Hug and Sway

"Talk about déjà vu all over again," Akane whispered, resting her forehead on Ranko's shoulder as the pair swayed.

"Yeah, it does seem familiar," Ranko said in a similarly low tone, turning her head to kiss her masculine-presenting wife softly on the temple. "Can we do it again tomorrow?" As she spoke, she added a bit of extra swish to her hips through the chorus of You're My Song. While her slow-dancing skills had greatly improved since their first wedding ceremony the July prior, wearing a dress that was almost a third of her body weight still presented its share of mobility challenges.

Laughing, Akane took Ranko's hand, extending her arm as the song concluded and spinning on her feet to twirl Ranko in an orbit around herself. After all the time we've had to spend hiding, today, I just wanna show her off, she thought as she made eye contact with a few of the people surrounding the pair in the unfinished space that would, in a matter of months, be a nightclub dance floor. It took some effort on the part of the bride in the rigid corset she wore, but she managed to make the twirl look graceful for the benefit of the observers.

Ranko released Akane's hand, taking hold of her skirt and offering her husband a deep, regal curtsey as the final note of You're My Song faded from the air. Seems appropriate for princess mode, she thought with a smirk behind her heavy makeup.

Aki responded with a formal bow of his own as the assembled guests and wedding party applauded them. The ever-present clack-clack-clack of Natsuko's camera served as a bassline, keeping the rhythm to support the irregular whoops and claps. Akane rolled her eyes, shaking her head with a smile as a new instrument was added to the din: the rhythmic tink of something repeatedly striking glass. One glass became two, which became four, which became ten. "Again, you guys?"

Ranko made a show of shying away from her husband, a well-acted coy simper on her face as she raised her right hand to her lips. "But… in front of all these people? It's so improper…"

"Yeah, yeah," Akane said, closing the gap between the pair. "You're a good girl, prim and proper innocence…" She rested her elbows on Ranko's shoulders, pulling her bride by the neck into a furious kiss to the cheers of their family and friends. Halfway through it, Ranko popped her foot up from the floor, bending her right leg back at the knee as she'd seen any number of girls do in Akane's romance movies when they really got the perfect kiss.

"You ready for the next one?" Akane asked in a whisper as she broke the kiss after nearly a full minute.

Ranko nodded emphatically, puckering her lips and leaning forward.

"No, dummy, the next dance!" Akane cackled loudly at Ranko's cheeky response.

Ranko slumped her shoulders in not-entirely-mocked disappointment. "Oh. Then yeah, I guess so." The breathless bride hesitated a moment before turning to face her family. "I'm told I'm in demand today, and I have to keep dancing." She scoffed playfully, shaking her head with a roll of her eyes to the ceiling. "I swear, they give me longer breaks between songs than this on tour."

As the crowd standing around them laughed, Ranko rotated in place, scanning their faces for the one she sought. Finding it, she stepped forward, offering her hand to Soun Tendo. "Dad… may I have this dance?" Neither she nor Akane had warned him that she intended to ask him, nor about the song Ranko had chosen for their first dance at the reception that, thus far, had been less structured than their first wedding.

"I… well, of course," Soun answered, laughing a bit nervously. He handed his pilsner glass of beer off to Kasumi and stepped forward, taking the bride's hand in his own.

Akane slipped out of the clearing at the center of the ring of people with a bright smile for her father, taking a position next to Hana to watch. As she did, Ariel jogged off to his CD player, poking at the next track button with his finger before pressing play. A big-band trombone riff began to pour from his twin speakers on the stage floor above, joined by a gentle drumbeat and a tambourine.

Ranko reached out, placing her left hand on the small of Soun's back, difficult as it was to reach his shoulder, and holding up her right for him to take. She smiled sincerely as her father enjoined her in the structured embrace, and the pair began to sway to the twenty-two year old American song Soun had never heard before.

In a moment, the instruments were joined by the singing voice of Elvis Presley.

"When no one else can understand me, when everything I do is wrong, you give me love and consolation. You give me hope to carry on. And you're always there to lend a hand in everything I do. That's the wonder… the wonder of you."

