In the control booth of the darkened baseball stadium, Masaki Tabata slumped back into his chair, relaxing for the first time in nearly ten minutes. He switched off his headset, sighing heavily.
"Okay, Dragons," Ariel announced after flicking the switches required to resume routing his audio into the headsets of the performers as well as the crew. "Bringing the catwalk down in three. Two. One."
Ranko gripped the railing, steadying her footing on the metal platform as it began to descend. As soon as it contacted the stage floor, Ranko vaulted over the waist-high railing in her sparkling dress, grateful for the compression shorts she wore under it to protect her modesty even in the dark. Hitomi and Emi set about disconnecting each others' safety harnesses. They had to do it mostly by feel, but the couple had never exactly been shy about letting their hands explore each other's bodies.
"Swapping out the middle tanks," Kazuki announced, grunting with effort into the boom microphone of his headset as he turned the gasket connecting the large fuel tank under the stage floor to the first in the chain of jets with a wrench.
Ranko felt a tap on her shoulder and turned, smiling at Utaru. "My hero," she cooed, reaching for the pair of sparkling heels in his hand. They were an identical match for the pair she currently wore, but without the sloshing few milliliters of ethanol remaining in each of the heels, and minus the unwieldy sparkwheels that bit painfully into the soles of her feet with every step. She reached down, unstrapping her right shoe and handing it to the young man before sliding her foot into its replacement.
Ranko gratefully accepted the water bottle Sanyo handed her, finding that he had already removed its cap. Between her chapping lips and the intensity with which she had been singing, she was thoroughly parched.
Once all of the performers were clear of the catwalk, Ariel again commanded the winches to stow it safely amongst the labyrinth of trusses suspended high above the stage.
"Hey," Hitomi said, grabbing Emi's wrist in the shadowed back corner of the stage. "C'mere, you." She yanked hard, pulling the taller girl behind the black drape at the right edge of the stage. "Don't think I didn't notice where your hand went, girlfriend." Giggling, she rocked forward onto her tiptoes, planting a quick kiss on her partner's cheek.
"And, closing the center emitter covers." Ariel reached to his left, flicking each of the nine toggle switches back to their up position. "Ladies, I'd tell you to get a room, but I'm sure Ranko would prefer that you actually finish the show first," Ariel said, chuckling into his microphone back in the Dragons' command center high above the center field bleachers. "Or at least turn your damn comms off."
Blushing, Emi hid her face with her hand, for all the good it did her in the dark. "Sorry, Ari," she said with a giggle. "At least we weren't hot to the whole stadium!" She swallowed hard. "Were we?"
"Thankfully not," Ariel said. "Kondo would have a fucking stroke."
A new voice entered the Dragons' tech lead's ear, punctuated with a dark chuckle. "In that case, maybe ya ought to let them."
"We can dream, Ran-chan," Crash replied. "Alright, it's been almost forty seconds since lights out, gang. Dial it in."
A loud groan rang out in Crash's ear in response. "Yes, dad," Hitomi moaned, giggling as she did.
"Really?!" Shinji rolled his eyes, shaking his head in disbelief as he walked past the brunette carrying his saxophone. "Him, you'll call daddy, huh?"
Emi could only smirk and offer a spritely shrug in reply to the couple's on-again, off-again carnal third wheel. Hitomi was too busy cackling to respond at all.
"Right tank's changed," Kaz reported. "On my way to do the one on the left, and then after that, if I need to come up and sing to get the show back on track, just let me know."
Ranko glanced down at her newly-replaced heels, ensuring they were on their proper mark at center stage. "I think I can handle it, Kaz. C'mon, Dragons, let's bring the noise."
"But, we aren't doing Noise in this set! I got outvoted!" Hitomi harrumphed, smirking mischievously at her friend before scurrying off to take her position next to Utaru at stage right. The male dancers had both changed into skin-tight cerulean tee shirts and white jeans. Izumi's intent when designing the look was to invoke fire and ice when contrasted with the flamelike layers of orange and red that comprised Emi and Hitomi's dresses.
Utaru picked at his shirt, trying in vain to stretch it a little bit. I hate this thing. I look so friggin' scrawny in it next to Sanyo, he thought, sighing to himself. Should've taken Lance up on his offer to go to the gym in the mornings. Dude's built like a brick shithouse; I'm sure he could have gotten me bulked up by the end of the tour.
