Ranko stepped out of the remaining glass heel, leaving it in place and beginning to circumnavigate the front edge of the stage barefoot. The spotlight followed her, leaving the remainder of the stage cloaked in darkness. She made her way to stage right, approaching the armoire and the bed that her stagehands had positioned. A simple four-chord progression began emanating from Jacob's keyboard, leaving no time for Ranko to banter with the audience.
She approached the foot of the bed, gazing dreamily up at the interior of the armoire. A frilly white wedding dress Mei had picked up at a secondhand store was the only thing hanging in it. The garment was a far cry from the custom-made masterpiece she had worn for both of her weddings, but Ranko dared not risk damaging her actual wedding dress by hauling it through half of Asia. A pair of glittery silver heels rested on the bottom shelf below the dress.
The redhead gripped onto one of the open doors of the armoire, popping her bare foot back up behind her as she'd seen countless women in romance movies do when getting a really good kiss. Her voice was soft and tremulous, a far cry from the verbal eruption that had been Self-Rescuing Princess. Of course, that had been a self-affirming declaration of feminine power, and the song that followed it was the love ballad she'd performed for her partner on their wedding day.
That she'd written for her partner just a few hours before, after numerous aborted attempts.
"There's a long white dress… hanging over there… My sister's coming in five hours, just to help me do my hair…"
As she sang, Ranko reached down into the bottom of the armoire, retrieving the sparkly shoes. She padded over to the foot of the bed, sitting down and beginning to slip them onto her feet. The video screen showed a wide angle view of the east wall of the little apartment that she'd called home for just over six months. A long, clear plastic garment bag hung from the curtain rod over the apartment's lone window, the handmade wedding dress Izumi had designed for her waiting within.
"Don't think I've ever felt… this afraid be-fo-o-o-ore… It's five-seventeen A.M., and I'm still pacin' round the floor."
Ranko stood in her new shoes, stalking back and forth in front of the bed. The stage lights remained lowered, and the video board had not yet relit. Utaru hurried out onto the pitch-black left third of the stage, beginning to sweep the shards of glass into a pile with a pushbroom with naught but the moonlight to guide him to them.
"I don't have doubts. Didn't get cold fe-e-e-et…" Ranko sang, despite knowing it to be a lie. Her feet, like every other part of her, felt like they would shatter at the slightest touch owing to being entirely frozen solid. The temperature had fallen even further, though Ranko could not fathom how.
"... I just have no clue what I'm gonna say on that stage when our eyes meet."
Ranko leaned on a corner of the bed's footboard, gripping it with both hands. Her back was turned to the armoire, but she looked back at it over her shoulder.
"I'm out of time. It's happening toda-a-a-ay…"
She turned her eyes down to the stage floor.
"How am I supposed to con-cen-tra-ate when you're sleeping three steps a- waaaaaay?" Her pitch raised nearly a full octave for the final note.
The display began playing a home video, shot by Ayako on Mei's camera. Ranko was seated in one of the pine dinette chairs in the apartment above the Phoenix in her custom, hand-made wedding gown while Izumi applied her foundation. Both were laughing, despite Ranko's best efforts to sit still. In the background, Yui leaned on the kitchenette counter in her yellow bridesmaid's dress, reaching down to adjust her shoe.
"There are no words. Nothing I can say. I've been staring at this notebook and this pencil here for days."
The camera panned to the right. It lingered on Mei applying her mascara for a moment before the blue-haired girl realized she was being filmed. Mei looked up at the camera, sticking her tongue out and pulling down her cheek under her right eye with a finger as she'd seen done in any number of manga.
"I never thought… it would be this tough. I've thrown at least a hundred drafts away, 'cause nothing's quite enough."
Ranko glanced up at the screen quickly before grimacing and turning away. It infuriated her that she could show twenty-some-thousand strangers a video of every part of her wedding - as long as it didn't for even a split second include the person she had actually married. They had debated re-cutting the video in order to include some of the footage of her second wedding so that at least Aki would be visible.Nabiki ultimately had overruled Ranko's request because she feared their ruse would be discovered if too many people had a chance to examine it. Ranko, for her part, knew Nabiki was right.
It made her sick anyway.
"I've never been this sure of anything, and yet, somehow, it's still surreal. Baby, there are no words big enough for how I feel."
Jacob's piano-voiced synthesizer and Crash's guitar yielded for a moment to a sultry melody oozing from Shinji Yokota's saxophone.
