Ranko beamed, waiting a moment for the cheering crowd to quell before speaking. "Best day of my life," she said, gesturing over her shoulder with her thumb at the video board. "Right up there with the day I said yes…"
"Bop, ba-dop, bop, bop-a-dop-a-dop, dop!" came a pair of feminine voices over the rising electronic voice of Jacob Trimble's synth. Hitomi and Emi rushed out through the gap in the curtain, Hitomi in a royal blue skater dress in an identical style to her lover's kelly green one. The display changed to a still photo shot from the second floor of Izumi's favorite shopping mall in Shibuya, looking down over a sea of shoppers milling about in the center concourse of the indoor plaza.
The lights covering the back right corner of the stage blinked out, shrouding the bedroom furniture and the changing screen in shadow. Crash took a few steps to his left so he could still be visible to the crowd.
Ranko gripped the hem of her fluffy pink skirts, snapping her hips to the left just as her friends did the same behind her. The three undulated in place, arching their backs and weaving with the peppy beat that the remaining three instruments had joined into.
"When we started out, everyone said we were delirious! No one thought we even had a chance to get this serious! Everyone who knew us thought we'd call it quits pretty quick!"
The trio bounced on the balls of their feet, slashing their skirts around their thighs with their hands in time with each twist of their heels. The three women moved as if they were of a singular mind. It was a far cry from their first disjointed attempts at dancing together on the stack of mismatched old pallets meant to approximate a stage in the back corner of the Tashima Talent Agency,
"Here." Masa reached out as he re-entered the control booth, offering a foam cup to his fellow technician. "All they had left at the concession stand was decaf, but at least it's hot."
Ariel took it, raising it to his lips with a grateful smile. "I'm not complaining. Thanks, man! Just get in here and shut that damn door. Christ!"
"They all thought we'd both get hurt; it would be tragic. The sparks between us should've burned, but they made magic! And now, they can't believe it's lookin' like this thing's gonna stick!"
Ranko dance-walked forward, prancing with high steps in her shimmering silver heels. Both dancers followed her in lockstep. Every movement seemed optimized to thrash her lacy skirt around her legs. She wished it were not. The material was scratchy on the best of days, even when her hypersensitive skin was not already almost sore to the touch from the effects of the frigid ambient air.
"Pretty sure I know exactly what! You! Feel! There's just one more thing I need from you to seal! The! Deal!"
All three girls reached their left hands out toward the crowd, holding them out daintily. They pointed at them with their right hands, leaning forward and wiggling their backsides. However, neither Hitomi nor Emi possessed an engagement ring like the girl that danced between them.
"Gimme that ring, ring, ring! C'mon, put it on my finger, that ring, ring, ring! I'll be your own personal singer!"
Each of Ranko's repetitions of the word ring was bolstered by Emi and Hitomi, as well as a smattering of Firebirds in the stands.
Ariel sipped his coffee, sighing as he watched the performers through the glass window of the control booth. "So, listen, dude. If you've got any show-pro sensei wisdom for how we can break this shit down quicker and get out of here, now's the time. I'm legit worried everybody down there's gonna be sick as hell by the time we get to Sapporo, being out there this long in the cold. I'd say we could leave it for the morning, but all the gear's gotta be at the airport by ten."
"Yeah, this air freight situation is ridiculous. For a show this size, we should've either chartered planes, so they leave on our schedule, or just rented most of the gear on site so we don't have to mule it everywhere." Masa gestured down to his control board. "Yokai spent like there was no tomorrow on the stuff the fans see, and half-assed everything behind the scenes. I've never worked a tour where they made it so hard on us."
"I think half ass might be a little generous," Ariel said with a sigh. "I give 'em a quarter ass, at best. Honestly, half the stuff we did get was 'cause Ranko and the band paid for shit themselves out of their cut of the take. For what it's worth, dude, I couldn't have pulled this off without you. I've learned so freakin' much from you. Thanks."
"I want that thing to remind me every day that I'm yours! Gimme that ring, ring, ring, and I won't take it off, never! That ring, ring, ring, so they know I'm yours forever!"