"Okay, gang. Lights coming up in three. Two."
Ariel's one count was silent, but two beats after he had spoken, the stage was bathed in white light, revealing the performers to the crowd again for the first time in nearly a minute. The audience - a few of whom had begun to worry that the show was already over - roared with approval at the reappearance of the full complement of Dapper Dragons, permanent and temporary.
"Whew!" Ranko made a show of wiping her forehead with the back of her right wrist, not actually touching her skin for fear of smudging her makeup more than her cold sweat already threatened to do. "Sorry about that, everybody! We needed a second to cool off up here! How about you guys? You feeling fired up yet?!"
"RAN-KO! RAN-KO! RAN-KO!" replied thousands of South Koreans in a unified, chanted response. Many were on their feet, even in the upper decks surrounding the outfield of the Olympic baseball stadium.
Ranko beamed, waving to them with a shake of her head. That's enough, guys, we're already running behind, she thought. "I'll take that as a yes." Laughing, she made her way to the front of the stage, stalking it from right to left. Oh man, it feels good to be out of those damn shoes, she mused with a quiet sigh of relief. It's like wearing galoshes full of friggin' quicksand.
"So," Ranko said, sighing a bit as she willed herself back on script. "There's been a lot going on for me. I don't know if you all get the fan newsletter, but in case your tabloid subscriptions all expired… I recently got married." She lifted her left hand, wiggling her fingers so the white can lights beaming at her from every direction could sparkle through the diamond solitaire mounted to the custom-engraved silver wrap Akane had slipped onto her finger at their marriage altar.
Twice.
Yeah, I doubt you'd be cheering if you knew who I married, Ranko thought, biting the insides of her cheeks to punish herself for risking a frown.
"It wasn't supposed to happen like this," Ranko explained, carefully sticking to the phrasing she had rehearsed in preparation for the change to the set list for the third and final leg of the Wildfire Tour. It had been vetted by Amaya and Nabiki both, and the slightest improvised deviation could risk exposure of a secret that could doom her career and her entire public persona.
"The thing about it is, sometimes, love doesn't actually give a shit about your plans."
"Hmm-mm-mm-mm-mm," Emi hummed, beginning to sway in place. She pinched at the skirt of her orange-red dress, swaying it playfully around her legs. It was a jaunty tune, reminiscent of any number of American rock n' roll bops from the 1950s, and her choreography was crafted to match.
"I mean," Ranko said, shrugging in exaggerated resignation. "What's a girl supposed to do?!"
"Hmm-mm-mm-mm-mm," Hitomi echoed, joined by Emi and Shinji for a fuller sound.
Ranko hung her head as the scripted choreography dictated, but the light in her eyes began to return. Don't focus on what you can't say, Ranko. Focus on what you have. It's better to not tell them about Akane, then to not have her at all. Remember how it felt to sing this to her in your wedding dress, and fuck Kondo and all the other bullshit that goes with him.
"It's not my fault," Ranko insisted. "I tried to resist." I really did. Thank the gods she didn't let me.
"Hmm-mm-mm-mm-mm," came the chorus of playful a cappella voices, now numbering five thanks to the additions of Zoe and Crash.
"... For a while, anyway." Ranko winked to the crowd, a winsome smile widening across her cheeks.
"Hmm-mm-mm, mm-mm-mmmmm…" Ranko hummed, finally joining in on the rhythm with her friends. She sprung from her stationary position at center stage, almost skipping toward the front edge of the stage. She put a slight twist of her waist into every step, commanding her flared sequined skirt to dance playfully about her hips as she rushed forward into the performance proper. Behind her, the video backdrop featured a very shy-looking Ranko Tendo in a lavender sundress carrying a tray full of beer bottles through the Phoenix on a round corkboard tray.
As Ranko opened her mouth to sing, Hitomi and Emi both launched skyward at the left and right edges of the stage, tossed into twisting aerial pirouettes by their male dance partners.
"You were off to college, hmm-mm-mm, and we were just eighteen," Ranko sang, bopping across the stage with a newly-rediscovered spring in her step. "You waited 'til you saw my mother busy with somethin' or other; said we wouldn't be seen."
