Painting the Town

Ranko giggled, walking lightly at an almost prance down the sidewalk. Cradled in her arms was a half-meter tall cyan stuffed dragon, its plush wings flapping over her forearms with her every step. She wore her favorite white lace dress, and her white wide-brimmed hat with the lavender bow on the band - the same outfit she was pictured lying in a field of flowers in for the Wild Orchid album cover. There was an ethereal quality to her, from the way she floated on her feet to the way she seemed to glow with an internal radiance that outshone any spotlight she'd ever danced in.

Akane - as Aki - strode a few steps behind her on her left, wearing a pair of snow-white jeans and an emerald green polo shirt, with a pair of brown loafers. A pair of dark sunglasses obscured her eyes, and the makeup job Izumi had taught her to do gave her face a narrower, more chiseled appearance. She carried several shopping bags as she all but chased the joyfully-flitting pop star down the cobblestone walkway in the Harajuku district.

"Come on, slowpoke!" Ranko turned, walking backward as she waved to her husband. "What are you even doing back there?" She crinkled her nose playfully, swaying her hips as she walked to encourage her dress to swish about her thighs.

"What I'm doing is carrying all your loot, Mrs. Tendo!" Akane laughed, holding up the bags for emphasis. Ranko's slower movement while walking backward allowed her to catch up in a few steps. "It took you a while to get the hang of this shopping thing, but gods, you're makin' up for lost time now, girl!"

Smirking, Ranko reached out, stroking Akane's cheek. "Yeah, I suppose you are carrying everything, huh?" Her hand traced up toward Akane's hairline, patting her on the head. "Good boy." 

Akane rolled her eyes, grinning from ear to ear. "Don't look now, but I think our regular girl might finally be figuring out this whole celebrity status thing." 

"I mean, I did say I'd be used to it by album three!" Ranko shot back with a smirk as the pair walked. "And now that I've got some pictures of my fairy tale wedding to the handsomest man in Tokyo, Yokai can get out of my ass about my personal life, and we can finally get it going." 

The masculine-presenting bridegroom nodded. "Not a moment too soon, either. After everything Yokai's put you through, it'll be good for you to get back to making music again." She paused, checking behind herself as she walked. "Hey, would you mind taking your bags for a minute? I need to… find a restroom."

The redhead smirked, shaking her head as she looked down at her white flats. "You know… you could just tell me the truth, Aki." 

"What are you… Ranko, I just gotta pee! What do you mean, tell you the…"

Chuckling, Ranko motioned over Akane's shoulder with her neck. "Two-meter bald Americans don't exactly grow on trees in Harajuku, no matter how hard they try to hide behind every bench and stop sign in the city. Did you honestly think I didn't know Lance was watching us?" She fidgeted with the tails of the white ribbon snaking down through her braided crimson hair under her wide-brimmed hat. "Can we at least buy him some lunch or something, if you're gonna make the poor bastard follow me to every dress shop in town?"

Akane hung her head, scoffing quietly under her breath. "Guilty as charged. Sorry, princess. I just… with as visible as you wanted to be this week, I thought it would be a good idea to have some backup with us just in case. After what happened the first time we got married, I…" 

Ranko raised her hand to cut the sentence off. "It's okay. I wish you'd have talked to me about it before asking him, but I understand why you did." The effervescent bride blushed deeply, looking down at her hands. "You don't have him staying where he can hear us… ya know…"

"No, baby. He's staying a couple floors down from us." Akane stroked Ranko's cheek, careful not to smudge her foundation. "Your little concerts are just between you and me, don't worry."

"Well, and Mr. Gao!" Ranko giggled brightly, taking Akane's hand. The twine handles of a pink paper bag containing a puffy pastel green dress and a matching tulle petticoat dangled on their conjoined fingers.

Akane laughed loudly, and it was her turn to blush. "I don't think he can hear you all the way from Minato, sweetness."

Ranko released Akane's hand, reaching out with it and poking Akane's nose with her outstretched index finger. "Challenge accepted, lover boy." She giggled, motioning with her neck in the direction of the phone booth Lance was hiding behind. "Go on. Go check in with him, give him some money for lunch, and tell him to take the next hour or two off. We've run him ragged today and he deserves a break." 

The girl in the white jeans started to turn, but stopped when Ranko grabbed a fistful of her polo shirt and pulled her back. 

"Now, I know you don't think you're going to walk away from me without kissing me, mister." Ranko leaned forward, parting her lips to offer admittance to Akane's tongue. She whimpered loudly, even though most of the sound was trapped in her husband's mouth. The shopping bags slipped from Ranko's wrist, falling to the sidewalk with a loud flap as her entire form went limp in Akane's arms. The songstress all but melted as Akane enveloped her in a tight embrace, and yelped in a high register when the boy holding her took a firm handful of her backside. 