Each repetition of ring featured the three women on the stage rocking their hips side to side, shaking their backsides in their flowy skirts as if they were bells being rung in time with the beat.
Stroking his goatee thoughtfully, Masa scanned the stage with his eyes. "There's no VIP meet-and-greet tonight, right?"
Masa's fellow technician shook his head. "Nope. They only sold those for last night's show," Ariel said. He did not look up from his board, triggering the white strobe lights surrounding the stage to create an effect reminiscent of diamonds sparkling on the rings Ranko and her friends were demanding.
The curtain parted again, and Utaru and Sanyo jogged out onto the stage. Both wore faded blue jeans with holes ripped in the knees, Utaru in a dark green shirt and Sanyo in sky blue.
"Don't want you to be the thing I'm hiding from the world anymo-o-o-ore!"
Hitomi turned inward, taking Sanyo's hand, and Emi did the same with Utaru. Both girls spun down the length of their partners' arms, clasping hands with them and beginning to move with them in a salsa-inspired dance routine. With every spin, their loose-flowing skirts flared up around their waists, exposing the identically-colored romper bottoms under them.
Masa nodded, taking a swig of his coffee. "Alright. Well, first things first, we can ask the guys in the band to stick around for a little bit and help. They're at least dressed for the cold. The girls have been out there wearing a little bit of nothing for going on two hours, and we need to get them back to the hotel and in the heat as quickly as humanly possible."
"Lance, too," Ariel offered. "If Ranko's settled in her room, he could come back and give us a hand. And he already knows all the procedures and stuff." Not to mention, dude could bench-press half the stage if he had to, he thought with a smirk. "Am I crazy, or is this just, like, way too much fucking work to expect four people to do in one night?"
"As we've gotten close, we've had our challenges, without a doubt. But, we've always talked it through together, got it sorted out, forgiven and forgotten all the stupid stuff in our pa-a-a-ast!"
Ranko spread her feet to shoulder width, planting them firmly at center stage as the two dancing couples orbited her in their sultry Latin-style choreography. She reached down to the stage floor slowly, snapping back up and thrashing her hair back over her shoulders. The bouncy rhythm continued, driven primarily by the fluid motion of Crash and Shinji's picks.
Chuckling, the pyrotechnician finished his drink, tossing the empty foam cup in the wastebasket under the booth's countertop. "Dude, don't even get me started. A show this elaborate, with this tight of turnaround times between venues, even when the shit's going internationally?! We should've had at least twenty-five or thirty. Hell, there should've been four or five people just up here." He reached to his right, slapping the back of a rickety office chair. "The empty chairs ain't for our girlfriends, man." Masa reached over Ariel's forearm, gesturing to the arrays of glowing buttons and sliders on the counter in front of him. "Notice how the lights are on one board, and the audio's on another, and the screen's on this one, and the cameras are on the thing on the side? There's a reason for that. They're all s'posed to be sitting in front of different people."
"When we disagree, it's like we're takin' turns at bein' wrong. Every time we do and work it out, we're gettin' twice as strong. That's the way I know this cra-azy thing we have's gonna la-a-a-ast!"
"Seriously?! I thought being on tour was just, like, supposed to be crazy," Ariel said, sighing as he nudged the slider for the microphone mounted to Zoe's drum set up slightly.
"I mean, it is. But, dude, even the audio should be two people - you up here, and then another you down on the stage doing the monitor mix. It's a good thing you're with the band and not like, doing pick-up work at the venues. If you were looking to sign on with me, and you handed me a resume that said you did everything I'm watching you do right now on the same show, I'd throw it away and call you a liar. You're a fuckin' machine, man! Ranko's damn lucky to have you; this show would've been in a ditch in an hour with anybody else behind those boards if Yokai pulled this shit with them." Masa clapped the young man on the shoulder, careful to wait until his fingers were not touching any of the controls that could have caused an errant press of a button or adjustment of a slider. "You can run a crew with me anytime, man."