The fifties-styled bop came to full life with the introduction of Shinji's baritone saxophone. He swayed side to side as he played, slightly dipping his shoulders into every note. For his brief sojourn into the spotlight, he had donned a pair of dark black sunglasses, which when combined with his slicked-back black hair and his leather jacket, made him look as if he would fit right in with the T-Birds in a stage production of Grease. He turned to his right, leaning back until his shoulders made contact with those of his best friend, whose nimble fingers began to dance over the six strings of his red lacquered electric guitar.
"I figured, no-o-ow or never," Ranko continued, skipping between the two "couples" flanking her as they performed a modified jitterbug along with the bouncy beat. "Whoa-ho, ho! I wasn't sure what I'd mi-i-i-iss."
On the video screen behind her, the waitress-mode Ranko blushed, ducking behind the blue slatted saloon door leading into the kitchen of the Phoenix. A man in a dark sport coat and black skinny jeans, his back to the camera, stood watching her as the camera panned from left to right across his shoulders. After a moment, Ranko peeked out from around the corner at him, a shy grin on her lips.
"But I thought, aww, what the hell? I won't squeal! I won't tell! It's only this o-one ki-i-i-iss…" Ranko wagged a solitary index finger in the air, letting her dreamy smile fade into a stern, stoic expression. She turned her wrist forward, her outstretched finger's connotation changing from denoting the number one to a gesture of admonishment.
"But it was just this once!"
"Just this once," Emi and Hitomi echoed, standing in stone-faced superhero poses with their feet spread apart, fists on their hips. Both girls' faces brightened into gasps of exaggerated shock as they were lifted by the waists from behind, spun into the waiting arms of their dance partners.
"It was a one-time deal!" Ranko insisted in song, waving her hands in front of herself in fervent denial. Her face was positively aglow, her blue eyes sparkling in the bright stage lighting even more than her white sequined dress did.
"I didn't think I would love it, but that's quite enough of it! Babe, we gotta be re-e-e-eeeal!"
Ranko turned her back to the crowd, walking toward center stage as if fleeing the conversation. The Ranko on the video screen, however, fell onto her back on the plush purple duvet cover dressing the bed Yui and Hana had offered her a week before her eighteenth birthday, in the tiny studio apartment above the Phoenix's kitchen. She covered her face with a pastel lavender pillow, kicking her bare feet up and down over the edge of the bed in excitement.
"Gotta be real," Emi sang, putting her hand stiffly on Ranko's shoulder and wagging a finger in her face like a mother disciplining an unruly child. She emitted a sharp eep as Sanyo grabbed her wrist, yanking her backward into a twirl and resuming the jitterbug with her.
"I mean, I guess if I'm being honest, when the mood just snuck up on us, I'll admit, I didn't want it to e-e-end! Oh, but it was just this once, and we're…"
"... NOT…" sang all three girls in unison, freezing in place mid-dance step for the one beat it took to utter the English word.
"... doin' this a-a-gain!" Ranko belted alone, resuming her skipping tour of the front third of the stage.
Hitomi and Emi rushed up to the front edge of the stage, holding their outstretched right arms palms out in front of themselves. Their elbows locked in place, each of Ranko's backup singers swayed their bodies side to side behind them, playing with their skirts with their left hands and dipping their shoulders into the rhythm like a girl group from the heart of Motown. "Na-na, na-na-naaa…" they vocalized.
"Look, I can't, alright?!" Ranko rolled her eyes, stomping her foot defiantly on the stage floor.
"Na-na, na-na-na-a-a-a-ah," Emi and Hitomi crooned on the wings of the stage.
Ranko sighed, slumping her shoulders. "It's not gonna happen!"
"Na-na, na-na, na!" Emi and Hitomi sang, this time in a higher register, as they met at center stage.
Ranko turned to face the girls, gesticulating wildly with her hands as if pleading her case. "We're just friends, okay?!"
With their heads shaking side to side in perfectly synchronized denial, Hitomi and Emi finished the vocalized chorus together. "Na-na, na, na-na, na-a-a-a-ah!"Both of their jaws fell slack. They emitted surprised "Oooh!" exclamations that would not have been out of place in a Betty Boop serial as Utaru and Sanyo gripped their hips from behind, lifting them effortlessly off of their feet and pulling them back into the dance, ostensibly against their will.
