"If you wanna be with me…"
"B! O! U! N! C! E!" thundered the capacity crowd of the Tokyo Dome in response to Ranko's call.
"If you wanna be with me…" Ranko sang again, stepping to the front edge of the stage in her blue and white sailor fuku.
"B! O! U! N! C! E!" the forty-plus thousand Firebirds retorted again.
"If you wanna be with me…" Ranko said. The line was spoken rather than sung so that the fans would know that they were not intended to repeat the dance hit's title a third time. "... then, listen carefully…"
Hitomi and Emi flanked her, both wearing more traditional high school uniforms with longer skirts. The three girls finished the song in one voice.
"Ya need a little bit'a bounce!"
A loud boom thundered through the arena's sound system, and a hurricane of multicolored confetti exploded from the front of the stage. Ito Ganawa laughed fulsomely as he plucked a strip of shiny gold paper out of his wispy silver hair. A red laser beam sliced through the whirlwind from the back of the arena, just below the control booth. At the point where it intersected the video screen, gold and silver sparks began to rain down on the display, slowly tracing Ranko's signature in fuschia lettering more than two meters high as if it were being burned into the display itself.
As the band's four instrumentalists brought the song to a close, Ranko walked through the flurry of paper that fluttered slowly downward in the air at the edge of the stage. There was a wistful distance in her eyes as they panned the crowd. "Well, this is it, Tokyo. It's been thirty-five shows, more than a dozen countries, and nine months. Something like half a million Firebirds. And now, the Wildfire Tour is down to one last song." Ranko held up her right index finger.
A fair number of the revelers in attendance knew her assertion to be false. Despite Natsuko's best efforts to control it, the message boards for Ranko's fans on the various online services had seen more than a few descriptions of the show from audience members who'd attended prior performances, tipping them off as to the nature of the epic encore that followed.
Ranko chuckled silently to herself. It's technically a three-song mashup, since this one doesn't finish until after the other two do. It's not really a lie. The thin smile vanished from her lips as her eyes again fell on Kichirou Kondo in the front row. Unlike damn near everything else I have to say up here. She exhaled slowly, silently begging the despair and the memories that haunted her every breath to remain at bay for just a few more minutes.
"This last one, though, is really important to me. It's a story about magic. About impossible things happening to a girl who didn't deserve them." Ranko bit her lip hard enough to make herself wince, trying to keep the raging torrent of feelings swirling through her mind at bay for just a few moments more. "It's about a desperate, broken girl struggling to find a place for herself in the world, and thanks to luck, and fate…"
She cast a soft glance down at Hana, managing the faintest hint of a smile. Her voice cracked with emotion. "... and a whole lot of love… managing to end up with everything she could have ever wanted."
Almost, she added mentally. Almost.
Peering out from behind the black curtain over Crash's right shoulder, Akane anxiously folded her hands, interlacing her fingers under her chin. Come on, Ranko. You can do it. Stiff upper lip, now, baby. You're doing so good. You're almost there. Hold it together just a little bit longer, and then you can fall apart in my arms, I promise.
An almost mournful tune in a minor key began to emanate from the plastic keys of Jacob Trimble's Yamaha synthesizer. It was familiar to the audience, but also quite different from the upbeat pop rhythm that normally accompanied the Dapper Dragons' most decorated song. Ranko opened her mouth to sing, finding the slower, more dramatic tune easier to carry in her heart given her mood.
"Sto-ory opens on a cold, dark street, with a girl who was frightened, hungry, broke, and beat. Goin' nowhere fast. Runnin' from her past. No one to turn to."
Ranma, no! You can't! You just can't leave!
Where will you go?! How will you… how will I…?
The redhead shuddered as the intrusive memory rocketed through her mind. She stood in Soun Tendo's dining room, wearing the same red tang shirt and black gi pants as the rendition of her walking through a Minato back alley on the video board behind her. Her huge camping backpack containing all of her worldly possessions was strapped to her back. The echoes of Akane pleading with her not to run shook through her consciousness like an earthquake.
The image changed in her mind, flashing again to an imagined Akane wailing in Crash's arms after learning of the events in Thailand. Ranko gulped down a mouthful of saliva, silently begging the ghosts of her past - and her fears of the future - to leave her alone for just ten more minutes.