"Is that better," Akane said, a devilish grin on her lips as she released her bride. She reached out, offering a hand to stabilize Ranko, as the smaller girl was wobbling slightly on her feet. Once she was confident Ranko had regained full command of her nervous system, Akane waved and darted off to speak to the young singer's head of security.

Ranko stood alone on the sidewalk, her shopping bags at her feet. She wrapped her new stuffed dragon in a hug, giggling as she swayed on her feet. She made a point to smile at every person she'd caught looking when the kiss broke. That's right. Look at the pretty girl, getting loved on by her totally normal husband, she thought behind her grin. It makes people so happy to see it when two people are in love. How come they don't think like that when it's two girls? It's so stupid that we have to do all this pretending. Like, even if they hated it - even if every person on the street gave us a dirty look on the street when she kissed me - I'd take it without complaint, if I could just keep making music and not have to hide whenever me and Akane are out. 

* * *

"Come on, get up!"

Ranko slapped her hand down repeatedly as fast as she could, trying to cover all five of the buttons on the console in front of her with each strike of her palm. She thrashed the joystick in her left hand up and down. 

On the video screen in front of her, a blonde woman in lime green pants and a matching halter top clamored to her feet. Before she could resume her fighting stance, though, she plopped to her back again, felled by a sweep kick from her shirtless male opponent. The English words Finish Her appeared in a red font that looked like blood dripping on the screen.

"Dammit!" Ranko growled at the controls in front of her. A golden-green dragon was coiled around the edges of the console and its red, yellow and blue buttons. "They're so slow!" 

With a spritely giggle, Akane released her joystick, reaching over and jostling the white wide-brimmed hat her wife wore. "Admit it! I'm the real martial arts master in this relationship."

Ranko turned to her left and bowed, her eyes alight with a bright smile as she maintained eye contact with her husband. "Oh, of course, sensei." On the video screen, the blonde fell over on her back unbidden, as if Sonya Blade herself was shocked by what she had heard. 

"What do you wanna do next, princess?" Akane asked. She reached for Ranko's hand with her left hand, her right scooping a white paper cup full of arcade tokens from the top of the Mortal Kombat machine. A whiff of cheap pizza accosted her nostrils as they passed a quartet of tables next to the concession area of the busy arcade.

Ranko pointed to a white free-standing machine featuring a parabolic indentation surrounding its display and a single red joystick protruding from the center of its console. "That thing is so cool!" She flitted over to it, dragging Akane behind her to watch a teenage boy controlling a cowboy wearing a blue shirt and beige pants across a black grid. The display looked three-dimensional, almost as if it were a hologram like in one of Mei's favorite sci-fi television shows. 

Akane reached into her cup of tokens. "You wanna play that next?"

With a shake of her head, Ranko turned back to face Akane. "Naah. People are waiting for it, and it only plays one person at a time. I wanna do stuff with you." 

"What about the mini-golf thing? That looks fun," Akane suggested, gesturing toward a two-meter indoor windmill blocking a stretch of synthetic grass fenced in by short walls of red-painted wood. It's a lot cheaper than burning a few thousand yen an hour on the arcade machines, too, she thought, opting not to share her cost concerns with her wife. 

Ranko nodded enthusiastically. "Sure! You wanna go get us registered?" She reached out for the dwindling supply of tokens in the cup in Akane's hand, practically having to shout to be heard over the hundreds of pinball machines, arcade cabinets, and excited children that filled the air.

Waiting until Akane had dashed off to the mini-golf counter, Ranko scanned the room for a machine in which to burn the last few tokens in her cup. Grinning as she spied an unoccupied game, she made her way across the black carpet speckled with multicolored neon triangles to a cabinet featuring two elongated seats. Being careful to manage the skirt of her dress and avoid giving any onlookers a show, she slid onto the red one on the right, straddling the plastic motorcycle seat and gripping the handlebars of the controller just below the screen. She had almost dropped her coin in the slot when she heard an excited screech from behind her. 

Chuckling, she looked back over her shoulder. That sound usually means I'm about to get interrupted, she mused with a smirk, and her suspicion proved correct when a trio of teenage girls in green and white high school uniforms charged up to her. 

"E- excuse me," the brunette in the middle stammered, glancing nervously at her friends with an expression that made plain her discomfort at having been elected the group's spokeswoman. "Are… are you…"

The young celebrity beamed, nodding and tossing her coin back in her cup. "Hiya! My name's Ranko."

