Marshmallows

"Mmn? Are we…" Ranko blinked the sleep from her eyes, lifting her head gently from Akane's chest. The seat under her shook violently as the jumbo jet rapidly decelerated on the tarmac.

Akane closed the red Chinese phrasebook in her hand, stroking her lover's back surreptitiously in the darkened cabin. "Hey there, baby. I thought you said you don't ever fall asleep on planes. You weren't lying to me, were you?" Giggling, she left her book in her lap, reaching down and poking Ranko playfully on the tip of her nose.

"You're never on them with me to make me feel safe," the young singer replied through a blush and a yawn, stretching her arms skyward and sitting up in her seat.

A loud bong sounded overhead as the seat belt light above the cabin aisle blinked out, and the plane rattled to a languid taxi on the runway. The tiny speakers embedded in the ceiling over each seat crackled to life. "Hey there, folks, it's the captain speaking. On behalf of everyone in the flight crew, ni hao, and welcome to Chengdu. We're going to be pulling up to the gate here in just a moment, and we'll get you on your way. Again, thank you for flying Air China."

"Well, babe, you did it," Akane said, pulling her bag out of the overhead compartment and shouldering it. "You finally made it back to China. And you didn't even have to swim." She pulled down Ranko's bag as well, holding it up by the strap to make it easier for her wife to slide her arm through the loop in the cramped jetliner aisle.

Ranko blushed, nodding a bit through another yawn. "Good thing, too," she commented, holding her bag behind her back to prevent it from bumping the backs of the seats as she passed them. "The sunburn would've been a real bitch this time around."

Akane grinned, leaning over Ranko's shoulder to whisper in her ear as the pair continued shuffling toward the front of the plane. "And to think, all those years of trying, and in the end, all it took was you singing songs in pretty dresses."

"Oh, come on! Give me some credit," Ranko retorted, turning behind to face her wife as she reached the plane's exit door. Her face flushed bright red. "There was some dancing involved, too!"

* * *

"Xie xie," Akane stammered, looking up from her paperback phrasebook to make eye contact with the young woman at the rental counter. Waving goodbye to the attendant, she made her way out to the gravel parking lot, shielding her eyes as she exited the dingy office. "We about ready, gongzhu?"

Ranko blinked, looking up from her rented beige dirt bike. She had just finished attaching both hooks of the bungee cord in her hand to the aluminum rack over the rear tire to secure her duffel bag. "What the heck is a gong… huh?"

Akane waved her phrasebook in the air with a grin before stuffing it into the back pocket of her jeans. "It means princess," she said with a giggle. "Now, are you sure you're ready for this? Last chance to back out. We could totally just get a hotel room and fool around for a few days until the boys get here, ya know."

The redhead blushed, unzipping her bag and withdrawing her phoenix-airbrushed helmet. "Tempting though that is… I have to do this, Akane. I just have to. I know you don't understand, but… it's important to me." She plopped the helmet onto her head, yanking it downward over her tightly-braided red ponytail.

Akane unzipped her own bag, withdrawing her new green floral helmet. Before zipping her bag again, she lifted one of her spare tee shirts, confirming that the small white bundle her sister Nabiki had given her in the Tokyo airport was still safe and readily accessible. Satisfied that it was, she walked over to the second bike, which Ranko had already mounted but had yet to start. She leaned into her love, gently resting her forehead on the crown of Ranko's helmet. "If it's important to you, then it's important to me. Let's do this. Together. Just promise me, Ranko. Promise me that no matter what happens, you won't do anything stupid. Nothing behind my back, no surprises, no self-sacrificing acts of insanity, none of that stuff, okay? Remember, there is nothing on Earth that I want more than I want you, exactly as you are. The happiest outcome for me will be for me to walk out of that gods-forsaken place holding my wife's hand. Do you understand me?"

Ranko nodded as Akane pulled her head back, smiling behind the beak of the phoenix airbrushed on her helmet. "I promise, Akane. I'm not going for solutions. Despite what that asshole Kondo might think, there's nothing wrong with who I am and who we are. All I want is answers, I swear."

"Then, Mrs. Tendo, let's go and get you some." Akane smiled, straddling her bike. Using her foot, she rolled the idling dirt bike a few meters backward until it was side-by-side with her wife's. "But first…" She pointed across the street to a bustling market. "... we should hit that store over there. Get some supplies for the trip. Food, water, stuff like that. Maybe a couple of sleeping bags."

Blushing behind her visor, Ranko shook her head. "Naaah. We should save some money," she said, revving the motorcycle to life under her. "Just one sleeping bag will be plenty. We'll share. It gets cold in the mountains anyway, and I might need your body heat."

"Oh? Is that all I am to you? Just a heat source?!" Akane giggled, running her finger slowly down the front of Ranko's yellow tee shirt between the lapels of her leather jacket. "I suppose I do get you pretty hot, huh?"

Akane did not hear her wife whimper over the two rumbling dirt bikes, but she did not have to hear the sound to know for absolute certain it had been made.

* * *

"It's no sushi bar in Hawai'i, but such as it is…" Ranko pulled the long twig in her hand away from the campfire, waving it in the air a few times to allow the yellow head catfish skewered through the mouth on it to cool in the brisk mountain air. "Should be edible, anyway." Touching it tentatively with her fingers a few times until she was sure it was comfortable to hold even for her sensitive skin, she drew a pocket knife from her right pocket and began to carve the fish into filets.

Akane stood, stretching with a groan and closing the distance to her partner. She rested her hand gently on Ranko's shoulder as she worked. "It smells incredible. Anything I can do to help?"