"Don't know how she managed to get that far, but somehow, she stumbled into an old dive bar. Didn't know how to change, or grow, but was about to learn to."
Are you guys sure about this? I really…
Another memory. Another flash. A bewildered Ranko stood at the foot of a bed with a lavender duvet cover, her backpack slung over her shoulder. Yui stood in the open doorway behind her, nodding her head softly.
You heard Mama. If she says you stay, you stay.
"Who could imagine what the hands of fate had decided they would scribble on her blank slate? Who could see all that her destiny was just about to bring 'er?"
Ranko cast her glance downward at her family in the front row. She nodded as she regarded Izumi. "If you'd have told her then, she'd have said, you're lying! She could barely crawl; couldn't imagine flying!"
Her head turned a bit more, and when Ranko's eyes met Mei's, they glassed over as another memory burned its way through her mind. She was sitting up in bed, in the little apartment above the Phoenix, and Mei sat crosslegged next to her on the mattress.
I can't. I'm nowhere good enough.
I've got way too much baggage.
The Mei in her mind's eye punched down at the mattress in frustration.
Answer the damn question, Ranko!
When you get up on stage, and the crowd is chanting your name, what do you feel?!
"Not naive enough to believe she could become a singer." Ranko's voice shook slightly as she delivered the line, tearing her gaze away from her sisters.
On the video board behind the performers, Mei approached the stage of the Phoenix. She reached up, placing a dynamic microphone in her sister's hand. The second it contacted Ranko's palm, the four instruments surrounding the shaken performer changed into the song's usual key and doubled in tempo.
Joy! Unspeakable, unfathomable, uncontainable joy. Okay?!
It fills me up so much, I feel like I'm gonna crack down the middle.
Whether it was the memory, the change in tune, or something else entirely, Ranko seemed to find her energy at last, and she threw herself into the chorus of the song. Nearly everyone in the Tokyo Dome was on their feet as she traversed the front edge of the stage in almost a run, belting her story into the little plastic microphone suspended over her cheek.
"Once upon a rhyme, not so far away, there lived a little girl who had LOST HER WAY! Her fairy tale had been an EPIC FAIL from the be-gin-ning!"
Ranko pointed down at Mei, thrashing her head back to face her. Her loose red pigtails fluttered over her shoulder as her face broke into the beginnings of a smile.
"Her heroes taught her how to make her stand! Went and put a MICROPHONE in her hand! Turned the page, put her up on stage, and now, she's WINNING!"
Attagirl, Ranko. You got this. Bring us home, now. Crash sighed in relief as his friend and lead vocalist came to life before his eyes, eliciting a rock squeal from his electric guitar in a sort of audio celebration.
"And sure, it seems just like a fantasy that fate would reach backward for a girl like me, but now, my happy ever after happens… whoa-aaa-AALL the ti-i-i-ime!"
"ONCE UPON A RHYME!" shouted thousands of voices, none more loudly than Ranko Tendo's own.
Ranko turned her back to the crowd, making her way toward center stage. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the love of her life, flashing her a reassuring smile from the wings of the stage. Ranko returned it, but Akane could see that the disquiet in her eyes had not dissipated. Without breaking eye contact with Akane, the songstress limply held her left fist just in front of her skirt, rubbing it in three repetitive circular motions with the fingers of her right hand.
"Some time later, fin'lly doin' alright, when magic came knockin' one December night - when someone from the past she'd run from came and found her," Ranko sang, her eyes lingering on Akane's face for a few seconds longer than she intended.
Hi! My name's Akane! You wanna be friends?
The redhead blushed with the memory of the couple's first meeting. I think it's fair to say we're past that at this point, 'Kane, Ranko mused. On the video board suspended behind the stage, Ranko walked through the snow in a yellow sundress, doing her best not to let the camera catch her shivering in the cold.
"And it came as such a big surprise that she could see eternity in those brown eyes, but knew that she'd always have a need for those arms around her!"
Ranko's wandering mind found itself in the past again, this time to a different December than the one the song described. She was sitting on a bench overlooking the Minato harbor, curled up against the cold next to Akane in a long blue dress.
I'm in love with you, Akane. It's different.
Every second I'm alive, I think about you.
Every time I move my eyes on stage, I'm looking for you.