On the video screen behind the performers, Ranko, now wearing the hot pink bodycon dress she had once donned for the impromptu debut performance of Sneak, bopped behind a dynamic microphone on a metal stand on the stage she called home back at the Phoenix. The Ranko that patrolled the stage in glittery white frowned for the briefest of moments as the screen caught her eye, reminding her that the platform on which she had launched her career - and indeed, her new life - would not be there upon her return to Minato. It had been removed to make way for Club Firebird, her family's new live music venture. An upgrade, to be sure, but Ranko could not help but feel a pang of nostalgia every time she thought about it.
The Ranko on the video screen blushed coyly, brushing her wavy red hair behind her ear. The camera, situated about a third of the way back in the bar room in a crowd of concertgoers, panned to the left, revealing the cause of Ranko's reaction - the same man, again, his back to the camera.
"I tried to keep my distance," Ranko sang, letting her arms fall limply to her sides in resignation.
"Mm-mm-mm," Emi and Hitomi punctuated, both being dipped backward in the arms of their dance partners. Emi's long blonde hair nearly reached the stage floor as she arched her back over Sanyo's muscular biceps.
"But, I could tell you were cru-u-u-shing."
Ranko closed her eyes, fixating her memory on Akane. In her mind's eye, her wife walked up behind her as Ranko conversed with Yui and Mei. Akane's hand snaked its way up the back of the short denim skirt the singer wore, taking a firm handful of her backside.
It never fails, Ranko thought, grinning as she felt her cheeks begin to warm despite the December chill. Whenever I need to force myself to…
"Gave me an eyeball caress in my new pink minidress, and I just couldn't stop blushing!"
Emi, who had only just "freed herself" from Sanyo's grip, leaned into Hitomii's side. She patted her girlfriend's belly as if trying to get her attention, pointing with two fingers toward the band's lead singer. "Look at her, she's blushing!" she sang in an almost mocking tone.
"Soon as you got me a-LO-o-o-one…"Ranko belted, throwing her head back and shaking it gently to let her hair cascade over her back. "... you put your hands on me-e-e-e-e!"
Both of the male dancers stalked up behind her at center stage, each grabbing one of her arms. The pair lifted her off of her feet, starting to carry her back toward the band. She kicked her feet, pretending to struggle as she was hauled away from the crowd.
"Must've been outta my head, because we wound up in bed!" Ranko sang as she was carried.
The two men stopped suddenly, as both found the wrists of their free arms being tugged on by their respective dance partners. Each girl looked up at her partner with a pleading expression, clutching their hands together under their chins in hopeful desperation. Seeming to accept the unspoken twin offers, Sanyo and Utaru gently lowered Ranko to her feet before allowing themselves to be whisked away in a pair of twirling human tornados.
Ranko glanced quickly to each side of her body as if surprised to have been suddenly abandoned, but she gave the crowd a nonchalant shrug and cocked her head to the side. "The rest is hist-OH-o-ry!"
Sanyo yanked hard on Emi's wrist, pulling her closer. She spun thrice as she passed down the length of his arm toward him. The strong young man scooped his hand under the backs of her knees, lifting her off the ground and onto his shoulder. Emi stiffened her spine as her slender form was spun around Sanyo's head and neck like a bo staff before being deposited mid-twirl on his opposite side. Some eight meters away, Hitomi had received identical treatment from her dance partner as well.
Leaving Emi and Hitomi to jitterbug with their partners, Ranko adopted their chorus choreography as her own, playing with her skirt with her right hand as her left thrust forward in a stop gesture. Her ever-present silver dragon bracelet rocketed down her sweat-slick forearm, coming to rest at the base of her palm.
I feel like such a glamor girl doing this, Ranko thought, her cheeks flushing anew. Like one of those old pinup models on the old-timey war posters. She shook her head, trying to eject the image from her mind. Izzi would never fuckin' let me live it down if I told her, though.
"Ho, but it was just this once!"
"Just this once," Emi and Hitomi parroted. Both had split from their dance partners after herding them back-to-back at center stage. They wagged their fingers in the boys' faces as if they were trying to make it clear to them that they should be grateful for what attention they had received, because no more was forthcoming.
"It was a one-time de-e-e-eal!" Ranko said, scrunching her chin down into her shoulder and shying away from the raucous crowd as if trying to hide from a particularly embarrassing compliment. "I didn't think I would love it, but that's quite enough of it! Babe, we gotta be real!"
"Whoa-oh, oh, o-o-o, o-o-oh!" Hitomi vocalized in the high third octave. She audibly gasped into her headset microphone, covering her gaping mouth with a hover hand as Utaru scooped her up from behind again and tossed her into the air.