Ranko released her adoptive father's hand for a moment, reaching up to wipe a tear from his cheek with a gentle swipe of her fingers. "Dad, I… I can't tell you what it's meant to me, having you as a father. Knowing somebody… actually wants me like that. Like this. You didn't get stuck with me. You… picked me, just like Mom and my sisters did."

Soun sniffled, biting his lip hard to try and re-center himself as Ranko took his hand again. "It wasn't a difficult decision, Ranko. Being your father is an honor - one I can't fathom any man not cherishing." He sighed quietly. And I can't understand for the life of me what's wrong with old Saotome that he never could see it, he thought with a sad shake of his head. I tried, honey. I tried, so many times, to tell him what he was missing. He just wouldn't listen.

"Ranko Tendo, I am so very proud of you, child," Soun whispered, pulling her tighter into his embrace as the chorus of the not even three-minute song repeated for the final time. "I love you."

"I guess I'll never know the reason why you love me as you do. That's the wonder… the wonder of you."

Ranko squeezed hard around his back as she was hugged. "I love you, too, Dad."

Akane smirked, turning to Hana. "Man, he was not expecting to do that again. She got him good!"

"You think that's bad?!" Hana smirked, grabbing Akane tightly by the wrist as she started walking toward Ranko and the girls' father. "Where do you think you're going, boy?"

The bridegroom looked up, shock in her eyes. "Huh?!"

Smirking deviously, Ranko strode past as Hana all but dragged Akane to the center of the clearing to the cheers of everyone standing around them. "Have fun, lover boy," Ranko mewled, standing on her tiptoes to kiss Akane on the cheek. She flashed a warm smile to her mother as she trundled her heavy dress out of the circular clearing, waiting a moment for Shinji and Crash to part to make space for her and her voluminous gown to stand.

A guitar solo began playing throughout the cavernous room, punctuated only with the occasional cymbal hit. Hana closed her eyes, swaying alone with the familiar rock ballad rhythm for a moment before Akane nervously took her position to dance with her.

"Mama told me when I was young: 'come sit beside me, my only son. And listen closely to what I say, and if you do, it'll help you some sunny day…'"

Hana smirked as Akane flushed in her recognition of the song. "You didn't think I'd let poor Ranko take all the teasing, did you, honey?"

Laughing, Akane swayed awkwardly to Ronnie Van Zant's voice, looking up into Hana's face. "You can be a real shit sometimes. You know that, Mom?"

"And be a simple… kind of man!" the song encouraged. "Oh, be something you love and understand! Baby, be a simple kind of man! Oh, won't you do this for me, son, if you can?"

Hana chuckled as the pair missed a step together. "Uh, excuse me!" she protested loudly. "You're the guy in this dance! Are you gonna lead, or what?!"

"Good luck, if anybody thinks they're gonna lead you anywhere!" Yui called back from the crowd, cupping her hands around her mouth.

Laughing as Akane found her feet and began to lead, Hana reached in close, pulling Aki into a tight hug as the pair swayed to the guitar stylings of Lynyrd Skynyrd.

"I meant what I said up there, you know," Hana whispered, her face close to Akane's ear both to aid in hearing and to obscure her lips from view. "Believe me, I know she can be a handful, but she couldn't be in better hands. You take such good care of her."

Akane sighed, eschewing nearly all footwork to just rock Hana in her arms as the pair spoke. "When she lets me. But I'll always do my best. I promise."

"I know you will." Hana cringed slightly as the bright flash of Natsuko's camera caught the corner of her eye, reminding her of the true purpose of the day's festivity. The loving dance she shared with her youngest daughter's partner, sweet and tender though it was, was just another surgical strike in the calculation of Ranko's private war.

"This thing with Yokai… you know it's gonna get harder before it gets easier, right? I'm not sure how, but…" Hana rubbed Akane's back reassuringly through her black tuxedo jacket. "Just, something in my gut."

"Boy, don't you worry, you'll find yourself! Follow your heart, and nothing else!"