Hitomi shot Ranko a concerned glance as she spun into Utaru's arms to the lead vocalist's left. What the heck is wrong with her? Why isn't she dancing?! She looks like she just saw a ghost!
"Started slow, but they both wanted more. Rented an apartment on the second floor. They both grew, and as they did, they knew the way things were progressing."
As she sang, Ranko glanced up to the video board again. It displayed her sitting on her bed, holding a heart-shaped photo frame in her hands. The camera could only see its back, but the picture the frame contained was etched forever into her mind. It was a Polaroid photo that Ranko had taken of herself and Akane, seated in that selfsame spot, less than an hour after they'd set foot in their shoebox of an apartment as a couple for the first time. We have to document the first day of forever, she remembered saying at the time.
"Barely had a yen between 'em to their name, but every day, it felt like they had won the game! Didn't take long 'til that little girl's mom was asked to give her blessing!"
Ranko smiled down at Hana, but there was a distance in her eyes, as if her attention remained focused elsewhere. It occurred to her in that instant that Hana Takahashi had been integral to all three of the greatest moments in her young life. There was Hana's negotiation of Ranko's first record deal, however much she wished at the moment that it had been with nearly any other label. There was the day Ranko all but crawled into the Phoenix, half-starved, and found herself part of a family - found herself, against all odds, becoming somebody's sister and somebody's daughter - before she could even finish her first shift as a waitress. But even both of those paled in comparison to the memory that currently filled up every corner and crevice of her heart. She heard her adoptive mother's voice in her mind as clearly as she had on the afternoon of July 6, 1991, speaking the words Ranko felt as if she'd waited her whole feminine life to hear.
Then, by the power given to me by… well, I guess, 'cause it's my bar and all…
I pronounce you to be each other's wives.
"Once upon a rhyme, not so far away, there lived a little girl who had lost her way! Her fairy tale had been an epic fail from the be-gin-ning! Her heroes taught her how to make her stand…"
Ranko Tendo… will you marry me?
The redhead's eyes sparkled blissfully as she recalled Akane, dressed in one of Kaito Sando's suits, dropping to one knee on a balcony overlooking the harbor as a barrage of Valentine's Day fireworks exploded over the water. She lifted her left hand, turning its back to the crowd and wiggling her fingers in order to let the multicolored stage lighting refract in the princess-cut diamond that was mounted into the center of her custom silver engagement ring. She barely resisted the urge to dangle it as close to Kichirou Kondo's bulbous nose as she could reach.
Akane, I will marry you right now, right this second, on this balcony,
if I can find a way. I will marry you over and over every single day
for the rest of my life if you want.
"An angel came and put a ring on her left hand… She turned the page, got back up on stage, and now she's winning! And, sure, it seems just like a fantasy that fate would reach backward for a girl like me, but now, my happy ever after happens… whoa-oh-o-all the ti-i-i-i-me!"
Ranko sighed as she turned her back to Kondo. "Once upon a rhyme," she sang in a more wistful tone.
"Is it me, or does she keep staring at the same guy over there?" Yui sat forward in her seat, craning her head to her right. "I know most of the band's families, and Ranko's friends, but I've never seen that dude before."
Sighing, Ukyo Kuonji leaned forward in her chair in the second row, jutting her head between Yui and Ito in front of her. She followed Yui's sight line with her own eyes, confirming who Yui was enquiring about before answering her question. "That's Kichirou Kondo, from Yokai."
The blonde barkeep's blood boiled as she attached the name she knew to the face she did not. "The skeezy son of a bitch that made her sign that contract, and tried to fuckin' proposition her last night?! He's here?!"
Ito gasped in some combination of rage and shock.
Ukyo nodded incredulously. "I guess so. I don't know how; if I drank the way he did last night, you wouldn't see me until New Year at the earliest."
Hana let out a soft sigh under her breath. "No wonder Ranko seems so distracted. Between that, and poor Ken…" She looked up at her youngest daughter, who wiggled half-heartedly with the beat between Hitomi and Emi at center stage. "Gods, that kid's got guts, being up there tonight."
"Speaking of guts," Yui said, glaring daggers down the front row at the portly man in the rumpled suit. "I'm about to march my happy ass down there and polish my fucking boots with his!"