"I tried old poems. Looked at Shakespeare, too-o-o-oooo… and I guess no one in hist'ry's ever loved like I love you."
The video screen behind the young singer displayed a still image of a notebook page filled with Ranko's handwriting. Most of the text was scratched out too emphatically to be read, but what was still visible managed to convey that the page represented a failed attempt at song lyrics. Underneath it, this sucks, do better!!! was written in Ranko's frustrated hand.
"Listened to every song. Learned all the famous quo-o-o-otes. I even read the dictionary, but not a single thing came close."
Utaru rushed back behind the curtain. He carried his broom and standing dustpan in one hand, and Ranko's unbroken right glass slipper in the other. "I'm clear," he announced into his radio.
"Clear, heard," Ariel replied from the control booth, triggering the green cue light to alert Ranko that she was free to move about the stage.
Another page of discarded handwritten lyrics appeared on the video screen. The phrase I do was circled in red at the end of the first line. The rhyming line beneath ended in the also-circled word kaiju. In red ink, several kanji were scrawled in the margin next to the twin circles. Ranko had translated them into English for the benefit of the audience, adding the phrase are you freaking kidding me?! at the bottom of the page.
"How could I describe, in a couple lines, the way time itself flo-o-ows different, when I realize you're mine?"
Spying the cue light, Ranko began slowly making her way to center stage, the spotlight dimming for a moment as it followed her. She folded her hands over her heart, casting her gaze down at the front row of Firebirds a few meters in front of the stage.
"The lights go down. My heart goes fa-a-a-a-ast." Ranko swayed her head softly as she carried the vocal run, her sweat-damp hair tickling her shoulders. "I could swear that I hear music, and it hasn't stopped since you asked…" Again, her pitch rose several steps for the final note of the verse.
The spotlight returned to its usual intensity, and so too did the ambient stage lighting, revealing the band and the remainder of the stage area again. The video screen displayed Ranko, in her wedding dress, sitting in a chair in the Phoenix. A tall woman with salt-and-pepper hair in a gray pin-striped pantsuit stood in front of her, both of her hands on the bride's shoulders. Whatever the woman was saying in the soundless video clip, it was bringing tears to Ranko's eyes.
"There are no words. Nothing I can say, that could remotely start to capture how I feel when you look my way. I guess I let you down. Baby, I got it wro-o-o-ong…"
The woman in the pinstriped suit leaned down, planting a kiss on the bride's cheek.
"... when I told you I could get it all out in a song."
"Aren't you gonna get out of this thing?" Emi approached her girlfriend backstage, playfully tugging at the sleeve of her tearaway Victorian gown. "It's itchy as hell."
Hitomi shrugged her shoulders, taking another sip of hot coffee. She emitted a quiet purr of contentment as its warmth spread through her. "Maybe so, but I'm not about to turn down extra layers right now. You think a dancer's ever frozen to death live on stage before?"
With a sympathetic sigh, Emi peered out at her friend through a sliver-wide gap in the curtain. "For Ranko's sake, I hope not."
"I've never been this sure of anything, and yet, somehow, it's still surreal. Baby, there are no words big enough for how I fe-e-e-e-eel."
On the video screen, a third page of rejected lyrics appeared. The page did not bear red writing indicating Ranko's commentary, because it didn't need to - it was written in the original text. The college-ruled paper read, in blue pen, I'll love you forever, and ever and ever, and let you go never, and… this is trash. Kill me now, please! A frowny face with Xes for eyes accompanied the frustrated invective in Ranko's handwriting.
"I realized… a long time a-go-o-o-o… that I will always love you more than I can ever let you know."
Emi patted her girlfriend on the thigh. "C'mon. Let's get ready for the next one. She's almost done."
"But…" Hitomi protested, sighing. "Alright. You win." She downed the last sip of her coffee, leaving the cup on a plastic tour case and beginning to unsnap her tearaway yellow gown. "But when we get back to the hotel, you are cuddling me until my insides thaw out."
"Wish you could feel… everything I do-o-o-ooo! Too much gets lost in translation when I just say I love you." Ranko made wide gestures with her arms, trying in vain to demonstrate the vastness of her affection for her secret bride.
"Deal!" Emi replied with a giggle.
Kaz scooped up an armful of water bottles from a box near Emi's feet, carrying them to an empty wooden crate in the shadowed backstage area. He uncapped three of them, pouring them into the reservoir of the coffeepot and pushing the red button. Its three-minute brew cycle would finish just a few moments before the end of the following song, he reasoned.