"Omigods!" came the squealed reply from the orange-haired girl on the left of the formation. "Really?! Would you mind, if you're not too busy, s- signing…"

With a grin, Ranko swung her white leather purse around on her shoulder, unbuckling its flap and searching for her fine-point marker. "Sure! Happy to! You know, though…" She gestured over the brunette's shoulder toward the wall next to the prize redemption counter, where dozens of Polaroid photographs were tacked to the wall featuring excited gamers holding giant stuffed animals and other high-ticket items they had won. "Looks like they've got a camera over there, if you wanna…"

"Suki, go!" came a barked order from the orange-haired girl, and the black-haired one on the right darted off to the counter. She looked to be the youngest of the three, and seemingly was very eager to please her upperclassman friends. 

"What's going on, princess?" 

Ranko looked up to her left, adjusting her position on the plastic bike somewhat. "Oh! Hey, Aki! Just saying hi to some Firebirds. They're getting a camera real quick."

Akane leaned the two golf clubs in her hand against the arcade cabinet, shoving a dark blue and a hot pink dimpled ball into the pockets of her jeans. "Right on! I'll take the picture for you girls if you want."

The seated redhead reached for Akane's hand. "You're so good to me." She turned back to her fans. "This is my husband, Aki."

"Oh, wow! You're so lucky!" The orange-haired girl all but threw herself at Akane. "Is it weird for you, being married to a star like that?"

With a chuckle and a shake of her head, Akane put her arms around Ranko's neck and shoulders from behind. "You get used to it. I don't mind at all." She blushed a bit, reminding herself to affect her voice to sound more gruff and masculine. "But, yeah. I'm damn lucky."

"Aww," the brunette cooed as Suki returned from the prize counter accompanied by an arcade staffer in a red polo shirt and khakis, holding a camera in his hand. 

Akane stepped back to make room for the girls around Ranko's plastic motorcycle, but the singer waved her closer. "Nuh-uh. Get over here, mister!" Ranko purred happily as Akane's arms again encircled her shoulders. 

The trio of girls took positions around the front of the motorcycle with Akane standing behind Ranko. A bright flash blinked from the camera, and then three more followed it. Once four photos had been taken, the young arcade attendant pocketed one for the wall, distributing the other three to the ebullient high schoolers.

"Would you mind taking one more," Ranko asked, stroking the back of Akane's arm as it rested on her chest. 

The attendant nodded and the three Firebirds resumed their poses. Ranko felt a tap on her shoulder, and she looked up just in time for Akane's lips to make contact with hers. The camera flashed, and in a moment, a square of celluloid showing Ranko and her husband kissing surrounded by three Firebirds had been tucked into Ranko's purse. 

After quickly signing the white margin under each of the photos in her fans' hands and waving goodbye to them, Ranko turned to her left again. She dumped the few remaining arcade tokens from her paper cup into her purse, buckling it closed. "You ready to play, Aki?"

"You know it!" Akane rested her hands on Ranko's hips, lifting her off the plastic motorcycle to her feet. "C'mon, you." She handed a club to the redhead, taking her hand and leading her to the first hole of the mini-golf course. Akane reached in her pocket for the golf balls, placing the pink one in the little rubber divot intended as the starting tee. "Ladies first," she said with a chuckle. 

* * *

"YES!" Ranko pumped her fist as her pink ball clattered into the cup at the end of the sixth hole on the mini-golf course. "Let's see, that's a two for me, and a four for you." She marked on the scorecard with a little silver pencil. "Yikes, Aki! If my math is right, you're… kinda getting your butt kicked over here!"

Akane laughed, shrugging her shoulders. "Yeah, yeah. Get our balls, would you?" She scanned the indoor golf course, looking for the seventh hole.

"Yes, sir," Ranko answered with a playfully shallow bow and a bright giggle. The redhead lifted her skirt a bit and dropped to her knees next to the hole, scooping both golf balls out of the white plastic cup embedded in the floor. Before she could rise, though, she felt a gentle touch on her cheek. She looked up, blushing as Akane stroked her face with the backs of her fingers. 

"You're so pretty down there, you know," Akane said quietly, grinning down at her kneeling bride. 

"If you're not careful, you're gonna end up having to take me back to the hotel, talking to me like that." Ranko whispered, biting her lip coyly as she nuzzled her cheek against Akane's hand. 

Akane took Ranko's hand, pulling her to her feet. "Careful what you wish for, princess." She reached out with an outstretched index finger, poking at the silver heart dangling from Ranko's white lace choker. "You just might get it."

Throwing her arms around Aki, Ranko planted a kiss on his cheek and popped her left foot up off of the synthetic grass. "You promise?"

Brushing her arm behind Ranko, Akane lifted the smaller girl in her arms. "Come on, you. Be good. Let's finish this game, and then we'll see." She bridal carried the tittering woman in the white lace dress to the start of the seventh hole, depositing her gently back onto her feet. 