Hana reached over Ito's wheelchair, taking Yui's wrist in her hand. Her grip was gentle, but it could not have been firmer in its intent had she crushed the bones in her daughter's arm to dust. "Yui, no. I know you're angry at him. We all are, believe me. I haven't wanted a piece of somebody so bad since I met her father. But the last thing Ranko needs right now is for us to fly off the handle and make things any harder on her than they already are."
The blonde grumbled, slumping back forcefully in her seat. "Ya know, Mama… I fucking hate it when you're right."
"Welcome to my world, kid," Ito shot back with a disarming chuckle.
"She found her dream, and started givin' chase, but, kismet led our girl into a real dark place. And, she found out she'd begun to doubt she could ever make it."
Ranko caught a glimpse of the video board as she snapped her head back up from a low back bend. On the screen was a clip of her burying herself in the arms of a blond man in a black leather jacket, a guitar case strapped to his back.
"Then, a friend walked into that dive bar, armed with just a hug and an electric guitar…"
You take everything you've got in here, and put it in here.
All the good, all the bad, everything.
You get up there and you sing your damned heart out, girl.
You shake this place so fucking hard, people in France start wondering
who pissed Ranko Tendo off.
Ranko's eyes narrowed, fury boiling like a cauldron of acid in her heart as she remembered Crash's advice from the first night she retook the Phoenix's stage after both performers had been fired from the Tashima Talent Agency. She spun on her heels. She did not know about the people in France, but anyone in the Tokyo Dome who followed her eyeline, and saw the seething hatred in her eyes, was not left wondering who had pissed her off on that particular Christmas night.
"He let her SCREAM - but promised her the dream, if she could only TAKE IT!"
As she did in every performance of Once Upon a Rhyme on the Wildfire Tour, Ranko made her way to the back edge of the stage, offering Crash a quick hug around the waist. She was careful not to impede the movements of his hands on his cherry red instrument.
"When her faith had all but reached its end…"
She stopped in front of Zoe's drum set, not stepping behind it to offer the pink-haired percussionist an arm hug as she normally did. Rather, she gazed at her name, professionally screen printed in fuchsia script on the head of the large bass drum.
One day, Ranko, we're gonna play the Tokyo Dome, and when we do,
you want the folks all the way in the back to be able to see it
so they know what to scream, don'tcha?
Ranko sniffled loudly into her headset microphone as she recalled Ken's words again, covering her mouth with the palm of her hand. She was a half-beat late continuing the line, and when she did, the words scarcely escaped her throat. They were mired in a barely-contained whine, much though she tried to project the lyrics as best she could through a whimpering wail.
"... that guitarist in… in.. trod… duced her to his friends…a… aa…"
The redhead dropped to her knees in her short sailor fuku, reaching out with a trembling hand and resting it gently on the glossy black skin of the drumhead. However desperately she tried, she was unable to control her breathing enough to swallow back her tears and continue to sing.
"And, those guys wrote a song called Rise that they performed together," Emi sang in Ranko's place. She made eye contact with Hitomi, gesturing with her head toward the grieving vocalist. "Who could have expected such a charmed outcome?!"
Hitomi hurried to Ranko's side and fell to a kneeling position on her left, wrapping her arms around her crying friend's chest. She rested her cheek on Ranko's shoulder, gazing sadly with her at the instrument that had once been the exclusive domain of Ken Hirata.
"They spray-painted her name on the front o' their drum," Emi continued, carrying the verse while her partner consoled their friend.
Hitomi joined her in the line, however, unlike Emi's victorious delivery, the brunette did so in a tone that was softer and almost conciliatory. Try to focus on the good things, Ranko, she thought, squeezing the redhead tighter in her arms. Hold on to the happy times.
"... t-they decided that this cra… zy ride was gonna last f-forever." Ranko choked the line out herself from her knees through her tears, cutting Emi off two notes in. Once it had cleared her lips, she bowed her head until her forehead came to rest on the thin membrane of the bass drum. Her headset slipped from the crown of her head, clattering to the stage floor with a loud thump that reverberated through the speakers. Zoe lifted their foot from the pedal, opting to sacrifice the instrument's contribution to the rhythm so long as Ranko was touching it.
"Ari, we're losing her!" Kazuki watched in dismay as Ranko wept on her knees. He shouted over the rhythm of Crash's guitar, which had just begun repeating the musical bar preceding the chorus to buy time. "We've gotta pull the plug! She's done enough, man. We're fucking breaking the poor kid to pieces out there!"