Ranko shrugged her shoulders in surrender. On the large projection screen behind her band, the version of her that had been recorded a week before she left Japan took the hand of the man with the unseen face. Blushing furiously, she smiled back at him, brushing her hair coyly out of her eyes, and took the first tentative step up the stairs to the Phoenix's second-floor apartment.
"I mean, I guess…"
"... if I'm being honest…" Hitomi sang, interrupting Ranko's line while being dangled backward over Utaru's arm.
Emi rested a splayed left hand over her breasts in a display of modesty that was entirely false. Sanyo slid a few steps away from her, his legs in a constant, fluid state of motion in which his ankles were crossed over each other almost as often as not.
"... when the mood just snuck up on us…" Emi continued, taking over for her lover.
"I'll admit, I didn't want it to end! Whoa!" the three girls sang as one.
"But it was just this once, and we're NOT! doin' this a-a-gain!" Ranko belted. On the word not, all three girls froze mid-step as they had in the previous chorus, planting their feet firmly and shouting the invective in unison.
Hitomi skipped across the front edge of the stage from left to right, flouncing her skirt as she bounded along. "Na-na, na-na-naaa…" she sang.
When she reached the front center of the stage, Emi joined her there, hooking her arm through the crook of Hitomi's elbow. The pair orbited each other twice, kicking their heels up and twisting at their waists as if trying to drive their bodies into the stage floor like self-tapping screws.
"Look, I already told ya!" Ranko said in her speaking voice, gesturing with her hands in denial at Sanyo behind the twirling women.
"Na-na, na, na-na-a-ah," Emi sang after her partner had released her arm.
Ranko turned to Utaru, seeming to plead her case to him in the hopes of finding a more sympathetic ear. "I mean, what would my sisters say?!" she asked between the girls' a capella calls and responses.
"Na-na, na-na-na!" both female backup performers sang together, skipping in place. Their legs moved as if they were trying to type the entire unabridged works of Shakespeare on a giant typewriter with their feet, and had only the remaining minute and thirty-four seconds of the song to do it in.
Finding no apparent sympathy from either of the male dancers, Ranko turned her attention directly back to the crowd. She walked quickly to the front of the stage, again forcing herself to blush with a summoned memory of Akane's whisper-soft touch on her hypersensitive skin. She kicked her heel back cutely, simpering and playing with the hem of her glittery skirt. "I mean, I didn't say I hatedit, but…"
"Na-na, na! Na-na-na-a-a-ah!" all three girls sang together.
Ranko's eyes went wide with hammed-up shock as she was lifted off her feet. Sanyo gripped her under her left armpit, Utaru her right, and the pair carried her to the dead center of the stage floor. "Hey! What's the big idea?!"
Emi took Hitomi's hand and the pair scurried to the left wing of the stage, placing their hands on each other's hips and dancing as a couple. It was one of the most energetic performances in the whole show for the girls, and perhaps due to the cold air that burned her lungs, Emi was feeling a bit winded. Almost there, Ems. Next one's easy, she coaxed herself.
On the left side of the stage, Shinji Yokota stepped forward, his brass saxophone in hand. He began a lively solo, swaying the bell of his instrument back and forth with the beat.
As Ranko stood motionless watching them, Utaru and Sanyo jitterbugged in synchronized motions, flanking the vocalist with about a meter of space separating them from her on either side. Twelve bars into the saxophone solo, both men stopped dancing, turning and bowing toward Ranko, offering her their right hands.
"Oh, what the hell," Ranko said, taking both of their hands. She was lifted skyward and thrown forward into an aerial triple twist, and by the time she landed, both men had caught up to her on the stage. The three linked arms, Ranko in the middle. Their six legs moved as if their bodies had merged to form one very hypercaffeinated octopus that couldn't remember what it had done with its other two appendages and was frantically searching the stage for them in a panic.
As Shinji's saxophone wailed even louder, Ranko's motions seemed to double in speed. Her male companions released her arms and stepped back, giving her space to dance alone. Ranko crouched low, popping her hips side to side as she made reaching, elongated steps with her feet. She ducked and weaved back and forth, such that every step of her left leg moved her forward and to the left, and every motion of the right leg served to carry her back and to the right.