Ronnie Van Zant's command gave Akane a moment's pause, and she sighed quietly. "I know. I'll be ready. I promise." She glanced to her right, where Ranko was giggling with Crash about something.

"I'll make sure she's ready, too. Somehow."

As the song ended, Hana leaned down and placed a kiss on Akane's forehead. "Good boy," she said gently, the hint of a grin returning to her lips.

The couple's friends and family applauded. Ranko stepped forward into the circle of humanity, taking Akane's hand. Her mother released her bridegroom and made her way out of the metaphorical spotlight - as the literal ones had yet to be installed in the nightclub her seven daughters owned.

* * *

"Come on, Ranko!"

The redheaded bride blushed, addressing the cheering assembly. "I swear, you guys! Sixty people, and you make me more nervous than twenty thousand sometimes!"

Yui shook her head, closing the distance to her baby sister. She took Ranko by the shoulders, physically turning the bride toward the stage. "Quit your bitching. Go on, scoot!" She made a show of kicking at Ranko's backside, though she had no intention of connecting with her yellow heels.

"Fine, fine!" Groaning over the mostly feminine cheers rising around her, Ranko reached down to the table next to her and gathered her bouquet of white roses.

"Hey, Ranko?!"

The redhead turned to one of the white cloth-covered folding tables that had been deployed on the dance floor when dinner had been served, following the sound of her sister's voice. "What's up, Iz? Got some brilliant plan to get me out of this?"

Chuckling, Izumi shook her head. "No, blockhead. I just wanted to remind you." She pointed up above the stage. "Aim low. We don't need you hitting the trusses and getting it stuck up there. I don't want to have to wake Kaito up to get the ladder out."

Rolling her eyes despite the smile on her lips, Ranko took hold of her fluffy tulle skirt and slumped her shoulders. "I swear, sis, you're such a mom sometimes. It's annoying!"

"Right?!" Hoshi laughed around his mouthful of cake from his seat at the table he shared with his mother. As Kaito was sleeping off a week's worth of all-nighters to get the venue ready in the apartment next door that had once been Ranko's, Kage and Ayako had also joined the mother and son at their table.

"Alright," Hana called out through the wireless microphone in her hand. "We need all the unmarried women to come up here by the stage!"

Turning as her father nudged her shoulder, Kasumi giggled. "Oh, no. I'm already engaged. That's close enough." She squeezed Tofu's hand for emphasis. "Nabiki, though…"

"Forget it," Nabiki said, resting her chin in her hands with her elbows propped on the table. "You know what they say, and I ain't the marrying type."

Soun frowned, shaking his head with a disappointed tsk of his tongue. "You know, Nabiki, one of these days you are going to wake up and find yourself awfully lonely."

"I'll get a dog," Nabiki replied flatly as the floor around the stage began to fill with Ranko and Akane's female classmates. "What about…"

"Don't even say it," came the reply from Nodoka Shimizu across the table from her. "Once was plenty for me."

Shinji shook his head as he took in the spectacle forming a few meters in front of him. "What the hell are you two idiots doing?!"

"We're not married, are we?!" Hitomi tittered brightly. "Nobody said anything about not cooperating for tactical advantage!" She glanced down, craning her neck around her fluffy orange dress to make eye contact with the woman whose shoulders she sat on. "Just don't drop me, Ems!"

"Well, then you shouldn't wiggle around on top of me so damn much!" Emi bent her knees somewhat, trying to find a more stable center of gravity.

Hitomi giggled, wagging her finger down at her girlfriend. "That's not what you said last night!"

"Ya know," Yui said, glancing down at the hand of the shorter woman seated alone at table six. "I don't see a ring on your finger."

"Yeah, well, me and my husband… it didn't work out. I spent too much time at work, I guess. But I got the most incredible baby boy out of the deal, so I don't regret it," Amaya Uyehara insisted, looking up at the woman who had approached the table where she sat alone.

Yui motioned over her shoulder toward the stage. "Well, go on, then! Get your ass up there, girl!"

