to scream your name."
Akane turned her gaze down to her dusty sneakers, brushing the pooling tear from the corner of her right eye with her fingertips. "And you're going to close your eyes, and you're going to ignore all but one of them. You're going to listen to the woman who loves you calling your name, in front of all of those people, and you're gonna be proud, even if you can't tell anybody why. You got that, Mrs. Tendo? Can you do that for me tonight?" She turned her eyes back up to meet Ranko's, finding a smile in them again just in the nick of time.
"Akane, if you ask me to, I can fly," Ranko insisted, the first hint of a smile of her own cracking through her melancholy.
Giggling, Akane stood from the rock on which she was seated, stepping forward once. She wrapped Ranko tightly in her arms. "I know. One of the many, many things I love about having married a Phoenix."
Akane swallowed hard, all but crushing the slight songstress in her strong arms. "Ranko Tendo, I love you. I love you more with every breath I take. It doesn't matter that we can't tell everybody. Nobody can take that from you. From us. Nobody."
She cracked a devious smile, removing one hand from the small of Ranko's back. With two fingers, she lifted Ranko's chin until her partner's eyes met hers. "And you know what? Like you said, out here, you and me are everybody. So, out here, we can tell everybody."
Akane took a deep breath, packing her lungs and pulling Ranko tight against her chest. Turning her head away from Ranko's ear, she bellowed four words as loudly as she possibly could.
"I LOVE RANKO TENDO!"
Her shouted words echoed over the foothills, as if every rock and blade of patchy grass were another radio receiving the signal and broadcasting it anew.
"Go ahead," Akane said in response to Ranko's shocked and questioning expression. Her voice was soft and a bit scratchy from the strain to her vocal chords. She nodded in quiet encouragement.
Ranko summoned a full chest of air, as she had done a thousand times to power through a rapid-fire verse of Demon in Your Radio. She released Akane's frame and turned toward the southeast, toward the city. The singer cupped her hands around her mouth to project her voice as far as she could.
"I LOVE AKANE TENDO!" she screamed. She held the last syllable of her lover's name for as long as she could, and the pop star's roar washed over the valley like a hurricane. The songstress winced slightly, as if she suddenly feared that her explosive declaration would actually carry all the way to the heart of Chengdu.
"Feel better?" Akane smiled, handing Ranko another bottle of water. "Drink that. You need to protect your voice, after all."
Ranko nodded, taking the bottle and unscrewing the top. "I guess," she said with a spritely smile. "But nothing else I'm going to say or sing today is going to be anywhere near as important as that was."
"Nice digs," Ranko said, a low whistle punctuating her words as she strode across the polished marble floor.
Akane grinned, pulling the glass door of the hotel's inner lobby open for her partner. "Yeah, well, after a few days out sleeping on rocks, I figured our pop princess could use a little pampering, and told Nabiki to pick us something extra swanky."
Ranko blushed at the possibilities of what Akane could have in mind, even though she knew she'd be checking out early the next day to travel to Xi'an and begin the final leg of the Wildfire Tour in earnest. "If you're not careful, we're gonna have to end up pushing the beds together," she whispered, mindful of the echo in the cavernous, opulent lobby.
"Then it's a good thing Nabiki booked us the king bed suite," Akane whispered in reply. "You're lucky your butt isn't getting dragged into the hot tub."
Ranko grimaced at the thought of hot water, nodding emphatically. "I'll just settle for a comfy bed."
"Now, that, we can arrange," Akane said with a grin, swinging her motorcycle helmet in the direction of the front desk. "C'mon, you. Let's get checked into ou…"
"THERE'S our girl!"
Ranko whipped her head to the right, grinning as she identified the man who had shouted in her direction. She handed her phoenix-styled helmet off to Akane, taking the last few steps at a run and all but tackling Crash Matsuyama in a hug. "Hey, you!"
Crash squeezed her tight, backing off his grip after a moment. Still not sure if she's biting her tongue with that Cat's Tongue thing and not telling me I'm hurting her, he admonished himself. "How was it? You have fun whacking the bushes, or whatever?"
Ranko giggled, stepping back out of the hug and smiling up at the blond man. "It was good, Crash. Real good." She turned and flashed a contented grin in Akane's direction as she spoke.
"I'm glad," Crash replied, tousling Ranko's helmet-matted red hair with his hand. "You deserved a vacation. But it's time to get to work now, girl. You've got some butts to get shaking out here. You still, like, remember all the lyrics and shit, right?"
Laughing, Ranko nodded and turned her attention back to her guitarist and best friend. "I think I'll manage," she promised. "Everybody else get in okay?"
Crash nodded, an easy smile on his lips. "Oh, yeah. Landed late last night. I've got all your bags in my room for ya. Shin and Jake went out looking for snacks and shit for the rooms. The girls are out getting their hair done, and they physically dragged Zo with 'em. Kaz, Ariel and the gang are over at the venue getting set up for tonight."
Akane beamed, watching her wife laugh with her best friend as she turned from the front desk and approached the duo. I knew she'd perk up the second she was back around everybody, she thought.
"And they left you here by yourself?" Ranko flashed her friend a pouting expression painted thick with mock pity. "What did you do to get shunned? Snoring on the plane again? Or worse?!" Ranko gestured to the tall boy, laughing as she turned to Akane. "I swear, I've never met anybody before who farts in his sleep. Poor, poor Ukyo!"
Crash chuckled, running his fingers through his spiky blond hair. "Naaah. I volunteered to stick around and be the welcoming committee for you. And I'm not alone; Lance is around here somewhere. He's taking his new gig seriously: I half thought he was gonna start frisking everybody that was just trying to get to their rooms."
"He'd better," Akane said, her hand brushing the small of Ranko's back for the briefest of moments. "He's responsible for guarding something awfully precious."
The young man nodded in agreement. He gestured over his shoulder with his thumb toward the front door of the hotel, a mirthful sparkle in his eyes. "I was thinking about trying to find someplace to grab a bite around here. You wanna come?" I supposeyou can bring the ball and chain if ya want." He grinned teasingly at Akane as he spoke.
Ranko's stomach growled on cue at the thought of food. "Oh, man, you have no idea how good literally anything I don't have to catch and clean before I can eat it sounds right about now. But, can you give us, like, a half an hour? I desperatelyneed a shower."
The guitarist nodded. "I wasn't gonna say anything, but, yeah, you do. Pretty sure those clothes could stand up without you in 'em at this point. What's your room number? I'll bring your luggage over for ya so you can get all princessed up."
"Five-oh-one," Akane said, dangling the key ring she had just received from the front desk attendant in the air.
"Oooh. Top floor, huh? Fancy! Nabiki put us common folk down on two." Crash chuckled. "Leave your door unlocked. Your bags will be waiting on your bed for you."
Ranko made a show of gasping, covering her gaping mouth with her hands. "Why, sir! Letting yourself into a lady's hotel room? How bold! But what about little old me?! What if some big, strong brute comes looking for some young, innocent girl to attack?!"
A strong, dark-skinned hand gripped Ranko's shoulder from behind. Its owner brought less than ten percent of its maximum force to bear, and it was still painfully tight on the hypersensitive girl's skin. It brought her comfort anyway.
"They can try."