Yeah - who'd have thought, an American dance style from the nineteen-forties blends perfectly with a sixteenth-century martial art from Africa and Brazil, Ranko mused as she placed her hand on the stage floor. She launched off of her feet and inverted herself, for the briefest of moments, supported by her arm with her legs kicking behind her into the air. She whirled her legs around, spinning into a flying capoeira martelo de chao roundhouse kick. The momentum carried her forward, whipping her body back into an upright position.
Her feet having just barely touched the stage floor, she allowed herself to fall backward, letting the two men flanking her support her back. Rather than coming to rest in their grasp, however, she draped her body over their outstretched forearms, shifting all her weight back toward her shoulders. This caused her to fall headfirst toward the stage, and she reached out her arms, catching herself and launching into a back handspring like she'd done a thousand times in cheerleading. Executing a double tuck out of the handspring, she landed softly on her tiptoes, cocking her head to the side and offering the crowd a confident wink just as Crash's guitar, Jacob's synthesizer and Zoe's drum set rejoined the melody.
Damn straight, Ranko thought with a smirk as the capacity crowd roared in approval of her dance break. I am that good. She opened her mouth to sing, beginning the third and final verse with a spring in her step.
"You took me out slo-o-ow dancin'! Mm-hmm-mmm! Brought me a long, white ro-o-ose…"
The video screen behind Ranko changed scenes again. The Ranko in the video strode across the display from left to right, wearing the pastel blue ball gown Akane had gifted her on Valentine's Day the year prior. Again, a man stepped into the frame, his back to the camera, handing a single long-stemmed rose forward. Ranko reached out, her hands encased in white elbow-length opera gloves with her trademark dragon bracelet worn over the left one, accepting the flower from the unidentified gentleman.
"I never thought I would see ya gettin' down on one knee; I never thought you'd propo-oh-oh-oh-ose!"
Ranko clasped her hands over her mouth in mimed shock, while the recording of her playing on the four-meter video board behind her did the same.
"Masa, you with me over there, buddy? Break time's over! You go for launch?" Ariel reached out, kicking gently at the wheels of the office chair his control booth companion occupied.
The portly middle-aged man sat up in his chair, scanning over his board. "Yeah. We're good," Masaki replied. "All five banks are hot and green." He reached forward, lifting the hinged red plastic caps shrouding five matching square buttons on his console.
"Don't think my job will like it! No-ho-ho!" Ranko suppressed a chuckle. Indeed, her "boss" had forced her, under threat of destitution for her entire family, to contractually obligate herself not to promise to spend her life in the loving arms of another woman. Unfortunately for all if the secret came to light, she had already done so more than a year earlier.
In the darkness just beneath the video board, Zoe King rose from the round stool in front of their drum set. Zoe placed their chunky black heeled combat boot firmly over the kick pedal to operate the bass drum emblazoned with the band's logo, but did not shift their weight forward onto it. They raised their pink neon drumsticks, crossing them in the air over their head in a ready position.
"I can't afford a nice dress!" Ranko plucked at her skirt with mock disdain as she sang, stepping forward nonchalantly to clear a path for Hitomi and Emi to rocket behind her in opposite directions, each having been propelled in a spin toward center stage by their dance partners. Hitomi and Emi collided, linking arms and using their combined centrifugal force to whip each other around and increase speed. They withdrew their arms from each other, and Hitomi jetted to stage right into the waiting arms of Sanyo while Utaru caught Emi's hand and pulled her into the same jitterbug steps he had just been performing with Hitomi.
Ranko shook her head, a silent laugh on her lips as if she were mocking herself for her own poor decision-making. Had it not been for show, it would have been far from the first time she had done so. "My head was screamin' out, WAIT!"
All three women froze in place, shouting out the one word, before resuming their dance steps as if they were on a video tape that had skipped a frame.
"... but I could not hesitate, when I answered you YE-E-E-ES!" Ranko threw her head back, belting the final word at the top of her lungs.
You're damn right I did, and if this is the closest it gets to ever getting to say so, then you're gonna hear it as loud as I can possibly spit it.
The video display changed again, now featuring Ranko in her bespoke wedding gown giggling with Hitomi and Emi in their bridesmaid dresses. The trio stood on the half-constructed stage of Club Firebird, the nascent music venue next to the Phoenix that Ranko co-owned with her sisters, though the shot was tight enough to not show much detail about the venue itself. A man's arm in a black tuxedo jacket reached up into the frame and Ranko began to descend the steps of the stage toward him, her eyes beaming with love and affection.