Ranko stepped to her left, bending down until her chest was almost perpendicular with the stage floor. She rocked side to side, sweeping her left leg around wide. She used its momentum to bring herself back to a standing position facing away from the crowd, giving her backside a little extra shake to send the four layers of pink sheer fabric rustling behind her.
"I knew long ago my answer would! Be! Yes! But, if you wanna know, my love, just ask! Don't guess!"
Ariel smirked. "Then where do you get off making me do the lights, too?!"
Hitomi and Emi each reached out with their right hands, placing them on their partners' chests. They model-stomped forward, waving their left hands in the boys' faces to make their demands known.
"Gimme that ring, ring, ring! C'mon, put it on my finger!" they sang along with Ranko as the two pairs crossed in front of her at center stage. "That ring, ring, ring!"
Masa nodded with a sigh. "I know, man. I told you, I'm sorry. I really tried doing that and the pyro, but once they added I Am Fire, and we found out the whole situation with Ranko's… skin thing, it just wasn't safe for me to try to do both things. If you miss a cue, Hitomi stands in the dark for a second. If I do, Ranko goes full yakitori live on stage."
"I'll be your own personal singer!" Ranko continued alone. "I want that thing to remind me every day that I'm yours!"
"No worries, man. I'm just busting your balls." Ariel grinned as he reached for the audio control board again, switching his headset onto the crew channel. "Nori, is her next costume set up? I didn't get a callout. Spots, standby on the backup dancers."
"Gimme that ring, ring, ring!" Emi and Hitomi sang. Emi's vocals were punctuated by a little "Ooo!" as Sanyo whipped her into a fast spin.
From their positions in the wide walkways rimming the bottom of the upper deck, the three local temp workers assigned to manage the spotlights gripped their handles, tracking Hitomi and Emi with them but not yet flipping the switches to cast their beams at them.
"And I won't take it off, never!" Ranko insisted, wagging her finger back and forth in a "not happening" gesture. She meant it, too; since the day Akane had put her wedding ring on her left hand, it had only ever been removed when she was bathing or doing particularly dirty work with her hands in the kitchen, save for a few brief encounters with an MRI machine after her knee injury nearly a year before.
"Got it in my hand right now, boss!" Norio called out, resting a bundle of white and blue fabric on the little wooden table behind the changing screen. He was careful to be gentle with the garments, leaving them only loosely folded to keep them from wrinkling.
"That ring, ring, ring," Hitomi and Emi demanded again, wagging their limp left hands in the faces of their dance partners.
"So they know I'm yours forever!" Ranko added, clutching at her left hand as if the little silver band coiled around it were the most precious thing in her universe. "Don't want us to be the thing we're hiding from the world an-y-mo-o-o-ore!"
Ariel again disconnected his headset from the crew channel, glancing quickly over at Masa to indicate that his control booth companion was again the focus of his attention. "Thoughts on cutting corners?"
"Want me to just tell them?" the pyrotechnician asked, reaching for a bank of buttons on the control board to his right labeled with the number 13. He flipped the protective caps up on all six buttons to ready them.
"Everybody said that I was way too wild and crazy. Everybody said that I would never be a lady!" Ranko gripped her flouncy skirt in her hand, making a deep curtsy with a bend of her knees and her ankles crossed. "No one that they could tame me, but you went and you tried!"
Receiving a nod of assent from Ariel, Masa reached for the button to reactivate his radio. "Hey, guys, listen. Me and Ariel have been talking, and we think we ought to do the short version of breakdown and get you guys out of the cold faster. We're gonna try to recruit some extra help, too."
"The short version?" Kaz scratched his head with his left hand, his right still carrying one of the four little space heaters the band had procured for the backstage area. "Whatcha got in mind, Scorch?"
"Party every night, and always makin' trouble at the bar. Never let a soul get close, but, baby, here you are!"Ranko raised her arms skyward, bouncing and twisting as if she were in the center of the packed dance floor at Steam on ladies' night. The popular gay club in Minato was her second-favorite nightlife destination, behind only the one she and her family owned.