Amaya shook her head, letting it hang a little. Her face took on a pallor of shame. "No, I… I couldn't. It doesn't feel right to participate in this whole thing at all, considering… I've had a hand in making it necessary. That poor girl has…"

Yui's hand flashed up, waving Amaya's sentence off before it could be completed. "Are you doing everything you can to help my sister now?"

"I…" Amaya swallowed hard, fiddling idly with the glass of soda in her hand. "I think so. I'm trying."

"So, I don't know how much Ranko's told you about us, and this place, but around here, we have a word for people who do that." Yui smirked down at the black-haired woman, crossing her arms over her breasts. "Family." She gestured with her neck in the direction of the stage. "Best get a move on! She ain't gonna wait too much longer."

"Remember, babe. Think clumsy thoughts."

"Does she have any other kind?" Sakura jibed, sneering jovially at Mei in response to Seiichi's comment.

Mei frowned in her seat, worry clouding her face - though about what, she did not share. "Would marrying me really be so bad?"

"N- not bad! Just… too soon!" The Phoenix's newest server stammered, recoiling a bit in his seat to retreat from his girlfriend's glare.

Sakura clicked her tongue thrice, shaking her head admonishingly in Seiichi's direction. "I do believe you just fucked up, my friend."

"Give me that, baby." Hana said, reaching out with grabby fingers. "You've been working all day, and haven't had a minute to enjoy the party. Get up there."

"But…" Natsuko's eyes went wide, and she held her camera out of Hana's grasp. "Nabiki was very clear. Nobody breathes in this room unless you get a picture of it, Natsuko! It's so important for Ranko, and maybe we can put some of the shots in the Firebird newsletter too! I can't let her down, Miss Hana!"

Hana snapped her fingers insistently, twice, flexing her fingers to grab for the professional-grade camera again. "I'll take the pictures. Go on. I said all the unmarried women, didn't I?"

Natsuko begrudgingly removed the nylon strap from around her neck, offering the camera out to Hana. Hana took it, but before she could slip the strap behind her head, an arm reached around her to snatch it from behind.

"Yes. You did," Ariel said, dropping the camera strap behind his head with a cheeky smirk. "And that includes you, if I'm not mistaken."

"I-" Hana's face turned a brighter shade of red than it had in a year. "But…"

Ariel chuckled, quickly leveling the camera to his eye and snapping a photo of her bewildered face. "And that is the sound of a woman without an argument to make. Go on. Shoo!" He waved her away with the back of his hand as Natsuko grabbed Hana's arm in both of hers.

"Come on, Miss Hana!" Natsuko pleaded as she tugged on the old barkeep's forearm. "We're gonna miss it!"

"Alright, girls! We ready?" Ranko waved her bunch of roses high above her head from the stage to a chorus of whoops and whistles.

"Okay! Here we go!"

She turned her back to the throng of women, bouncing the bouquet in front of her with each number she counted. "One! Two! THREE!" As she called out three, she launched the bouquet over her head with both hands, whirling as fast as her heavy dress would allow to see where it landed. A mad scramble was taking place on the floor in front of her as the eighteen roses fluttered down from the rafters.

Amaya reached high for the bouquet, but it sailed over her head. She whipped around to see where it ended up, grinning as it fell into the arms of a young bridesmaid with her hair in a silver-dyed bob.

"YEAH, KUMI!" Ranko bounced on her heels, clapping excitedly for her friend, but a loud shriek of terror pierced the air, drawing the attention of all the assembled women.

"SHIT! 'Tomi, I-" Emi whirled desperately, blushing as she watched her girlfriend come to rest a half-meter from the floor in the arms of Shiori Nagata and Rin Matsubara.

"And that," Shiori said with a minxy grin as she helped lower Hitomi to her feet, "... is why you never throw a party without cheerleaders."

* * *

"I'm just saying, bro, you should think about it."

Akane blushed, hiding her face behind one of her hands with her elbow propped on the table. "Nabiki, I couldn't…"

"Excuuuuse me!" Ranko shook her head, slipping into the seat next to Aki and giving him a quick peck on the cheek before turning to Nabiki. "Who told you you could embarrass my husband without me?! What's going on?"