Kaito really was a good sport, volunteering to be 'Aki' in the video like that so nobody would notice anything, Ranko thought with a smile as the video display caught the corner of her eye during a spinning kick in the choreography. Especially on short notice, and with as beat as he was. Izumi's husband had not slept in several days when the footage had been recorded on Natsuko's video camera, having burned the midnight oil for nearly a week straight with his skeleton crew to get the venue framed out enough to support an event on short notice so Ranko could manufacture evidence that she had, in fact, married a man. As an added bonus, she'd gotten the chance to profess her undying commitment to Akane a second time.
Zoe stomped down as hard as they could, kicking the bass drum pedal five times in rapid succession. In time with the bass, they slammed their drumsticks down from overhead with the full force of their forearms, crashing both into the left snare drum.
Masa reached over his board, flicking the aluminum switches he had uncovered into their upright positions in sequence from left to right. As each of Zoe's five strikes of the bass drum boomed through the building's sound system, a corresponding explosion of white light sent a shockwave through the crisp winter air as another burst of burning magnesium rained from the sky over the north rim of Jamsil Baseball Stadium. Each time, the canister lights blinked out, leaving only a white strobe light to illuminate the performers for a split second as it had done during the photography sequences of the Hey, Jerk! performance earlier in the evening.
"Ho, but it was just this whoa-oh-OH-o-o-once!" Ranko sang, launching herself into a back handspring as she finished the long run that replaced Hitomi and Emi's echo for the final chorus. Just at the point where her spine was parallel with the stage floor, Hitomi and Emi crossed over her in midair from opposite directions. Both had been launched skyward by their borrowed dance partners, and their twin pirouettes came to a stop in their original partner's arms.
Emi took both of Sanyo's hands, pressing them upward and dancing close to him for three beats before spinning him around herself to place him between herself and Ranko. Hitomi mirrored the move with Utaru, such that the five performers formed a line at center stage with Ranko at its center and the two other women on stage forming the outer edges. The five dancers' moves synchronized, each waving an outstretched hand in the air as they kicked up their heels in the traditional jitterbug dance forms.
"But, baby, gods, it's been nice! Could you imagine the scandal?! I don't think I could handle goin' through it all TWICE!"
And yet, I did, Ranko thought with a grin as she joined hands with Hitomi, spinning her around and releasing her into Utaru's arms just in time to catch Emi coming from the opposite direction. Ranko bopped with her for a moment before twirling her into Sanyo's waiting grasp. And I'd do it a thousand times more if I could.
"I mean, if I'm bein' on the level, that's the thing about forever: you don't GET ANOTHER ONE WHEN IT E-E-EENDS! Oh, but it was just this once, and we're NOT doing this a-a-gain!"
"Na-na-na, na, na!" Hitomi sang as she flitted away from Utaru, stepping right next to Ranko and smiling into her eyes.
"What, once wasn't enough?!" Ranko asked in Hitomi's direction, prompting a shake of Hitomi's head in the negative.
"Na-na, na, na-na-na-a-a-ah!" Emi vocalized, joining Ranko at center stage from the opposite direction.
"Gods! There's all the hair, and the makeup, and…" Ranko slumped her shoulders in mimed defeat, but she could not hide the smile in her eyes.
"Na-na-na, na, na!" Hitomi repeated, nudging Ranko's shoulder playfully with an outstretched hand as if the a cappella background music was intended to tease her friend.
"Thank you cards. So many thank you cards," Ranko bemoaned, rubbing the underside of her left wrist with her right thumb as if trying to stave off a bad case of writer's cramp.
"Na-na, na, na-na-na-a-a-ah!" Emi grinned brightly, reaching out and putting her arm behind Ranko's back in a side hug.
Ranko giggled into her microphone. "I mean, another honeymoon wouldn't suck, though!" She nodded to Emi with a fulsome smile, turning to Hitomi and doing the same to help sync up the trio's timing.
All three women gazed out at the crowd - Emi to the left outfield, Hitomi to right, and Ranko dead-center at the fans who had paid extra to sit in the fifty rows of black folding chairs arrayed on the tarp-covered grass closer to the stage. Together, the trio of friends sang the last few notes with no musical accompaniment, hugging each other close and waving to the crowd with their free hands.
"Na-na, na-na-na, nah! Na-na, na-na, na-na, na-a-a-aaaaah!"