Emi and Hitomi joined her in the choreography from a meter away, both a few steps further back on the stage than the lead vocalist. The girls' male dance partners stood behind them, grinding against their backsides with their arms wrapped around the women's fluidly-moving waists.
"You made me a girlfriend, now, come make me a bride!"
Masa hovered his fingers over the newly-exposed buttons, splaying them wide to cover as many at once with his hand as possible. "So, anything you don't have to do, don't. Leave the cables on the truss. Don't coil and wrap anything; just throw the shit in the crates. Don't worry about what boxes everything goes in. Just get it all in a crate and on the truck any old way you can. The only thing I care about keeping separate is the costumes, so we can get them cleaned without having to wait for the full unload."
"Isn't that gonna make setup in Sapporo take, like, way longer?" Kaz set up the space heater in his hand behind the changing screen in the hopes it would at least take a little of the edge off the December chill somewhat when Ranko again needed to disrobe.
Chuckling, Ariel punched at his control board to trigger the barrage of white strobe lights behind the performers again. "It's gonna be the same amount of time either way. Would you rather spend that time tomorrow, where it's twenty-three degrees inside, or tonight, when it's negative-two down there?"
"I know this is nothing close to what. We. Pla-a-a-aanned! I won't care at all when I look at my hand!" Ranko extended her left arm, holding her palm out toward the crowd and admiring the way her princess-cut diamond solitaire seemed to capture every one of the myriad light sources pointed at the stage at once.
"Gimme that ring, ring, ring!" Emi sang, again flailing her hand in Utaru's face. On the opposite end of the stage, Hitomi did the same with Sanyo. Each girl stalked forward, forcing their male partners to backpedal toward the center of the stage behind Ranko.
"Tell everyone I'm taken!" Ranko turned the back of her hand to the crowd, pointing to the ring emphatically as she transferred her weight quickly back and forth between her two planted feet.
"That ring, ring, ring!" the two backup singers called out again. Both stopped their advances, clasping their hands together under their chins as if pleading with their dance partners.
"... so nobody's mistaken! Show me you're not fakin' when you tell me I'm the girl of your dreams!"
Ranko turned her back to the crowd, crossing her wrists over her head. She thrashed her hips left and right, emulating a ringing shrine bell with her pink frilly skirt.
"Ring, ring, ring! I know ya wanna make a pass at me! Ring, ring, ring! But you gotta get to askin' me!"
All three girls sang together, folding their hands over their hearts. Hitomi and Emi faced their partners, with Ranko between them at center stage looking out at the crowd.
"If I don't know it's everlasting, gonna burst at the seams!"
"Go for smoke on the left!" Kaz announced, screwing the plastic cap back onto the empty jug in his hand.
"Ring, ring, ring!" demanded the three female performers. While Ranko held court at center stage, rolling her hips slowly in her tulle skirts, Emi and Hitomi dangled their bare fingers in the faces of their partners.
Norio shook the jug of fog solution, ensuring that every drop made it into the tank supplying the second of four machines. "Right side, too!"
"I'm tired of goin' steady!" Hitomi sang, giving Sanyo a gentle shove in his chest and driving him backward toward center stage from the left.
"Ring, ring, ring!" cried all three women again. In the shadows at the back of the stage, Zoe sang it too, despite their headset microphone not being turned on. They glanced over at Jacob as they sang, if only for the briefest of moments.
"Oh, baby, I'm so ready!" Emi clung right to Utaru's forearm as she sang.
"Okay, spots on the girls in three. Two." Ariel nodded to Masa, who flicked all six switches under his waiting hand. His own hand punched at a series of lighting controls.
"Gimme that ring!" Ranko commanded. The video board and the full complement of stage lights went dark, and a hurricane of white strobe lights blinked on and off behind the stage. It all but blinded the audience for a moment. When the strobes ceased their program, Hitomi and Emi found themselves standing directly in the beams of the white spotlights positioned around the upper deck. Sanyo and Utaru were each down on one knee at their partner's feet, offering up an open jewelry box.
The darkness above the stadium exploded into pink and red light as a volley of fireworks erupted overhead.