"No one could ever hear it. No one could ever see-e-e-ee… You fill all five of my senses, and it's still too much for me! Sometimes it hurts, fitting it all insi-i-i-ide. Haven't found a way to tell you yet, but I promise that I tried!"
The Ranko on the video board leaned forward, resting her cheek gently on the chest of her dance partner. Her mascara had left short black trails down her cheeks, carried by her tears. To the audience, it appeared no different than any other father-daughter wedding dance. They would never know that Ranko had signed the adoption paperwork to formally become Soun Tendo's youngest daughter not even twenty minutes before the footage had been filmed.
"There are no words! Nothing I can sa-a-a-ay, knowing this was the last morning I would call you fiancé. I'll barely have the time… to add a couple cho-o-o-ords… 'cause I've gotta get downstairs, and let the whole world know I'm yours."
Ranko swayed on her glittery heels at center stage, mostly standing still through the ballad and not diverting any energy from her vocal performance to dance. The slow, soft melody didn't really lend itself well to choreography. Besides, she thought, it's as close as I'm ever gonna get to telling the world the truth about what I feel for Akane. So, I'm gonna do it as loudly and as clearly as I can, even if I'm doing it through chattering teeth 'cause I'm freezing my fucking tits off.
"I've never been this sure of an-y-thing, and yet, I swear, it's still surreal. Baby, there are no words big enough for how I fe-e-e-eel!"
The music changed to a new key, a third of an octave higher in pitch, led by a short piano solo from Jacob. On the screen hanging from the trusses, a series of still photos of Ranko's first wedding began, showing a new one every few seconds. Most were candids of Ranko eating cake, talking with her guests, or trying to hold still while Izumi touched up her makeup.
"I probably should have known, back when this all begun… it was like counting to infinity, because it simply can't be done. And even if I could… somehow reach the e-e-e-end… by then, I'd love you more than I did be-e-fore, and I'd have to start AGAIN!"
When the high-pitched belt ended, the music returned to its usual key. Ranko made her way behind the changing screen Norio had set up behind the bed on stage right. Its tan canvas panels were printed with the serene watercolor image of a sprawling meadow blooming with lavender and white orchids.
"There are no words. Nothing I can say. But I'll always do my best to try and tell you anyway."
As she continued to sing, Ranko slipped the straps of her silver dress off of her shoulders, letting it slide down her body to the floor. She stepped out of it, gazing mournfully at the borrowed black leggings that she knew were the next to go.
The video display, the only thing left for the audience to focus on with Ranko obscured behind the changing screen, showed a soundless video of Ranko sitting in a chair in her wedding dress on the stage of the Phoenix, plucking at a guitar and trying to sing through her tears.
"You deserve to know… how much you've changed my li-i-i-ife…"
Ranko stepped out of the dress and kicked her feet out of the silver pumps she wore. She leaned her backside on the little table Kaz had provided behind the screen, using it to maintain her balance as she lifted each leg out of the tights.
"How impossible and magical it feels to be your wife…"
Every hair follicle on Ranko's newly-bared legs stood on end, and it was all she could do not to let her sudden gasp become audible on her microphone. Oh, fuck me, it's freezing… She turned to the rough wooden table that had been her leaning post, picking up the fuschia tulle tutu that awaited her there. She quickly stepped into it, pulling it up around her waist. It was a perfect match for the bodysuit she'd concealed under her silver evening gown, giving the appearance that the two garments were in fact a one-piece dress.
"I've never been this sure of anything, and yet somehow, it's still surreal. Baby, there are no words big enough for how I feel."
Ranko stepped out from behind the screen to the sound of cheers of approval for her new, more revealing attire. She was backlit by the video board projecting a final still image - the east wall of the apartment above the Phoenix again. Her wedding dress no longer hung on the curtain rod, but a white wooden frame had appeared just to the right of the window. It contained a still photo of Ranko, taken by Ayako from the stage. She was walking up the ramp Kaito had built to join her partner at the altar. She carried a massive bouquet of multicolored flowers, and her face was the absolute embodiment of joy. The camera's focus was entirely on her, leaving the faces of the guests a blur.
"It's like living in a daydream, and I can't believe it's real."
Ranko held her left hand in her right, gazing lovingly down at her custom-designed wedding ring. She raised it to her mouth, letting her chapped lips rest on the band for a pair of beats.
"There never will be words big enough for how I feel."