The redhead nodded, motioning with her head toward the campfire. "Wanna get the rice pot? Little too close to the flame for my tastes, but don't tell Masa I said so. I swear, dude might be taking the whole Phoenix thing a little too literally."

By the time Akane had returned with the small copper pot, Ranko had portioned the fish onto two small aluminum plates. She handed one over to Akane, waiting for her to scoop some rice out of the pot before doing the same for herself.

"So," Akane said, lowering herself onto a large boulder close to the fire, "I was looking at the map, and if I'm right about where we are, we're making pretty good time. I think we might make it there tomorrow night, maybe the morning after. It's kind of hard to tell since we're sort of approximating where it is. None of this stuff is on the maps they sell at the airport."

"Don't worry, Akane," Ranko said around a half-chewed morsel of catfish. "When we get close enough to Jusenkyo, I'll know it when I see it."

Akane nodded, moaning quietly in her enjoyment as the first bite of freshly-caught fish met her tongue. Suddenly, she regretted having mocked her partner for her insistence on purchasing a small packet of herbs despite having bought no protein to put them on. Man, Mr. Saotome didn't know how good he had it, traveling with her. This is to die for, she thought as she swallowed. "We might need to be careful traveling after dark then, since there's not a lot of moonlight."

Ranko nodded, scanning the terrain with the last bit of twilight. She stood, carrying her plate and her water bottle toward the boulder where Akane was seated and joining her.

"So," Akane said, leaning into her wife's slender frame as she tore another bit of fish from the filet with her chopsticks. "What do you hope they're gonna say? About, ya know, what happened at the wedding?"

The redhead shrugged, waiting until her mouth was clear of rice to respond. "Honestly, I haven't thought about it too much. I'm not as worried about why it happened, as I am about whether or not it's really… permanent. Whether or not there's any chance of ever changing back."

"Is…" Akane sat up straight, a hint of worry clouding her eyes in the firelight. "Is that something you want? Last time we talked about it, you didn't, but I guess it wouldn't be unreasonable for you to reconsider, now that this is all actually happening. I can't imagine how weird it must be for you to be back here, after everything, with how different things are now."

Ranko shrugged. "I'm okay. At least, so far. As for changing back… I don't really want it, no. I mean, there's a part of me that wishes I could, just once, just so you and I could…"

Her voice trailed off as Akane raised her hand so quickly that a grain of rice flew from the tip of her chopstick and landed on Ranko's cheek. "Don't you dare. Don't even think about it. We talked about this, baby. I would love to be able to start a family with you, but not if it means you have to endure something that hurts you like that, even for a second. You're probably gonna get sick of hearing it from me between now and when we get there, but…"

"I know, I know," Ranko replied with a groan, rolling her eyes. "No pulling a Ranko. I got it, 'Kane."

Setting her plate down carefully on the rock at her side, Akane swiveled on the boulder to look Ranko straight in the eyes. "Hey, don't get too indignant over there. It's just that I don't wanna mess with perfection, okay?" She reached out, brushing a strand of crimson hair out of her lover's field of vision. "You are my beautiful, incredible, talented, wonderful wife, and if I had all the magic in the world, I wouldn't change a single thing about you. I love you exactly the way you are, silly girl. Don't you dare go trying to change for me, when there's no possible thing you could do to make me love you more than I do right now."

Ranko blushed, setting her empty plate aside. "Not even if I said there was dessert?" She giggled cutely, pushing off the rock and walking toward her bike. Unzipping the duffel bag mounted above the rear wheel, she withdrew a small plastic bag and made her way back toward Akane.

"You didn't!" Akane exclaimed, grinning as she recognized Ranko's surprise. "Gods, I love you, girl. I don't deserve you."

"I love you too," Ranko replied as she sat back on the rock. "I mean, what the hell kind of camping trip would it be without marshmallows? Go find us a couple of sticks, would ya?"

Moments later, Ranko had been furnished with a long fork-shaped branch on which three marshmallows were skewered. "Give me just a minute," she said as she extended the nearly meter-long stick over the campfire from the minimum distance the Full Body Cat's Tongue permitted her to tolerate.

"Be careful now," Akane said, sitting down behind her beloved. "They're awfully easy to burn if you don't pay attention."

"I think I can man…" The redhead's breath caught in her throat as Akane's lips made gentle contact with the name of her neck. She shivered, and the stick in her hand dropped precariously close to the flame.

"Hey now," Akane admonished, wiping the dust that had transferred from Ranko's skin to her lips off on her sleeve. "You'd better not burn my marshmallows, miss. Focus." She grinned, leaning down to kiss her wife's skin again.

Ranko whimpered, letting her head loll to the side. It was all she could do to keep from dropping the stick entirely, her body quaking a little more with every whisper-soft kiss on her hypersensitive skin.

"Uh-uh-uh," Akane said with a click of her tongue and a wagging finger, reaching around Ranko quickly to bolster her wife's arm and raise it a few degrees. "If you can't concentrate, I'll be forced to stop. You don't want me to stop, do you?" A devious snicker, issued mere centimeters from Ranko's right eardrum, sent another cascade of shivers racing down the smaller girl's spine.

"N… n….no," Ranko mewled, biting her lip in a losing battle to assert control over her nervous system. "Wh… what should I do when they're d-done?"

Akane laughed, lifting her chin just enough to flick her tongue over her partner's earlobe. However difficult Ranko was finding it to maintain control of the twig in her hand at the overwhelming sensation, Akane's whispered words may have actually been harder for her to withstand.

"I'll be the judge of when you're done, princess. Now, hold still and look pretty for me. And be careful. If you mess up my dessert, I'll be forced to find something else to eat."