Ranko dropped her pink ball in the center tee divot of three, lining up her shot. A steep ramp covered in synthetic grass obstructed her view of the hole she was aiming for, so she blindly tapped at her ball with her club. It shot halfway up the ramp before running out of momentum and began rolling back toward her. She caught it with her foot before it could pass her and escape the golf course entirely. 

"Guess you gotta hit it a little harder," Akane said, sipping at her soda through a white plastic straw. 

"Oh, I can do that," Ranko said, teeing up her ball again. She swung her club back hard, whacking at the ball. It hit the ramp and fired upward, launching off the edge of the ramp and flying through the air. As Ranko cringed and stepped around the ramp, she saw it reach the bank of skeeball machines lining the back wall of the busy arcade. It sank into the top ring of one of the machines. Its winner marquee lit up, and the machine began spitting out several gold-colored prize tickets from the slot near the coin return with a loud whir.

"Well, I got it in the hole," Ranko said, shrugging through her laughter. "And before you ask…" She turned to Akane, wagging her finger in her husband's face. "Yes, I meant to do that."

 * * * 

"I'm wishin' on a dream, to find out what it means…"

Ranko leaned forward, resting her forehead on Akane's chest. She wore a pastel green dress that sparkled under the neon lights of the Harajuku nightclub dance floor. Its skirt flared around her hips, owing in part to the matching tulle petticoat she had on under it. It tickled her calves every time she swayed her hips in time with the ballad. She purred quietly as Akane's hands slid down her back to her butt. Her legs ached with exhaustion after a full day of walking the shopping district, three hours of dancing, and the workout Akane had given her in between when the pair had returned to their hotel room to change and drop off their purchases, but Ranko paid it no mind.

Aki was dressed in a pair of black slacks and a matching sport coat over a burgundy turtleneck, with shiny black loafers to complete the masculine ensemble. His hair was slicked back with so much styling gel that it was almost a shiny black helmet. "I love you, Mrs. Tendo," Akane whispered as she leaned in close, propping her chin on Ranko's shoulder.

"I love you, too," Ranko mewled as she danced in her sparkly jade heels. She turned her head to the side, smiling a little brighter with every pair of eyes she saw staring at her. "I don't ever want this to end."

"The song's only so long, silly girl," Akane said with a chuckle, but her face took on a more serious tone when Ranko didn't laugh in response.

"Not the song. All of it. Just, being yours and not acting like I'm ashamed of it," Ranko whispered over the singing voices of the Cover Girls.

Akane sighed, squeezing her wife tighter in her embrace as they danced. "Try not to think about that right now. Let's just enjoy tonight, while we can?" She kissed Ranko's forehead gently. Her bride's skin tasted of foundation and smelled of lavender. To Akane, it felt like home. 

"And I wish on all the rainbows that I see…" the song continued.

Ranko lifted her eyes, her hands sliding up Akane's back to her neck. She pulled the taller girl down by the back of the neck, leaning up on her tiptoes as the song ended and pulling her into a kiss. The redhead whimpered loudly as Akane's tongue entered her mouth. She wanted everyone on the packed dance floor to notice her, and many did.

From a pair of emitters mounted on the ceiling of the darkened nightclub, two trios of green lasers scanned the crowd as a heavy bass hit shook the speakers. A bouncy dance track, not unlike the beginning of Sneak, began blasting the crowd from every direction, and a chorus of whoops rose all around the couple. The dance floor was shoulder to shoulder on that Friday night, and hundreds of hands were raised to the ceiling as the revelers recognized the track. 

"You think you can keep up, lover boy?" Ranko snickered, lifting her arms and cheering loudly. Her hips became almost liquid, and she began rocking her arms around herself parallel to the ground. 

"When you trust someone, and you know you're on their back, you ain't got no trustin' about you…" the lyrics began.

Akane stepped forward, her hands reaching for her wife's backside. She slid her body along Ranko's, letting the smaller girl lead the dance. After all, she's the choreography professional, Akane thought, grinning as Ranko's fingers traced sultrily down the front of her turtleneck. 

That's right, Ranko thought, noticing a few people around the couple stepping back to give them a bit more room. Just watch. You're never going to forget the night you saw Ranko Tendo out in public with the one she loves. Despite the bulky dress she wore - which in and of itself made her stand out in the packed dance club - Minato's resident pop princess had decided to hold court on the Harajuku dance floor. She orbited around Akane, her hands never breaking contact with her partner's body. She slid herself down, bending her knees deeply as she used her groom as a dance pole. If she wanted to make herself a spectacle, she was succeeding. 

"No matter what they say, no, it ain't that way! Ain't nobody humpin' around…"

From a shadowed corner of the nightclub, a deep laugh rumbled through the frame of a tall, muscular American. 

You show 'em, girl, Lance Riker thought as he watched his charge dance her heart out with the woman she loved. You don't stop until you've shown them all exactly who you are.