Akane rushed up behind Kaz, watching her lover cry on the stage floor. Every molecule of her body, every neuron of her brain and every beat of her heart screamed at once, demanding her to run through the narrow gap in the black velvet curtain and pull Ranko into her arms. She took a step forward, and then another. Her left hand reached for the curtain, and her feet froze to the stage platform. If I move one more centimeter, I'll ruin her whole life. She'll never forgive me.
Akane looked up at her trembling hand, and the simple wedding ring that adorned it. I gave her my word. I made her a promise. I'd always be there for her when she needed me. I'd always look out for her interests. She swallowed hard, wiping her eyes with the fingertips of her right hand. So, what do I do when I have to choose one or the other?
Ariel nodded sadly in his seat in the control booth, flipping a pair of switches to route his headset audio not only into the ears of his stagehands, but those of the performers as well. "Ems, finish the chorus and let's take a bow. I'm making the call. We're skipping the encore and shutting it down."
Nodding in silent agreement as she heard the directive through Kaz' headset, which was turned to its maximum volume to be audible over the instruments, Akane withdrew her hand from the curtain. I'm so sorry, Ranko. I'm so, so, so sorry. I love you so much. I hope I did the right thing.
"Once upon a rhyme, not so far away," Emi sang. Her eyes widened, and she swallowed hard with a sudden realization. Unlike the previous performances of the Wildfire Tour, the events backstage before the start of the show had denied Ranko the opportunity to prepare a custom line for the final chorus and personalize the song for the city and the audience she was addressing. In the heartbeat before sound needed to come from her throat, she made the decision to skip the special permutation and sing the line as it was originally written. But, just before the first note could escape her lips, another tremulous voice pierced the air of the Tokyo Dome in its place.
"... she did three dozen shows, and still had more to say…"
Hitomi nodded approvingly to Ranko and squeezed her hand supportively as the lead vocalist, her headset restored to its place albeit slightly askew, rose to her feet and finished the line. "Her fairy tale had been an epic fail from the be-gin-ning," Hitomi sang, just in case Ranko could not, as she did not know if Emi would yield to Ranko. The result was that all three girls sang the line together.
"Her heroes taught her how to make her stand…" contributed Hitomi and Emi both.
Ranko's mouth moved with the lyrics, but the shudder of another sob robbed her of the breath control she needed to make the requisite sound for another few notes. "... a-and now, that little girl is in her own rock band." Ranko sang alongside her friends, her voice cracking again as her thoughts fixated anew on the band's missing member.
"They turned the page, and they're still on stage, and now, she's winning," sang Hitomi and Emi, as Ranko had not yet fully recomposed herself.
"That's our show, everybody," Ranko said hollowly over the muted crowd, waving to the crowd. She did her best to smile, ignoring the tears still streaming their way down her cheek. Man, they're so quiet. They must really be disappointed. "I'm so sorry it hasn't been perfect. I did my best, I swear! It's just been really hard tonight."
I owe it to them to send them home with better than that. Gotta get it together now! C'mon, Ranko. One last time. She gestured with her hand back to the guitarist on her right, summoning all of her strength into her lungs.
Heart of a Dragon. Heart of a Dragon. Heart of a Dragon.
"On lead guitar: my friend and yours, Noboyuki! 'Crash!' MATSUYAMA!"
The crowd came back to life alongside Ranko, going absolutely berserk in a show of appreciation for the instrumentalist. The cheers of the forty-five thousand Firebirds in attendance were louder than Ranko had ever heard an audience get in her life. She wondered if it was a product of the much larger crowd than had attended any of her previous shows, the enclosed space of the Tokyo Dome, their appreciation of the band's willingness to power through their grief to perform, or some combination of the three.
"Um, guys?!" Ariel stood up from his seat, peering over his controls to ensure that he'd once again routed his audio only to the stagehands. "Why'd she interrupt the song with the outro like normal, if we're not doing the encore?!"
Kazuki's eyes widened with a sudden realization as he watched Ranko gesture to Shinji from behind the curtain. The deafening adulation for the band's bassist shook the very platform under his feet, and he all but screamed into his radio to ensure that he could be heard in the booth. "Oh, shit! Ari, when she went down, her headset fell off for a second! I don't think she heard you call it!"