Nabiki smirked, sipping at her martini slowly and deliberately. She lowered her voice to a whisper, leaning over the table close to Ranko. While everyone in the room was privy to Akane's secret identity, far fewer knew her bride's.

"I was just commenting that Daddy signed some paperwork and legally magicked you into existence, and, well…" Nabiki smirked devilishly, curling just the very corner of her mouth in a way that never failed to unsettle Ranko. "If you two wanted to make this thing official, I'm sure Hana would love to formally adopt a son."

Ranko covered her mouth, her cheeks bulging with a loud nurph as she fought to keep from spitting her soda at her elder sister.

"I'm not gonna…" Akane cringed, looking around as she noticed a few people turning to see what the commotion at the head table was about. "I'm not gonna stop being a girl!"

Nabiki shrugged. "Nobody says ya hafta. I mean hell, look at Zoe. But Aki Takahashi, on paper, could sign a marriage license with Ranko and it would all be on the up-and-up. I mean, the dates would look a little weird if anybody looked too closely, but…"

That impish grin cracked her cheeks again. "A few thousand yen in an envelope, in the right places, and you'll be surprised at all the information government employees tend to… misplace." She snickered, more loudly than she intended. "Especially if you file the papers in Nerima." Nabiki turned her head, glancing at the tall mustachioed man laughing with Ranko's biological mother and Tofu Ono. "I know a guy on the inside."

"But, I don't…"

Ranko reached to her right, patting her flustered partner on the hand. "Let's call it a plan of last resort, if anybody starts digging. Sound good?"

"But, Ranko, I mrphhh!" Akane's eyes bulged as her bride crammed a huge piece of buttercream-frosted strawberry wedding cake into her mouth.

"Shh," Ranko said with a giggle as Akane struggled to chew.

"Oh, damn it!" Natsuko leveled her camera, clicking her finger as fast as it would bounce on the silver shutter button. "Why didn't anybody tell me they were gonna do the cake smashing thing?!"

Ranko stood, motioning to Crash as Akane worked to clear her mouth of the mammoth wad of cake and wipe the frosting from her face. Ranko noticed her hand as her best friend approached, blushing and sucking on her fingers to remove the pink buttercream icing from them. "Hey, Crash! We gonna do the thing?"

Crash craned his neck toward the stage. "I think they're almost ready. Lemme go check." He jogged off to confer with Jacob and Shinji, who were working on wiring their instruments to the audio mixing panel Zoe had carried over from the bar next door.

Receiving a thumbs up from Crash, Ranko turned and bent down, kissing Akane atop her head. "I'm gonna go sing you a song now, handsome." She grinned down to Nabiki. "Now, don't let him run off and flirt with any other girls while I'm gone, ya got it?"

"I mean," Nabiki said, laughing as she handed her flustered, tuxedoed sister another wad of napkins. She made a show of keeping one, fanning her face with it as if she were overheated. "I'll do my best, but he is awfully hot…"

"You know it, girl!" Ranko snickered, glancing back over her shoulder as she walked to the stage. "But, then again… I'm a pop star, and I deserve a trophy husband."

"Check?" Ranko leaned down into the microphone on its metal stand at center stage, wishing she could wear her wireless headset. Izumi would have a stroke if I messed up my hair with it, she decided. "Check one, two? You guys hear me okay?"

A chorus of whoops and whistles answered her in the affirmative.

"Alright," she said into the microphone, grinning to Hitomi and Emi as the pair ascended the steps to the stage. "So, I swear I didn't write this for today. It's already recorded for our third album. But, given the circumstances, I just had to sing Aki this particular love song tonight. Some of you might have heard it at the Phoenix, but if not… well, it's a fun one. I hope you enjoy!"

She turned, surveying her bandmates with her eyes and ensuring each looked ready to perform. Ranko turned back to the microphone, her face crimson. "Wow… a whole band of handsome guys in tuxedos playing for me. I feel so fancy!" She reached down, gripping her skirt and swishing it around her legs with her hands while grinning coyly at the stage floor. "I'm just like one of those elegant Fifties stars in their cocktail dresses and shit. Maybe I should have them…"

"No!" was the response, booming through the speakers in Shinji's deep bass voice. "It's not happening, Tendo. You're lucky you got today. Don't push it!"

Ranko nodded, a disappointed curl forming on her lips. "Yeah, you're probably right. Anyway… are we ready, Dragons? One! Two!"

Crash's guitar sprung to life, strumming a rollicking melody befitting one of the alternative rock songs that had been all the rage in the West of late. After two bars, Zoe's drums and Shinji's bass joined it while Crash repeated the previous sequence of notes.

"Yeaaaaaaaaaah!" Ranko roared in an almost rock scream into the dynamic microphone, removing it from its stand as an electronic tone from Jacob's synthesizer completed the melody.

Chuckling, Akane shook her head as she tossed the last crumpled napkin she'd used to clean her face to the table. She just had to pick this song, today of all days.

"You were headed off to college, and we were just eighteen," Ranko crooned, stalking slowly across the brand-new stage in her white flats. She wished she could dance, but in her restrictive, heavy corset and long flowing skirt, it would have exhausted her. Instead, she relegated the choreography to two of her bridesmaids, who wiggled mostly above their waists behind her.

"You waited 'til you saw my mother busy with something or other, said we wouldn't be seen."

She paused for a moment, giving top billing to the playful riff emanating from her best friend's cherry red guitar.

"I figured it was no-o-ow or never. Wasn't even sure what I'd really miss. But I thought, what the hell? I won't squeal. I won't tell."

With a spritely grin, she winked down at her "husband."

"I mean, it's only this o-o-one kiss…"

Ranko giggled into the microphone, putting a skeptical smirk on her face and nodding her head. After a moment, she paused, as if reconsidering her decision, and shook it side to side instead.

"It was just this once."

"Just this once," Emi and Hitomi repeated into the microphones on the stands in front of them, swaying at their waists and alternating which shoulders were thrust forward toward the crowd. They did their best to emulate the classy, if fussy, female backup singers in all of the Fifties recordings Ranko had made them watch.

"It was a one-time deal," Ranko insisted in song. "I didn't think I would love it, but that's quite enough of it. Babe, we gotta be re-e-e-eal!"

"Gotta be real," Hitomi and Emi repeated.

The bride shrugged her shoulders, holding up her hands as if she felt powerless in the moment. The next line was hers alone.

"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 end! Oh, but it was just this once, and we're not doing this a-a-gain!"

A murmur of laughter arose from her assembled guests at the irony of the song's premise at not just her wedding, but her second one in as many years.

"Na, na, no-no, no!" Hitomi sang alone, bopping behind her stand microphone in her flouncy bridesmaid gown.

"Look, I can't, alright?" Ranko answered in a spoken voice.

"Na, na, no-no, no!" Emi sang, crinkling her nose playfully with a shake of her head that let her wavy blonde tresses cascade over her shoulders.

Again, Ranko answered in her speaking voice. "It's not gonna happen."

"Na, na, no-no, no!" Hitomi repeated, wagging her finger side to side at eye level.

"We're just friends, okay?!" Ranko's unsung words sounded a bit more insistent as she whirled to face Hitomi.

"Na-na, na, na-na, na-a-a-aaa!" both of the Dapper Dragons' vocalists harmonized together to end the chorus.

The newly twice-married vocalist gripped the microphone in her hand a bit tighter in her right hand, lifting it to her lips.

"I tried to keep my distance, but I could tell you were cru-u-u-shing!"

The last word had been sung at higher volume, and she threw her head back a bit to compensate rather than risk overwhelming the microphone.

"Gave me an eyeball caress in my new pink mini dress…" The redhead bit her lip, grinning as she looked down at the floor playfully. "And I just couldn't. Stop. Blushing."

"Look at her, she's blushing," Emi sang, turning to Hitomi with a thousand-watt smile as she gestured to the lead singer.