"Fuck!" Ariel reached quickly down to his audio panel, flicking all of the switches for the band's radios to their hot positions. "Ranko! Let's wrap it up! We're not going to do the encore. You've done enough."
"On drums…" Ranko swallowed hard, having to remind herself at the last instant what name needed to be given. Much though she loved her current drummer, the Australian was not the percussionist that was on her mind at the moment. "ZOOOOOOOOOOOE! KIIIIIIING!"
Wincing, Izumi ducked her head down and covered her ears. The pressure alone from the barrage of sound coming from everywhere all at once threatened to crack her skull in two.
"ON KEYBOARD… JACOB TRRRRRRIMBLE!" Ranko roared at the top of her lungs, turning and pointing her hand back at the green-haired man behind the synthesizer. The audience was electrified, and despite how hollowed out her heart felt, she was determined to bask in it, one last time, before the tour came to a close.
"Ranko! Listen to me! We're shutting it down!" Ariel's eyes scanned his panel, confirming that his audio was in fact being broadcast to the whole crew. "Why isn't she listening?!"
Norio flicked the switch on the battery pack on his waist. He shouted into his headset as loudly as he could. "It's way too loud down here! She can't hear anything!" The stagehand reached out, grabbing Sanyo by the wrist as he passed. "Get out there and tell her we're shutting it down!"
"My girls! EMI KIMOTO!" Ranko reached out, pulling Emi into a hug. "Thank you!" she yelled in the blonde's ear, not caring in the slightest if her microphone carried it to the audience at large. Emi switched off her microphone and shook her head, but whatever she said to Ranko was lost in the clamor of the crowd.
Sanyo jogged out to center stage, waving his arm to get Ranko's attention. "Hey! I gotta talk to you!"
Ranko nodded, sniffling quickly to clear her nostrils. She had mostly tried to read his lips, because the absolutely deafening cheers drowned out any sound he may have made. "Not now! I'm almost done!" She stretched her left arm out, pulling Hitomi under her armpit and squeezing her tight. "And… HITOMI UYENO!" Ranko lowered her head, resting her forehead gently on the top of the shorter girl's scalp in a wordless gesture of appreciation.
Growling in frustration, Sanyo stepped closer to the songstress, waving his hand overhead again. "Ranko! Wait a minute! Listen!"
Ignoring Sanyo's shouts, Ranko released Hitomi and roared louder still into her microphone to try to keep pace with the earthsplitting adulation of her legion of Firebirds. "Let's hear it for our friends backstage: Kazuki Asai and Nor…" She stopped mid-syllable as Sanyo reached out, gripping her by the forearm to get her attention.
"Listen!" Sanyo yelled. "Ariel sai…"
What's your problem, dude?! 35 shows and you're still missing your damned cues?! You're supposed to wait 'til after I call Utaru… Whatever. I guess we're all a little off tonight. I'll just do the rest after. Ranko sighed and grabbed Sanyo's wrist, stepping forward and lowering into a crouch. She yanked him forward, using the momentum of his forward stumble to toss him aikido-style to the stage floor on his back.
A gasp rocketed through the audience. The tornado of sound ebbed to a confused murmur that built in the crowd, but Ranko had grown accustomed to that. She was not prepared, however, for the young man in a Shibuya Stars athletics jacket that stood up from his seat in the fourth row.
"THIS IS IT!" the boy shouted, gleefully anticipating the epic conclusion of the show that he had read about on the Ranko and the Dapper Dragons fan message boards. "HERE WE GO!" he roared, and the audience immediately whipped back into a frenzy.
The still-shaken lead vocalist rolled her eyes when Hitomi and Emi stood frozen in place. Look what you did, man. You fucked up their cues, too. That's why we said no spoilers! Shit. Oh well, I guess the girls had to cover a few of my slip-ups. It's only fair.
"Na, na-na, na! Na, na-na! NUH-UH!" Ranko sang in the loudest taunt she could emit from her lungs, wagging her finger at the prone dancer at her feet.
Ariel slumped awkwardly back into his battered office chair, in no small part because the concrete concourse lurched more violently than he recalled experiencing during the 1987 Chiba earthquake owing to the concussive force of the entire upper deck launching out of their seats in excitement at once. He rolled his eyes, turning to his right. "Well, Masa… strap back in! I guess we're doing this shit after all."