"Soon as you got me alo-o-o-one," Ranko belted, thrashing her head side to side. Because she held the microphone still, the movement of her head created a slight warble in the volume of the emphasized word.

"... you put your hands on meeee!"

Hitomi and Emi both made a show of gasping with wide, slack jaws, covering their mouths with stiff fingers on their left hands.

"Must've been out of my head," Ranko admonished herself, bonking herself gently in the forehead with a limp left fist. "... because we wound up in bed. The rest is hist-o-o-oryyy!"

Ranko wagged her finger insistently in the direction of her spouse. "But it was just this once!"

"Just this once," came Hitomi and Emi's echoed assertion.

"It was a one-time deal! I didn't think I would love it, but that's quite enough of it. Babe, we gotta be real!"

Again, Ranko's backup singers parroted her last few words. "Gotta be real."

"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 end! Oh, but it was just this once, and we're not doing this a-a-gain!"

"Na, na, no-no, no!" This time, it was Emi who vocalized first, rocking her finger side to side in front of her face as she swayed at her microphone.

"I already told you," Ranko pleaded in her speaking voice.

"Na, na, no-no, no!" Hitomi answered a few notes lower on the scale than Emi had.

"What would my sisters say?" Ranko sighed, throwing her hands in the air in exasperation as best she could in her stiff corset.

"Na, na, no-no, no!" Emi sang, a disbelieving look on her face as if she was now trying to convince Ranko of what she herself was saying.

"I didn't say I hated it, but…" Ranko said, grinning impishly as she looked down at her feet.

"Na-na, na, na-na, na-a-a-aaa!"

"Look, we both know it would never work, okay? We're just too different, you and me. It's a nice idea but… oh, hell!" Ranko chuckled as she finished the spoken interlude and began the song's final verse.

"You took me out slo-o-ow dancin'. Brought me a long white rose!"

Ranko beamed as she held up her left hand, gazing at the finger that had finally been made whole after a morning of nakedness.

"I never thought I would see ya gettin' down on one knee. I never thought you'd propose!"

Both backup dancers gasped, turning to each other and gripping the other by the wrists. They squealed loudly with excitement, bouncing on the balls of their feet.

"Don't think my job will like it!" Ranko said, cringing a bit.

Not really, no, Amaya Uyehara thought, chuckling to herself under her breath. But you know what? Fuck 'em. You go get it, girl.

"I can't afford a nice dress," Ranko continued, even as she gripped the puffy skirt of her handmade wedding gown and twirled it around her legs.

"My head was screaming out wait, but I could not hesitate when I answered you ye-e-e-es!" Ranko threw her head back as she sang, bending back as far as her rigid corset would allow.

"It was just this o-o-O-o-o-once! But, baby, gods, it's been nice!"

Hitomi and Emi both covered their mouths, leaning close to each other as if whispering some secret gossip behind their friend's back.

"Could you imagine the scandal? I don't think I could handle going through it all twice!" Ranko flashed the crowd two fingers, wiggling them individually back and forth.

"I mean, if I'm being on the level, that's the thing about forever - you don't get another one when it ends! So, baby, it was just this once, and we're NOT doing this again!"

"Na, na, no-no, no!" This time, both Hitomi and Emi sang the vocalized call and response together.

"Once wasn't enough for you?!" Ranko giggled, tilting her head coyly as she spoke.

"Na, na, no-no, no!" her friends repeated.

"Gods, all the hair, and the makeup, and…" The redhead sighed with an exaggerated roll of her eyes.

"Na, na, no-no, no!"

"Thank you cards. So many thank you cards," Ranko bemoaned.

"Na, na, no-no, no!"

"Another honeymoon wouldn't suck, though!" The songstress giggled into her microphone. Her masculine-presenting spouse squirmed in her seat as Nabiki playfully nudged her shoulder through her tuxedo jacket.

"Na-na, NA, na-na, na-a-AAA-aaa!" All three women on the stage finished the final vocalization together as the four instruments playing behind them came to rest.